Good news from Latin America and the Caribbean: national and international restoration networks are moving ahead

Abstract

Degradation of ecosystems is ongoing in Latin America but there is also a strong upswing in conservation and restoration efforts. SIACRE -the Ibero-American and Caribbean Society for Ecological Restoration -is playing a key role in coordinating and promoting this trend at international, national, and subnational levels. In October 2014, SIACRE members organized the first national seminar on ecological restoration in Chile, with participants representing both academic and non-academic sectors. This seminar served as the catalyst for this essay and was an historic event at the national level. Much work has been underway in the science and practice of restoration in Chile, but until now it has been fragmented. This first national seminar enabled helped the principal strengths and challenges that Chile has and must face in the transdisciplinary domain of ecological restoration. Since 2004, various meetings have been organized in the region, in order to communicate the importance of restoration, especially in Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, Brazil, and more recently in Chile and Argentina. Here we trace the history of national and subnational restoration networks in Latin America and the Caribbean, and of SIACRE, and then outline some goals and challenges for the coming years.

Challenges and Prospects for Scaling‐up Ecological Restoration to Meet International Commitments: Colombia as a Case Study

“…), Argentina (Rovere ), and Chile (Echeverría et al . ), scientists and practitioners are actively calling for promoting interdisciplinarity in the practice of ER, for harmonizing policy and regulatory aspects at the national level, for generating effective dialogue between government, academia, NGOs and the private sector, and for assessing critical knowledge gaps from a technical and practical standpoint. We hope that the lessons learned in the case of ER in Colombia are useful to this end.…”

“…), Chile (Echeverría et al . ), and Argentina (Zuleta et al . ), awareness and networking among academic researchers and practitioners is increasingly becoming prominent; an essential element for scaling up ER projects at the national and regional level (Armesto et al .…”

Promoting ecological restoration in France: issues and solutions

“…For example, in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), national networks were created first. Thus, when SIACRE was created in 2013 (Echeverría et al ; Zuleta et al ), one of its aims was to increase capacity building, education, and outreach that will strengthen pre‐existing networks. Because many LAC countries share a common language (Spanish), SIACRE allows easy exchange of experiences from countries with various restoration policies.…”

Review of the science and practice of restoration in Argentina: increasing awareness of the discipline

“…The importance of setting up a national restoration program cannot be emphasized enough. It should include training, research, implementation, monitoring, and political‐legal aspects, as is being carried out in other Latin American countries: Brasil (Aronson et al ), Colombia (Aguilar et al ), and Chile (Echeverria et al ). A national restoration program should also seek to strengthen restoration research in collaboration with colleagues belonging to national and international networks.…”