Vocabulary:

• Rewilding: conservation effort focused on restoring sustainable biodiversity and ecosystem health by connecting and preserving wild areas, and protecting or reintroducing keystone species/apex predators.
• Restoration: returning a habitat, environment, or ecosystem to its original condition or membership, prior to a disturbance (often anthropogenic)

Outline of Notes:

• General rules of context:
  • Diversity hotspots in hills and low mountains
  • Rock type/geologic history and landcover
  • Latitude and longitude affect patterns
• Different goals of restoration and reclamation:
  • Reclamation: prioritize increasing ecosystem functioning, not structure
  • Restoration: return ecosystem to its original state as much as possible

→ Ideal, but usually not realistic

• Rewilding: conservation effort focused on restoring sustainable biodiversity and ecosystem health by connecting and preserving wild areas, and protecting or reintroducing keystone species/apex predators.
  • Goals:
    • Slow/prevent extinctions
    • Restore ecosystem health
    • Minimize human intervention and management
  • Let nature take care of itself to restore damaged ecosystems

What Does the Future Look Like?

• Anthropogenic influences shape ecology
• Some species will thrive due to these anthropogenic influences
• These species share common characteristics