Restoration economy

The restoration economy is the economic activity associated with ecological restoration activities. It stands in contrast to economic activity premised on the extraction or depletion of natural resources and implies that activities meant to repair past ecological damage may be economically beneficial at local, regional, and national scales.

The “restoration economy” refers to the employment, capital, resources, and economic activity that emerge from investments in ecological restoration, or “the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed.” Restoration projects can include habitat enhancement, water quality improvement, invasive species removal, forest thinning for canopy diversification, or any other activity that aims to improve the natural function of an ecosystem. While investments in restoration benefit the environment, restoration projects also require workers, materials, and services to implement. The marketplace for these goods and services can create employment, spur business and workforce development, and increase activity in local economies. Activities that use byproducts of restoration work are also sometimes considered as part of the restoration economy; for example, the use of small trees and/or shrubs from forest diversification or thinning projects as biomass to produce heat or energy.

The emergence of the restoration economy as a concept followed closely from historic shifts in natural resource policy in the mid 1990s, when the northern spotted owl and several species of salmon with habitat in the Pacific Northwest were listed as endangered. The listings created a significant shift in forest management polices across the region, leading to drastic decreases in logging and other natural resource extraction activities that would further destroy habitats for these species. The listings also marked a shift toward more sustainable land management through forest and watershed restoration, as policy makers began to realize that environmental restoration work could provide social and economic, in addition to ecological, benefits. Federal and state agencies sought to replace some of the economic activity that was lost as extraction activities declined with economic activity from restoration work. The Northwest Forest Plan (1994) initiated several programs intended to transition traditional logging communities and workforce's toward livelihoods in restoration work. The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Act (2009), the National Forest Economic Action Plan, and stewardship contracting opportunities also focus on marrying ecological with socioeconomic benefits from national forest management. In Oregon, decreased timber yields and the potential for additional salmon listings that would further affect traditional land management activities led to the creation of community-based watershed councils under the Oregon Watershed Health Program (1993), and later the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds (1997). With dedicated state lottery funding, these watershed councils continue to promote voluntary restoration actions that improve salmon habitat by encouraging collaboration at the local level and promoting both socioeconomic and ecological benefits through restoration.

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