Understanding socio-ecological systems in restoration ecology from local to cosmopolitan and urban areas through evidence-based research

Abstract

The accountability of ambitious restoration commitments for the next years requires more attention to the equity and priority of new social and human values and renew relationships with nature. To achieve socio-ecological goals in the 'UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration' (2021-2030), ecological restorationists need to cross intellectual and practical bridges beyond primary research through rigorous evidence-based methods, which currently fell short of high-standard and -quality in this field. Instead, evidence reviews are a key mechanism for summarizing extensive, complex and specialized evidence into policy and practice, and in guiding future research. The objectives of this proposal focus on performing rigorous evidence syntheses on novel social-ecological assemblages that can orient attention from local to cosmopolitan and urban socio-ecological systems (SESs), leading to restoration efforts that are not only in natural or protected areas but also in anthropogenic systems that can provide ecosystem services, and where diverse social actors may have different desired restoration outcomes. To achieve this, we will use a range of electronic bibliographic sources and the grey literature, which now makes it possible to measure the effectiveness of restoration actions at achieving both ecological and socio-economic objectives. We propose the developmentof two scientific papers, through which we expect to deliver unprecedented social-ecological restoration outcomes, by incorporating principles and methods of systematic reviews. (AU)