Active restoration
Active ecological restoration involves the integration of management
techniques, such as revegetation, herbicide application, or mechanical
soil disturbance to take an ecosystem from a degraded state to one that
is functional, self-sustaining and resilient. In weed dominant systems,
restoration efforts that focus to remove invasive plants and promote
dense, native competition are often the most successful. In order to
actively restore a degraded landscape, understanding the sites history
can be critical. The history of a site can identify the factors that
moved it into a degraded state, and whether these changes occurred
rapidly or continuously over an extended interval (Prober & Thiele,
2005). Further, the historic vegetation cover can act as a restoration
target, and guide managers on revegetation assemblages (Prober &
Thiele, 2005). Active restoration of weed dominated temperate grasslands
should consider; i) the removal of the weeds biomass, ii) manipulation
of the soil to return it to remnant condition, iii) revegetation of
native propagules, and ix) site specific grazing management.