Allies & Methods
Introduction
Restoring ecosystems can be expensive, time consuming, and have various problems which makes trying to do the work all on our own not only tedious, but difficult, sometimes entirely unsuccessful. This is why it is critical to identify the allies and methods that will give us the biggest "bang for our buck" in our mission to help restore our environment to full health.
Allies
Indication Species
These are organisms who can help us bypass expensive lab tests or from spending hours, months, or decades painstakingly collecting data simply by existing (or vanishing from) certain areas. Some species may change colour, for example certain plants will change colour depending on their growing soils' pH levels. Other species may be present or missing based on pollution levels, light levels/light pollution, moisture and/or humidity levels, temperature ranges and so on.
Keystone Species
These organisms fill ecological niches that no other in that ecosystem can fulfill, at least not alone. This might be a prey species that feeds many, or a predator that keeps herbivores from destroying the ecosystem.
Removing them may cause trophic cascades or other serious repercussions. In places where keystone species have already been removed or hunted/foraged to extinction, there may be others of the same species, or similar-enough relatives that could be reintroduced to help rebalance the ecosystem to it's previous status.
Resources & Tools
Oceana
Australia
TSX – A Threatened Species Index for Australia "The first of its type in the world, the TSX provides reliable and robust measures of change in the relative abundance of Australia’s threatened and near-threatened species at national, state and regional levels.
Understanding these changes in species populations is crucial for monitoring progress towards Australia's conservation targets. Moreover, the TSX allows users to measure and report on the benefits of conservation investments, as well as justify and design targeted responses and raise the profile of threatened species." There is even a User Guide.