Hope for Humankind

A new study from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies suggests that ecosystem recovery is possible.

Humankind is heavily exploiting ecosystems to meet rising demands for resources and environmental services. An inevitable consequence of this impact is that biotic and biophysical conditions of ecosystems become degraded from overuse or from accidents. Competing demands for finite space and finite ecosystem services means ultimately there will be limited if any recourse to abandon degraded areas and shift exploitation to non-degraded ones. Conservation efforts must therefore turn toward restoration of degraded environments in order to create the portfolio of future opportunities that balance environmental protection against providing environmental services for a burgeoning human population. This necessarily begs the questions: is there any hope that ecosystems can recover from the perturbations they face; and if so, how long will recovery take?

Authors Schmitz and Jones explored environmental case studies covering the last century and investigated the renewal and recovery of ecosystems after periods of "perturbation...including agriculture, deforestation, eutrophication, hurricane, cyclone, invasive species, logging, oil spill, power plant, and trawling."

While there is little to no objective criteria for establishing complete recovery (especially given limited baseline data), the study found that recovery time "typically was 20 years or less," noting that "most recovery from human disturbance was, however, slower than from natural causes."

While Jones and Schmitz are careful to point out their study is not intended to "give license to exploit ecosystems without regard to sustainability," they conclude that "recovery is possible and can be rapid for many ecosystems, giving much hope for humankind to transition to sustainable management of global ecosystems."