Natural Resource Year in Review—2003, A portrait of the year in natural resource stewardship and science in the National Park System, ISSN 1544-5437
Chapter 0 — Front Matter
Chapter 1— Transforming the National Park System
Chapter 2 — The New Face of Professional Resource Management
Chapter 3 — Inventory and Monitoring Charges Ahead
Chapter 4 - Frontiers for Science and Natural Resource Education
Chapter 5 — Preventing Natural Resource Impairment
Chapter 6 — Restoration
Chapter 7 — Conserving Threatened and Endangered Species
Chapter 8 — Cooperative Conservation
Chapter 9 — Looking Ahead
Chapters
Restoration
Introduction
Restoration of Oak Island sandscape at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore
Positive ecosystem changes on Anacapa Island from rat eradication
Shoreline restoration at Assateague Island National Seashore
Collaboration key to swift fox recovery
Interagency implementation of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan
Wind Cave restoration guided by balancing cultural and natural resource preservation
Hurricane Isabel: A case study in restoration response at three Mid-Atlantic national seashores
Interagency collaboration helps pinpoint Hurricane Isabel impacts
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Restoration
“Restoration uses the pat not as a goal but as a reference point for the future. If we seek to re-create [ecological] ...communities of centuries past, it is not to turn back the evolutionary clock but to set it ticking again." —Donald A. Falk, Discovering the Future, Creating the Past: Some Reflections on Restoration
Resource managers monitor recovery of native sandscape following restoration.

Since 2000, resource managers of the National Park Service and scientists from the Natural Resource Conservation Service have been working together to restore the Oak Island sandscape at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Wisconsin. They established plots for monitoring in areas where they had heavily planted and where they had tried various techniques to control exotic vegetation.

Congress declared the National Park System to be the “cumulative expressions of a single national heritage” because it includes the “superlative natural, historic, and recreation areas in every major region of the United States.” Sustaining the diverse and awe-inspiring natural and cultural wonders of this nation for future generations increasingly involves healing the wounds of the past. For this reason, ecological restoration—intensive efforts to recover disturbed natural systems—plays an important and growing role in NPS efforts to fulfill its mission. In 2003, restoration efforts took many forms, from reestablishing natural conditions along a cave tour route and halting unnatural erosion to controlling exotic rats on Anacapa Island and returning the swift fox to the Badlands of South Dakota. In many cases success was enhanced by working with dedicated partners, including corporations, state agencies, and private citizens. Restoration involves a long-term commitment of energy and resources, but as the articles in this chapter make clear, the benefits are priceless.
NPS Fact
The National Park Service formulates annual budget requesIn In 2000 the National Park Service set a five-year goal under the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA goal Ia1A) to restore 10.1% of 222,300 acres (90,032 ha), or 22,500 acres (9,113 ha) of parklands disturbed by development or agriculture.* The Park Service is on course to meet the FY 2005 target date, with cumulative totals of 4,716 acres (1,190 ha) restored as of FY 2001, 8,656 acres (3,469 ha) as of FY 2002, and 13,525 acres (5,478 ha) or 60% of the goal as of FY 2003.

*The goal is specific to disturbed lands restoration (i.e., disturbed by development or agriculture) and does not address restoration of fauna, control of invasive plants, and use of fire as a restoration tool. Causes of disturbance include facilities, roads, mines, dams, abandoned campgrounds, farming, grazing, timber harvest, and abandoned irrigation ditches. The goal is updated every three years to account for progress and changes in the total area being targeted for restoration.
Restoration, Introduction
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last updated 4/13/2004
National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, Natural Resource Program Center, Natural Resource Information Division
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