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Defining Restoration Goals *Table 4. Ecosystem services proposed in recent publications. Costanza et al. 1997 Anonymous 1995 Christensen et al. 1996 Gas regulation Climate regulation Disturbance regulation Water regulation Water supply Water treatment Erosion control Soil formation Nutrient cycling Pollination Biological control Food production Raw materials (e.g., rubber, fiber, lumber) Recreation • Floodwater storage, attenuation Maintenance of fish habitat Biodiversity Wood production Water quality maintenance Waterfowl, furbearer population maintenance Maintain hydrological cycles Regulate climate Clean air and water Atmospheric chemistry Pollination of crops, etc. Maintain soils Store and cycle nutrients Detoxify pollutants Provide beauty and inspiration ating habitat may ignore its temporal instability. For ex- ample, Chrysopsis falcata (sickle - leaved aster), a rare plant in New Jersey, grows on bare sand in open, unvegetated areas of the New Jersey Pinelands. Presumably, the plant relied on periodic intense wildfires to create new habitat, and seed banks to survive the long periods between fires during which its habitat became revegetated. The plant . has recently become established on some sand and gravel mine sites, whose expanses of bare sand offer ideal habitat. When mining activities threaten these pop- ulations, efforts are made to create new habitat for those populations. These habitats are by definition ephemeral, yet restoration plans rarely take this fact into account. This example raises another issue. Many habitats that support rare plants and animals, or high diversity, are the result of human activities, and depend on these ac- tivities for their continued existence. The importance of grazing by domestic animals has been pointed out for species -rich grasslands in both the United States and Eu- rope (Bakker & Berendse 1999; Howe 1999). Similarly, limestone fens in New Jersey support many rare plants and the endangered bog turtle; recent research suggests that they depend on grazing by dairy cattle to maintain the unforested conditions that these species require (J. Tesauro, personal communication). Schuyler (1999) has similarly pointed out that many of the rare plants of the New Jersey Pinelands thrive in habitats created by hu- man activities, and that human activity is necessary to help them survive. The point is that, in order to meet a variety of restoration goals, it is sometimes necessary to harness human activities and presence, thus perpetuat- ing something that cannot be considered "natural." What Should Be the Goals of Restoration? In this analysis, I have pointed out both advantages and limitations to each of the various paradigms for devel- oping restoration goals. If all frameworks for develop- ing restoration goals are .flawed, how should restora- tionists proceed? I suggest two ways of thinking about restoration goals that may help resolve the problem. First, recognize—explicitly and clearly —that there is no one paradigm or context for setting restoration goals. Goals need to be developed appropriately for each project, relative to scope and reasons for the restoration effort. The sometimes acrimonious search for a single paradigm for restoration and conservation (Goldstein 1999; Risser 1999; Walker 1999) ignores the tremendous diversity of both ecological conditions and the ways in which humans interact with nature. There is no reason why the goals appropriate to the restoration of bauxite mine spoil or the land around a zinc smelter should be transferred to efforts to restore large watersheds or whole landscapes, or particular endangered species re- stricted to peculiar habitats. It is as if ecologists are in search of general laws comparable to the laws of Newto- nian physics (e.g., one gas law that works for all gases under all conditions), but seek to apply them to the probabilistic quantum world. I suggest that ecologists need to develop probabilistic laws. What are the sets of conditions under which it is important to address large - scale ecosystem processes? Species- specific mutualisms? Can sets of conditions be recognized that mandate par- ticular methods or goals for restoration projects? With a view towards starting such a search for sets of conditions, I suggest that when inputs of physical energy, in the form of water or wind movement, are dominating forces in structuring an ecosystem, then ecosystem- or landscape -level processes which integrate the activity of many species and /or address physical components of the system should be the primary focus in developing restora- tion plans. This principle is recognized, for example, in the large -scale criteria used for planning and prioritizing ri- parian zone restoration (see Restoration Ecology volume 5[4S1), where the force of flowing water is the primary MARCH 2000 Restoration Ecology 7