NHER is a joint project of the Restoration Ecology Lab at Virginia Tech, the Ecological Health Network, and the Missouri Botanical Garden. Leighton Reid and James Aronson created the blog when we were working together at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development in 2014. Matthew Albrecht joined the editorial team in 2020, maintaining the blog’s continuity with the Missouri Botanical Garden and giving us a chance to continue to collaborate as Leighton and James left the botanical garden to pursue other opportunities. Eve Allen and Lauren Shew joined the team in 2023 and have reinvigorated the blog with their fresh perspectives.
Mission
Through this blog, we aim to share stories about the people, places, organisms, institutions, and interactions involved in ecological restoration projects. Our mission is aligned with the strategy of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to empower, expand, and accelerate the restoration movement and a global transition towards a culture of restoration.
Values
- Ecological restoration is most effective when it is grounded by a strong sense of place, when it is open to new ideas arising from original observations, and when it is informed by diverse voices and types of knowledge and science including both ‘Western’ and Indigenous.
- Humans are part of nature and therefore intrinsic to a restoration project’s natural history.
- Ecological restoration seeks the highest level of ecosystem recovery appropriate for a given context.
Audience
NHER’s intended audience includes all people who share our interest in conserving and restoring the world’s natural and cultural heritage.