Economic recovery is economic activity related to ecological recovery activities. This is contrary to economic activity based on the extraction or depletion of natural resources and implies that activities intended to repair past ecological damage can be economically beneficial on a local, regional, and national scale.
Video Restoration economy
Overview
"Economic recovery" refers to jobs, capital, resources, and economic activity that arise from investments in ecological recovery, or "the process of assisting the restoration of ecosystems that have been degraded, damaged, or destroyed." Restoration projects may include habitat enhancement, water quality improvement, invasive species removal, forest thinning for canopy diversification, or other activities aimed at improving the natural function of an ecosystem. While investment in recovery benefits the environment, restoration projects also require workers, materials, and services to be implemented. The market for these goods and services can create jobs, spur business and labor development, and increase activity in the local economy. Activities that use the by-products of restoration work are also sometimes considered part of the recovery economy; for example, the use of small trees and/or shrubs from forest diversification or depletion projects as biomass to generate heat or energy.
Maps Restoration economy
History
The emergence of a restoration economy as a concept closely followed from a historical shift in natural resource policies in the mid-1990s, when owls spotted the north and some salmon species with habitats in the Pacific Northwest were listed as endangered. This list creates significant changes in forest management policies across the region, leading to a drastic reduction in logging and other natural resource extraction activities that will further destroy habitats for this species. The list also marks a shift towards more sustainable land management through forest and river basin restoration, as policy makers begin to realize that environmental restoration jobs can provide social and economic benefits, in addition to ecological. Federal and state bodies seek to replace some of the economic activities lost due to the extraction activity decreases with the economic activity of the restoration work. The Northwest Forest Plan (1994) initiated several programs aimed at transitioning traditional logging communities and labor to livelihoods in restoration work. The Collaborative Forest Forest Restoration Act (2009), the National Plan of Forest Economy Action, and stewardship contracting opportunities also focus on marrying ecology with the socioeconomic benefits of national forest management. In Oregon, the decline in timber yields and the additional potential of salmon lists that would affect traditional land management activities led to the establishment of community-based watersheds under the Oregon River Health Program (1993), and then the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds (DAS). (1997). With a dedicated country drawing fund, these watershed councils continue to promote voluntary restoration measures that improve salmon fishing habitat by encouraging collaboration at the local level and promoting socio-economic and ecological benefits through restoration.
Business, employees and working conditions
NGOs and non-governmental organizations implementing restoration work create jobs by hiring staff and contracting with businesses that employ employees to carry out actual restoration work. In Oregon, business contracts involved in restoration projects tend to be small businesses (as defined by Small Business Administration), family-owned, and subject to large seasonal fluctuations in available jobs. The difference between businesses in the state seems to be related to the customer base - businesses that work for non-federal customers such as the DAS board tend to do more equipment-based work near their homes, versus businesses that work for federal agencies who tend to travel more often and do more labor-intensive jobs. These findings have important implications, since restoration investments are often intended to increase economic activity in rural communities affected by declining logging activities, and these benefits are lost to the local economy if contractors from outside the region catch contracts. In addition, labor-intensive activities (eg planting trees, thinning) tend to pay less than traditional logging work, less reliable, and dominated by immigrant workers. In equipment-based and technically-intensive restoration activities, working conditions are generally considered to be better.
Measure economic activity
United States
Several studies have examined the impact and economic activity created by the restoration work in quantities. This is usually done for individual projects, such as the large dangerous fuel reduction contract in Arizona, or a $ 113 million mining reclamation project in Montana that is estimated to produce a total of 3,563 full-time equivalent positions (FTE). A study looking at the economic discharge from recovery programs across the region (Humboldt County, CA) determined that the $ 12.5 million invested in the program in 2002 supported 300 direct jobs that year. A study that looked at investments in restoration projects through federal agencies and nongovernmental organizations in the state of Oregon found that recovery investments had the same economic and job impacts as other public infrastructure projects such as road construction. Per million invested, 15-24 jobs were created, and each dollar invested generated an additional 1.4 to 2.4 dollars in economic activity because pedaling throughout the economy, depending on the type of project.
South Africa
Economic recovery has been implemented in South Africa as well. For example, the ARISE Project in the Giyani district of Limpopo Province, is a poverty alleviation program contracted to private companies in 1999 by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, with the aim of improving the overall quality of life in the region.. The program creates jobs in ecological restoration of the surrounding landscape and helps empower African rural communities in the short term. Restoration activities include, making fences around the boundary area, planting about 8000 trees and creating a fifty meter buffer zone on both sides of the Klein Letaba River. Over 323 jobs were created, and employees earned almost twice the average daily income ($ 5.30 per household of $ 2.20).
Ongoing benefits
While there is potential for a win-win situation that pairs environmental improvements with socio-economic benefits, the potential multiple benefits of this kind of work are often overlooked or underemphasized. As its emergence of the policy with the aim of providing socio-economic benefits in concert with the work of natural resources, a strong and lasting recovery economy depends on policies that continue to prioritize some benefits for both human and natural systems, in addition to initiating investments in restoration activities.
Criticism
In South Africa, while the ARISE project can positively influence Giyani District by providing short-term jobs for low-income communities, it does not increase the likelihood of long-term employment in the commercial sector.
Workers, or recovery practitioners, in the Recovery Economy are also vulnerable to policy changes, and "volatility of restoration funding." In Humboldt County, California, private sector businesses and non-governmental organizations often compromise with bureaucratic obstacles and drastic changes in funding.
See also
- Recovery Ecology
- Northwest Forest Plan
- Ecosystem Services
- Green economy
References
External links
- Ecosystem Worker Program, University of Oregon
- Institute of Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon
- Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board's Healthy Watersheds
- US Forest Service, Collaborative Forest Landscape Recovery Program
- Ecotrust All Initiative of DAS Restoration
- Society for Ecological Restoration
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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