Renaturalization management
Introduction
Restorative management is a proactive way of managing degraded environments (natural, semi-natural, industrial or urban) with the aim of restoring biodiversity, good ecological status, a quality landscape or a disappeared state (for example, what was a forest and is now a meadow has leafy trees again).
It can also be a question of restoring, not an environment, but a disturbance (imitation of a tree fallen due to natural causes or a small fire to create a clearing),[1] or of restoring a resource (water, fishing, landscape...).
In the environmental field, the main objective, which seeks to facilitate and accelerate through the use of ecological engineering techniques, is the so-called rewilding (a word not admitted by the RAE; sometimes the French terms renaturation and English naturalisation - in the environmental sense - are incorrectly translated by renaturation, a biochemical term, also not admitted by the RAE, which means reversing the denaturation process "Denaturation (biochemical)") of a protein). It is therefore an intentional mode of management ("proactive management") that must be constantly reevaluated in light of the results, measured through environmental indicators. In France, the Law of July 10, 1976 makes the project manager responsible, before the environmental impact occurs, for implementing measures to "avoid, reduce or compensate it" (ERC sequence).[2].
Intentional management is defined as "the set of initiatives undertaken by a specialized actor, in the context of an effective management situation, to evolve the state of the environment in a certain direction".[3].
If, after the restoration phase, the area cannot maintain the desired characteristics on its own, restorative management is usually followed by conservative management, based on a management plan and a system of monitoring and evaluation and, sometimes, protection (land protection, nature reserve, etc.).
When it comes to saving a species (animal or plant) that must evolve rapidly to cope with large and rapid environmental changes, such as climate change, the decline of pollinators or habitat fragmentation, we speak of "evolutionary rescue."[4][4][5].
Locations and application examples
Restorative management can encompass:.