Intelligent Tinkering in Ecological Restoration - RNC Alliance

OPINION ARTICLE

Intelligent Tinkering in Ecological Restoration Carolina Murcia1,2,3 and James Aronson4,5 Abstract Restoration practitioners adopt a multiplicity of approaches that range from basic trial and error, and site-specific efforts, to complex experimental designs that test cutting edge theoretical hypotheses. We classify these different strategies to understand how restoration is planned and executed, and to contribute to the discussion on certification and evaluation. We use Aldo Leopold’s notion of “intelligent tinkering” as a basis for a typology of four different approaches to restoration based on four parameters: motivation, general strategy, method of inquiry, and temporal and spatial scales of the expected outcomes. We argue that efforts to restore a damaged ecosystem in a skilled and experimental manner should be called “professional intelligent tinkering” versus “amateur intelligent tinkering,” and “careless tinkering.” We compare these three types of tinkering, and a more formal

To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering. Aldo Leopold 1953. The practice of ecological restoration integrates many disciplines and attracts the attention of many interests in society, from scientists, politicians, industry, entrepreneurs, NGOs, and local communities. No formal education is required to practice ecological restoration. Rather, the general consensus is that these projects must be inclusive to increase their impact and effectiveness (Nellermann & Corcoran 2010). A consequence of this diversity in practitioners, stakeholders, and of objectives, is that there will be a multiplicity of approaches, some better than others. As the discipline matures, the practice must become more formal, in order to respond to demands for larger scale efforts (CBD 2012; Aronson & Alexander 2013), and for greater scrutiny of return on investment (Goldstein et al. 2008; Blignaut et al. 2014). This formalization has started a dialogue 1 Department of Biology, University of Florida, 220 Bartram Hall, PO Box 118525,

Gainesville, FL 32611, U.S.A.

2 Organization for Tropical Studies, Duke University, 410 Swift Avenue, PO Box

90630, Durham, NC 27705, U.S.A.

3 Address for correspondence to C. Murcia, email [email protected] 4 Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CNRS-UMR 5175), 1919, Route de

Mende, 34293, Montpellier, France

5 Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, MO 63110, U.S.A.

© 2014 Society for Ecological Restoration doi: 10.1111/rec.12100

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“scientific approach.” In professional intelligent tinkering, interventions and adjustments are done in a logical and careful manner, and with a methodical, experimental mindset. In contrast to the scientific approach, intelligent tinkering does not necessarily follow a formal experimental procedure, with replications and controls that allow extrapolation, nor is it driven by the motivation to publish in peer-reviewed journals. Rather, it is primarily driven by a desire to solve site-specific problems even in the absence of sufficient ecological knowledge to apply previously tested knowledge and techniques. We illustrate three approaches with three on-going restoration projects in southeastern Brazil, two of which are small scale, and one of which is very large scale. Key words: amateur intelligent tinkering, Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact, professional intelligent tinkering, restoration approach typology.

within the Society for Ecological Restoration on the need for professional certification (Clewell & Aronson 2013). To contribute to this dialogue, we present here a simple classification of restoration approaches that spans a continuum of rigor in the practice. They vary in terms of motivation, general strategy, method of inquiry, and temporal, and spatial scales of the expected outcomes. This should help the ecological restoration community and project evaluators to better understand how practice is conducted and how different approaches may be applied, rejected, or combined, under varying sets of conditions and goals. We have chosen the expression “intelligent tinkering” as a starting point of a typology that describes different approaches to restoration, because it spans between two extremes: that of a tinkerer with no plan or method and no awareness for the value or replication, testing, or communication of methods, and that of a tinkerer whose work is rigorously planned. The next step beyond this is the approach adopted by restoration scientists where, in principle, every intervention is replicated, and results are documented and communicated to a larger restoration science and practice community. Aldo Leopold’s memorable line about intelligent tinkering quoted above has become a standard aphorism of conservation ethics, underlining the need to conserve all elements of a biological community or an ecosystem (e.g. McGlincy & Haines 1994; Sissenwine & Murawski 2004). This message goes straight to the heart of modern conservation science and

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practice and extends as well to ecological restoration. The term “intelligent tinkering” has in fact appeared sporadically in the ecological restoration literature, but generally was used in passing without definition or further development (Boner & Heitlinger 1981; Cowell 1993; Cabin 2007; Clewell & Aronson 2013). The sole exception is Robert Cabin’s recent book (Cabin 2011, p. 174), where the term is used to describe an approach to restoration that is “disciplined yet flexible,” combining “attributes of good science (e.g. objectivity, hypothesis testing, and rigor) with attributes of good practice (e.g. technical skill, local knowledge, and relentless passion)” and incorporating heterogeneity, local politics and logistics into the practice. Cabin’s definition, however, does not provide a clear definition of intelligent tinkering as distinguished from other approaches to restoration, nor does it address the true meaning of tinkering. Restoration of an impaired ecosystem in principle requires a great deal of intuitive or explicit ecological knowledge concerning its key constituent species, the main interactions among them, internal processes, and dynamics (Ewel 1987; Clewell & Aronson 2013). Increasingly, it appears that it also requires knowledge of community assembly rules and the way the ecosystem responds to disturbances such as catastrophic alterations, invasions, or climate change. However, that information is unavailable for many ecosystems, particularly complex tropical and oceanic ones. In the absence of sufficient knowledge to apply well-tested restoration techniques, there are two options: one is to study the system until we understand it well enough to develop and test appropriate restoration techniques—which may prove impractical and still insufficient. Even though the Everglades is one of the best studied ecosystems of the United States, there is still great uncertainty on the outcomes of restoration interventions (Kiker et al. 2001). The alternative is to take a hands-on, improvisational approach in order to learn how to restore by trying to do it, preferably on a small scale and at low cost. In other words, some kind of tinkering may be involved. This applies to both the initial actions taken in a degraded system, or the follow-up associated with subsequent adaptive management (Holling 1978; Walters & Holling 1990). Strictly speaking, to tinker is to repair, adjust, or work with something in an unskilled or experimental manner (Merriam-Webster 2013), and often carries a pejorative connotation. Tinkering is considered the antithesis of what a professional should be doing, because it often results in an inability to replicate the path that led to a solution, for lack of clear methodology, accounting, and note-taking. Despite good intentions, it may also lead to poor outcomes or even make things worse. However, tinkering stems from the necessity to act when there is not enough knowledge or access to a clear method or plan to follow in order to solve a problem, and the tinkerer must resort to trial and error approaches, at least at the beginning. The epithet “intelligent” raises the practice of tinkering to a higher plane. We define intelligent tinkering in ecological restoration, as an approach to ecological restoration wherein interventions are:

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1 Designed exclusively for a specific case with a priori no intention to extrapolate to other sites or systems. 2 Are based on ecological intuition rather that knowledge, and yet 3 Are attempted in a logical, careful, and well-documented manner. This is one way of attempting restoration, among many. In Figure 1, we identify five recurrent approaches to ecological restoration, including three forms of tinkering. Each approach is based on a unique combination of knowledge base, motivation, strategy, methods of inquiry, and expected outcomes. One key indicator that allows discrimination among the five is the different levels of experimentation undertaken to ascertain the most appropriate restoration methods and techniques. The first dichotomy indicated in Figure 1 concerns the level of knowledge available. To wit, when there is sufficient knowledge about the degraded ecosystem, and the methods and techniques are known to be effective, it may be sufficient to apply those techniques in a careful (and cost-effective) fashion (pathway A). In the absence of such knowledge, however, or when there is a need to further explore and innovate, the alternate route of inquiry must be followed (pathway B in Fig. 1). On pathway B, four alternate routes may be taken (pathways B1−B4). The first (B1) is that of careless tinkering that involves a disorganized trial and error strategy, constantly renegotiating the methods used, and failing to keep track of failures and milestones reached. No hypotheses are formulated, no clear plan is laid out and, at the end, even if some success is achieved, nothing is really learned about effective methodology, for what has been done cannot be replicated. This is equivalent to trying to repair a computer in a haphazard way, without any blueprint for action. For example, in a country-wide analysis of restoration projects in Colombia, lack of planning was common (Murcia & Guariguata 2014); e.g. at least 10% of the 119 projects analyzed lacked an explicit reference ecosystem, and only 56% of the projects had a detailed work plan from the beginning. Lack of basic knowledge about the biophysical or social conditions of the site often resulted in significant barriers to success in at least one-third of the 22 projects that had been completed. Midway adjustments had mixed results. A better approach is to adopt a careful, methodical strategy building on trial and error based on hypothesis testing, that is, pathways B2, B3, and B4 (Fig. 1). The main difference between “careless” tinkering (B1), and the two kinds of “intelligent” tinkering, that is, amateur (B2) or professional (B3), is that the last two entail formulating a working hypothesis, based on observation, with or without framing it within a general theoretical framework and set of principles such as those proposed in the Society for Ecological Restoration Primer (SER 2004). The first part is a process called “the inquiry cycle” (Feinsinger 2001), and results in a methodical exploration of a practical problem. Inquiry can be conducted within or outside the realm of a body of theory. Amateur intelligent tinkering is conducted in

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Figure 1. The main pathways available to restoring an ecosystem, and features associated with each. * Understood in the sense of the arts and handicrafts, when the selection and placement of parts is conducted in an unstructured and intuitive way, following no explicit rules or order.

the absence of theoretical underpinnings or principles, and tests only rudimentary hypotheses (see B2 in Fig. 1). If well done, amateur intelligent tinkering resolves the problem at hand, even though the scope of what can be learned may be limited. For example, a 23-year-old 80 ha ecological restoration project was carried out by a coalition of researchers and municipal workers, around a large artificial water reservoir near Iracemápolis in Brazil in the highly fragmented and

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endangered Atlantic Forest biome. Riparian corridors were established by planting approximately 120 native and 20 exotic tree species, using whatever was available in the local tree nurseries. No particular hypothesis was formulated (i.e. no specific reference ecosystems were envisioned), apart from a planting design consisting of planting “clumps” of species including a few “climax” tree species at the core, surrounded by a few intermediate successional species, and

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a larger number of pioneer species. The result today is a reasonably diverse assemblage that resembles a native forest in physiognomy, but is composed of a mixture of native and exotic species. Notwithstanding, positive results have been achieved in the realm of public awareness, curiosity, and participation as stake-holders (Brancalion et al. 2014). In contrast, professional tinkering (B3) involves the formulation of questions within a body of theory. Typically, this requires training in one or more basic sciences, awareness of a body of theory within which to frame the proposed hypotheses. Therefore, the restoration process has an added formality as compared with amateur tinkering, even when little or no effort is made to generalize or publicize the results of the work, as illustrated by a second project from southeastern Brazil. In the early 1950s, José Carlos Bolliger Nogueira, a recent agronomy graduate, sought to test the feasibility of reforesting degraded riparian lands with native trees. On 26 ha of riverbank, Nogueira planted 80 species of native Brazilian trees, of which 60 were indubitably local, but the remaining were from more distant forest areas in the Atlantic Forest biome. In this case, the hypothesis that restoration of native forest could be achieved was actually confirmed a few decades later, but little effort was made to report the results, nor were any explicit theoretical hypotheses formulated (Nogueira 1977; Nogueira 2010). In Figure 1, we discriminate between professional intelligent tinkering (B3) and the “scientific approach” (B4) on the basis of final motivation. The ultimate goal of professional tinkering is often the same as that of amateur tinkering, that is, to resolve a very specific and practical issue at a given site. The shortcoming of this approach is that, even when the methods are rigorous, all too frequently too little effort is made to disseminate results or even to check them against other similar efforts or studies. Consequently, it contributes less than it could to national, regional or global efforts to develop a restoration science, or reliable guidelines for restoration practice in a given type of ecosystem or biome. Furthermore, there is no way to scale up the results. By contrast, the scientific approach seeks to develop broad, general conceptual, and practical advances that could be applicable in many other situations and aid in efforts at scaling up. As such, experiments require additional replication and controls, and very careful design and multi-variable analysis. Publication in one or more media is also involved, to guarantee peer review and verification, and the dissemination of results so that society at large can benefit from the lessons learned and respond to—or apply it—in future laws, practices, and policy. The scientific approach strives to generate a global understanding of systems, and through collective replication generate general principles. These general principles allow for extrapolation to new sites. An example of a sound science-based approach, that is, nonetheless bottom-up and quintessentially participatory, is the large-scale “The Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact (AFRP),” an ambitious program that aims to restore 15 million hectare of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest by the year 2050 (http://www.

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pactomataatlantica.org.br/index.aspx?lang=en), and the BiotaFAPESP Program in São Paulo state (Rodrigues et al. 2009; Joly et al. 2010). Rodrigues et al. (2011) described coordinated work in 32 ongoing projects, covering more than 500,000 ha, on properties belonging to large sugarcane farmers and a range of small mixed farms. Six different restoration techniques are being developed to help upscale the effort and a single monitoring protocol is used to help in evaluation of costeffectiveness and refinement of techniques, all following a scientific approach. For restoration ecology to move beyond mere story-telling to a mature science (Halle & Fattorini 2004) the role of the scientific approach cannot be underestimated. Further, the AFRP has already generated many documents and examples that could be applied and tested elsewhere in the tropics to help respond to the global commitment to restoration (CBD 2012). Concurrently, the role of intelligent tinkering must not be neglected or belittled. Mutual respect and cooperation among those applying these two strategies can create a synergy that not only solves problems locally, and helps to develop a guild of professional restoration practitioners, but also advances the broad transdisciplinary science and problem-solving practice of ecological restoration. In other words this is a way to help bridge the science–practitioner gap that many identify as a key goal for the future of ecological restoration (Cabin et al. 2010). A word of clarification seems in order at this point. By proposing and defining this pluralism of approaches, we do not intend to classify or pigeon-hole individuals, or imply that the different approaches are correlated with academic degrees, IQ, or certification status. Rather, we acknowledge that one approach may be more appropriate than others under specific circumstances, and that any given individual or team may choose to adopt one over the others depending on skill levels, personal and group interests, available knowledge and project context, including level and conditions of funding. We recognize that any effort to restore a site will often involve at least a modicum of intelligent tinkering. The experience of the Everglades shows that, in spite of the large amount of information available and the best laid plans, the restoration process is still a “learn as you go” affair (Kiker et al. 2001). It is likely that the teams of experts focusing on the large scale issues may have to undertake a less than rigorous approach in order to accommodate the limited potential for replication that may hinder experimentation and hypothesis testing. Furthermore, other socioeconomic objectives (job creation and poverty alleviation) will generally be at issue, along with purely ecological ones. So far the discussion has been focused on ecological knowledge and its application in restoration practice and science. However, restoration projects and programs each occur in unique biophysical, sociocultural, and political contexts that cannot be simply addressed by a single scientific discipline. To address this issue, it is necessary to combine the best of a formal scientific approach (hypothesis testing, controls, etc.) with a less formal one that may go faster and achieve more in the way of outreach and consensus building. Thus, intelligent

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tinkering has the advantage of explicitly incorporating consideration of “real-world complications that are often so critically important (fine-scale ecological heterogeneity, local politics, logistics of volunteer coordination . . . )” (Cabin 2011) into the design and implementation of experiments and actions. If intelligent tinkering as described here is combined with a truly scientific approach, then the restoration team is truly thinking and acting globally while also acting and achieving ecological, cultural, and socioeconomic results locally. The classification of restoration approaches we have presented spans a range of actions that vary in terms of motivation, strategy, methods of inquiry, and the temporal and spatial scales of expected outcomes. By paying attention to these differences, practitioners and project evaluators of restoration projects can better understand how the restoration is conceived and conducted and its transferability and pertinence for efforts at up scaling.

Implications for Practice • Tinkering, when done in an intelligent manner, is a

valid approach to restoration, especially in areas where knowledge is not available and urgent action is needed. • Restoration projects may use a combination of several approaches from amateur intelligent tinkering to professional intelligent tinkering to scientific, to address different challenges. • The different approaches described here may be applied to all aspects of a restoration project, including physical, biological, ecological, social or economic. • When scaling-up to large-scale restoration, combinations of approaches are especially indicated. Acknowledgments This manuscript was greatly improved thanks to discussions with L. Balaguer and comments from R. Hobbs, both of whom provided insightful suggestions and helpful criticism. We also thank P. Brancalion for providing us with examples from Brazil and helping us to understand where they fit in our proposed typology. LITERATURE CITED Aronson, J., and S. Alexander. 2013. Ecosystem restoration is now a global priority: time to roll up our sleeves. Restoration Ecology 21:293–296. Blignaut, J. N., J. Aronson, and M. deWit. 2014. The economics of restoration: looking back and leaping forward. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (In press). Boner, R., and M. Heitlinger. 1981. Restoration and management: the steward’s point of view. Ecological Restoration 1:3–5. Brancalion, P. H., I. V. Cardozo, A. Camatta, J. Aronson, and R. R. Rodrigues. 2014. Cultural ecosystem services and popular perceptions of the benefits of an ecological restoration project in the Brazilian Atlantic forest. Restoration Ecology 22:65–71. Cabin, R. J. 2007. Science-driven restoration: a square grid on a round Earth? Restoration Ecology 15:1–7. Cabin, R. J. 2011. Intelligent tinkering: bridging the gap between science and practice. Island Press, Washington, D.C.

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