In our endeavour to create better lives for ourselves, our families and our communities, we have also damaged the environment. Thousands of years ago, this did not matter much as people inhabited only a very small area. Over time, however, especially in the last few hundred years, our impact footprint has increased considerably.
The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital has been estimated at trillions of dollars. Despite this inherent value, it is now estimated that about 25 percent of the total land area has been degraded, affecting the lives of 3.2 billion people, mostly from rural and very poor communities.
Today is World Environment Day in recognition of the value of the environment and the importance of stopping the degradation. Restoration is the theme of this year’s World Environment Day. Ecological restoration is the practice of restoring degraded or damaged ecosystems and habitats using techniques that support natural processes that have evolved over millions of years. The aim is to create the conditions that would then allow the degraded habitat to restore itself through the process of ecological succession. Pioneer plant species are established first and they form an initial biological community. More plant and animal species arrive over time and the community gradually becomes more complex and closer to the original state.
Ecological restoration is not without challenges, and it may take many decades to fully restore habitat to something like its original condition. However, it is a process that has been adopted with some success in many places. It is a way of using natural processes to repair what human activities have damaged.
There are hidden costs to poorly planned developments that do not show up on the bottom line of financial statements. While cure is possible though very costly, avoidance through good planning is better.