120 • Technologies To Maintain Biological Diversity 



tion work generally falls short of restoration. 

 Reclamation is generally task-oriented, and the 

 objective is usually to establish productive plant 

 cover, such as pasture or stands of trees. Rela- 

 tively little attention is given to species not 

 directly related to the objective, and relatively 

 few species are used. Consequently, efforts to 

 reclaim land have largely focused on the use 

 of common plant and animal species that are 

 easily propagated and multiply rapidly. Often 

 these are nonnative species; rare or difficult- 

 to-establish species are seldom used. It is easi- 

 est and most cost-effective to use those few spe- 

 cies that have been shown to be adequate for 

 particular uses, such as for stabilizing beaches. 



Tree planting is one of the most frequently 

 used techniques for reclaiming degraded lands, 

 and a wealth of literature on various forms of 

 reforestation exists (23,84). The potential for 

 reforesting degraded forest land is especially 

 great in the tropics (83). But restoring forests 

 with diverse native species is seldom attempted. 

 Instead, most programs use one or a few exotic 

 species, partly because of a lack of seeds and 

 techniques to propagate native trees and partly 

 because of the cost-effectiveness of planting 

 fast-growing tree species known to have com- 

 mercial value. 



The Santa Rosa National Park in Costa Rica 

 is one of the few forest restorations that has 

 been undertaken. The area was a cattle ranch 

 for 400 years, but since designation as a pro- 

 tected area, a dry forest ecosystem of native 

 species has been reestablished from seed 

 sources on nearby mountain slopes. The prin- 

 cipal management technique has been to stop 

 the human-caused fires, allowing woody spe- 

 cies to reinvade the pure grass pastures. The 

 restorative effect has now been proved and is 

 to be used in the proposed Guanacaste National 

 Park (39). 



Prairie restoration offers a kind of prototype 

 for the development and use of ecosystem res- 

 toration. Restoration of prairies began early, 

 motivated by concerns such as diversity and 

 community authenticity (43). Techniques de- 

 veloped to restore prairies to moderately high 

 levels of native plant diversity borrow exten- 



Fhoro credit: D. Franzen 



Planting prairie plants in a restoration project at the 

 University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum. The 

 purpose of the experiment is to study competition 

 between species by planting various combinations. 

 The results will be useful in developing techniques for 

 introducing "difficult" species into prairies as they 

 are being restored and managed. 



sively from agriculture techniques used in 

 prairies. One approach to restoring 2 to 40 hec- 

 tares recommends plowing, followed by disk- 

 ing at intervals of a year to reduce weeds, fol- 

 lowed by seeding with a mixture of prairie 

 species (56). In Crex Meadows, WI, restoration 

 of prairie plants and animals was possible with 

 little intervention other than protection and 

 controlled burning, because many native prai- 

 rie species had apparently continued to grow, 

 unobserved, for decades while the site was for- 

 ested. Little information on the cost of prairie 

 restoration is available. Up to now, much of 

 the effort that has gone into restoring the high- 

 est quality prairies has depended heavily on 

 dedicated volunteers (4). 



Although the technology of reclamation has 

 developed rapidly in recent years, partly as a 

 result of legislation such as the Surface Mine 

 Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, restora- 

 tion has not yet become an established dis- 

 cipline. Restoration research and technology 

 development vary tremendously from one nat- 

 ural community to the next. 



The availability of seed and plant stock for 

 varieties adapted to local conditions is a prob- 

 lem. Use of local seeds is not required by law, 



