Ecological technical assistance

Restoration ecology emerged as a separate field in ecology in the 1980s. It is the scientific study supporting the practice of ecological restoration, which is the practice of renewing and restoring degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems and habitats in the environment by active human intervention and action. Restoration ecology is the academic study of the process, whereas ecological restoration is the actual project or process by restoration practitioners.

The restoration economy is the economic activity associated with ecological restoration activities. It stands in contrast to economic activity premised on the extraction or depletion of natural resources and implies that activities meant to repair past ecological damage may be economically beneficial at local, regional, and national scales. The “restoration economy” refers to the employment, capital, resources, and economic activity that emerge from investments in ecological restoration, or “the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed. Restoration projects can include habitat enhancement, water quality improvement, invasive species removal, forest thinning for canopy diversification, or any other activity that aims to improve the natural function of an ecosystem.

Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits that humans freely gain from the natural environment and from properly-functioning ecosystems. Such ecosystems include, for example, agroecosystems, forest ecosystems, grassland ecosystems and aquatic ecosystems. Collectively, these benefits are becoming known as 'ecosystem services', and are often integral to the provisioning of clean drinking water, the decomposition of wastes, and the natural pollination of crops and other plants.

Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), formerly known as the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that provides technical assistance to farmers and other private landowners and managers. Its name was changed in 1994 during the presidency of Bill Clinton to reflect its broader mission. It is a relatively small agency, currently comprising about 12,000 employees. Its mission is to improve, protect, and conserve natural resources on private lands through a cooperative partnership with state and local agencies