Special Feature: Young voices and visions for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration
Seascape Lab member Courtney Stuart and fellow Geography PhD students share their leadership roles in the upcoming Restoration Ecology Special Feature.
Image credit: Courtney Stuart
The early-career researcher symposium at the 2021 Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) conference has resulted in an exciting new Special Feature for the Restoration Ecology Journal. The “Young Voices and Visions for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration” Special Feature seeks to amplify the experiences and perspectives of graduate students and early career researchers (within 1-2 years of completing their degree) working at the forefront of ecosystem restoration.
Led by University of Oxford PhD students Tina Christmann (Worcester College), Trisha Gopalakrishna (Somerville College) and Courtney Stuart (Mansfield College; Oxford Seascape Ecology Lab), this timely Special Feature collates manuscripts covering a wide breadth of ecosystems, spatiotemporal scales, technologies and governance approaches. The collaborative and often interdisciplinary manuscripts included in the Special Feature will provide critical insights into the advances, challenges and lessons learned in ecosystem restoration relevant to the current UN Decade on Restoration.
In previous work led by Trisha Gopalakrishna, Tina Christmann and their co-authors (2022), the editors highlighted five key visions of early career researchers in restoration ecology (see right). The Special Feature shines a light on these and other visions, as well as the dedicated efforts of students and early career researchers leading #GenerationRestoration.
Figure 2 from Gopalakrishna, T., Christmann, T., Pashkevich, M. and Puttick, R. (2022), Young voices and visions for tropical restoration science in the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Biotropica, 54: 536-545. https://doi.org/10.1111/btp.13085.
It explores innovative research ranging from testing and reviewing restoration approaches in understudied ecosystems such as coastal zones, grasslands and dry forests, to using novel techniques in restoration ecology, like eDNA metabarcoding and bioacoustics. Further, the Special Feature presents opinion pieces on how to make restoration science and practice more collaborative, inclusive and socially just, as well as practical recommendations for youth engagement and graduate research in restoration science.
The first collection of papers for this Special Issue have been collated here and will continue to be published on a rolling basis, with a virtual collection compiled and shared later in 2023. To stay up to date with these publications, follow Courtney, Tina and Trisha on Twitter: @c_stuart9 @ChristmannTina @trishuphigh.
Hear more from the editors themselves and their motivations for this Special Issue:
“As coordinating editors, we were thrilled to receive so many inspiring submissions from graduate students and early career scientists leading cutting-edge research on habitat and ecosystem restoration. From landscapes to seascapes, tropics to temperate, flora to fauna, and everything in between, the Special Feature highlights common threads that link restoration research being conducted around the world. We are so happy to share the novel ideas and forward-looking perspectives of the submitting authors, and hope that this collection of manuscripts helps to inspire a new wave of trans-disciplinary, solution-oriented ecosystem restoration research driven by young scientists.” - Courtney Stuart (@c_stuart9)
“Who would have known back in 2021 - when we ran a symposium for early career researchers at a tropical conference - that this would plant the seed for a long-term special feature in collaboration with Restoration Ecology? We showcased over 80 papers from young restoration scientists around the world, all edited by three PhD students. I’m very proud to have been part of this team, to have given visibility to new ground-breaking research, and also to have seen the publishing process from the ‘other side’. Working as an editor has given me an insight into exciting new fields of restoration science, helped me develop networks and contacts across the world and finally made me a more open-eyed and experienced researcher.” - Tina Christmann (@ChristmannTina)
“This special feature started off with the hope of showcasing the brilliant work of the much over-looked community of doctoral students and those who have recently graduated with a doctorate or Master’s. The response, in terms of quality and quantity of submissions, is evidence of the timely need to highlight innovative work being done by early career researchers. I hope that the feature is widely read and inspires other early career researchers. Of course, please cite the works in the feature!” - Trisha Gopalakrishna (@trishuphigh)
Read the first collection of papers for this Special Issue here. To stay up to date with these publications, follow Courtney, Tina and Trisha on Twitter: @c_stuart9 @ChristmannTina @trishuphigh.