Restoration Principles Overview

In January, 2007, the Montana Forest Restoration Working Group came together to define a set of principles that define forest restoration. After coming to agreement on a set of forest restoration principles, the group decided to continue their efforts of working together to ensure the principles are carried out in Montana's National Forests. The group changed their name to the Montana Forest Restoration Committee.

Forest Restoration Introduction

Restoration of forest ecosystems is an attempt to rejuvenate and recover natural structure, function, and process in a landscape context. Although it is clear that complete restoration of an ecosystem cannot be achieved through discrete projects applied individually on the landscape, the process of restoration can be conducted with a flexible and open approach that allows for the improvement in the natural condition, form and function in the landscape and places the ecosystem on a more natural trajectory.

The Montana Forest Restoration Working Group put forth a set of principles that might help guide the restoration process in Montana. Furthermore, as important as the development of a meaningful set of restoration principles is the collective and collaborative process taken to arrive at an agreeable set of principles. The 13 restoration principles reflect a distillation of approximately 60 restoration vision categories and restoration attributes.

All 13 of these restoration principles fall under the assumption that restoration is conducted to accelerate the recovery of ecological processes and to enhance societal and economic well being. Restoration does not preclude future active management; in fact it may enhance future options. Restoration activities shall be conducted under the principles of adaptive management.