Restoration

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Restoration

Wild South recognizes that ecological restoration is a new paradigm for the protection and management of southern landscapes. Ecological restoration is the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed. The goal of ecological restoration is to enhance ecological integrity by restoring natural processes and the resiliency of ecosystems.

Wild South believes that we will continue to reap the benefits of ecological services provided by forest ecosystems through protection and restoration. Ecological services include clean air, clean water, and healthy biodiversity. All of life and our human economies ultimately depend on healthy ecological functions and the services they provide.

Wild South takes a long view of ecological restoration that permits nature to heal itself over time without human intervention. In some circumstances, however, we think that active restoration is appropriate for reversing severe damage to ecosystems on southeastern public lands. Wild South will support active restoration projects on public lands that: 1) aim to restore natural processes as a primary objective; 2) use methods that are supported by sound science to achieve the stated objectives; 3) comply with all applicable environmental laws, regulations, and directives. Using these principles, we will develop guidelines to inform our decisions on individual projects.

Strategy & Guidelines
SER International Guidelines (pdf)
WS Restoration Strategy (pdf)

Wild South will use protection and restoration of native ecosystems as the primary tools for maintaining healthy ecosystems in our region. We believe that these tools will allow land managers to foster a culture of preservation that promotes a sustainable human relationship with the environment. This relationship will build the foundation of strong communities that are socially, economically, and ecologically healthy.

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This Land is Your Land

Wild South focuses on the protection of public lands. Unlike private lands public lands are owned by each of us. Our government is intrusted to manage these lands for the public good. While public lands are managed in a variety of ways they all play a critical role in providing important resources such as clean air, clean water, wildlife, and recreation. Our public lands are incredibly valuable to each of us for a variety of reasons. At Wild South we work to ensure that these special places are managed properly. We are a voice for the public and work to inpsire and empower people to protect and restore our public lands.

The Federal Public Lands of the Southeastern United States we protect include the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and eleven National Forests totaling more than 5 million acres.

Restoring a Bankhead Glade

By Mark Kolinski
Adapted from “Cumberland Sandstone Glade
Restoration at the William B. Bankhead National Forest
By David Borland, The Nature Conservancy

The 181,000 acres of the William B. Bankhead National Forest accommodate a rich diversity of flora and fauna within a mosaic of unique habitat types.

The Revised Land and Resource Management Plan, which guides the U.S. Forest Service in managing this rich land- scape, emphasizes restoring and maintaining indigenous forest and plant community types not abundant on private lands in the Southern Cumberland Plateau physiographic region in Alabama. These communities include eight distinct and rare plant community types, which the Forest Service is charged to inventory, restore, and monitor.