Get Involved / Community-Based Restoration

SER2011 World Conference on Ecological Restoration
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http://www.ser2011.org/en/registration/

 NOAA Gulf Spill Restoration Projects: Share Your Ideas
Do you have ideas for a specific restoration project in your area? You can use the online form below to give us the details and your information will be entered into our database. http://www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/restoration/give-us-your-ideas/suggest-a-restoration-project/

Soil microbial community characterisation is increasingly being used to determine the response of soils to stress and disturbance and to assess ecosystem sustainability. However, there is little experimental evidence to indicate that predictable patterns in microbial community structure or composition occur during secondary succession or ecosystem restoration. This study utilised a chronosequence of developing jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) forest ecosystems, rehabilitated after bauxite mining (up to 18 years old), to examine changes in soil bacterial and fungal community structures (by automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis; ARISA) and changes in specific soil bacterial phyla by 16S rRNA gene microarray analysis.

http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/AEM.00764-11v1

The Great Eastern Ranges Initiative (GER) is another ambitious corridor that is planned to run down 2800 km of Australia's Great Dividing Range, from the Atherton Tableland in far north Queensland all the way to southern Victoria (see map, opposite). It's a biodiversity highway aimed at protecting a "great ribbon of life", explains the NSW Department of Environment's Ian Pulsford, a driving force behind the concept. "Our efforts to protect individual threatened species seem to be going backwards," he says. "We've got to look at very large landscape scales...so that we don't lose the species that are [still healthy]."

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/saving-australias-biodiversity.htm 

The United Nations today added 18 new sites to its global list of biosphere reserves, bringing the total to 581 in 114 countries. Biosphere reserves are places of outstanding value recognized by UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme where local communities are actively involved in socio-economic development and biodiversity conservation.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2011/2011-06-30-01.html

Texas wetland restoration could be model for Gulf
 It's all part of a 20-year-old project to restore lost wetlands and islands off the Texas coast. The federal government is hoping it could become a model for rebuilding these crucial ecosystems elsewhere in the five-state Gulf region. This and other efforts to revitalize the environment and economy of the long-neglected coastal area are being partially bankrolled by a $1 billion fund from BP, which agreed to pay the money as part of its responsibility for the massive oil spill that fouled the Gulf of Mexico.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/environment/federal-officials-see-texas-wetland-restoration-work-as-possible-model-for-other-gulf-areas/2011/06/30/AGIuMvrH_story.html

MERSEA (Marine Ecosystem Restoration @ Sea)
MERSEA is a transport vessel for marine aquaculture systems, with the primary goal to re-establish large shoals of marine fish. The method behind MERSEA is primarily the incremental restoration of depleted marine resource overtime. The vessel includes various hatcheries for marine organisms, including but not limited to fish, crustaceans and molluscs. To restore marine ecosystems MERSEA uses a phased approach, beyond the scope of this article.
http://contest.techbriefs.com/transportation-2011/1748