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Restoring Natural Capital

Restoring Natural Capital

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Restoring Natural Capital refers to the process of rehabilitating and revitalizing ecosystems and natural resources that have been degraded or depleted, aiming to enhance biodiversity, ecosystem services, and overall environmental health, while supporting sustainable development and resilience against climate change.
lightbulbAbout this topic
Restoring Natural Capital refers to the process of rehabilitating and revitalizing ecosystems and natural resources that have been degraded or depleted, aiming to enhance biodiversity, ecosystem services, and overall environmental health, while supporting sustainable development and resilience against climate change.

Key research themes

1. How can national policies and large-scale investments enhance ecosystem services through restoration of natural capital?

This research theme investigates the effectiveness of government-driven investments and policy interventions at national or supra-national levels in restoring natural capital and improving ecosystem services. It matters because scaling up restoration efforts through coordinated policy can address environmental degradation caused by rapid economic development and provides a pathway for sustainable development.

Improvements in ecosystem services from investments in natural capital
by Steve Polasky

2022, Science (New York, N.Y.)

Key finding: China's large-scale government-financed payment for ecosystem services programs starting from 2000 significantly improved several ecosystem services from 2000 to 2010, including food production, carbon sequestration, soil... Read more
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Roots of Prosperity: The Economics and Finance of Restoring Land
by Robin Chazdon

2025

Key finding: Restoring degraded land globally generates economic benefits valued at $7-30 for every dollar invested, yet there exists a funding gap of around $300 billion annually. Policy instruments such as cross-ministerial... Read more
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Natural capital and ecosystem services informing decisions: From promise to practice
by Bonnie Keeler

2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Key finding: Over a decade since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, natural capital and ecosystem services science has advanced significantly, raising awareness of ecosystem-human well-being interdependencies and improving... Read more
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Integrating Natural Capital into National Accounts: Three Decades of Promise and Challenge
by Carter Brandon

2023, Review of Environmental Economics and Policy

Key finding: Analyzing drought impacts on migration in Africa, the study reveals that environment-induced migration is mediated by access to natural capital and wealth, highlighting that resilience to environmental shocks is linked to... Read more
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2. How can conceptual and methodological frameworks integrating natural and human-derived capital improve sustainable ecosystem service management?

This theme focuses on advancing theoretical and practical frameworks that explicitly integrate natural capital with human-derived capitals (such as social, human, manufactured, and financial capital) in the delivery and use of ecosystem services. Understanding these interdependencies is critical for designing sustainable management practices and policy interventions that recognize humans as co-producers rather than mere beneficiaries of ecosystem services.

Stocks and flows of natural and human-derived capital in ecosystem services
by Laurence Jones and 
1 more
Jasper Kenter

2017

Key finding: By applying a systems approach, this work distinguishes natural capital and various forms of human-derived capital roles in ecosystem service production, demonstrating that ecosystem service flow depends on these capitals... Read more
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Reconceptualizing natural capital and sustainable use of natural capital through Aldo Leopold's land ethic
by Felix Fernando

2021, Springer Nature

Key finding: This article reconceptualizes natural capital by dividing it into renewable and structural components while excluding nonrenewable capital like fossil fuels, grounded in Aldo Leopold's land ethic. It presents 10 guiding... Read more
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The role of social capital and collective actions in natural capital conservation and management
by Mariana Gluch

2023, Environmental Science & Policy

Key finding: This study empirically demonstrates that higher levels of social capital—comprising trust, norms, and networks—are significantly associated with effective collective actions toward conservation. It highlights the importance... Read more
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Expanding Protected Areas: A Case for Repairing Intergenerational Social Capital Rather than Taking the Path of Least Resistance
by B. Bynum Boley and 
1 more
Jesse Abrams

2023, Journal of Sustainable Tourism

Key finding: Through a qualitative study of the Ngöbe Indigenous community's experience with protected area expansion in Panama, the research reveals that broken social capital constitutes intergenerational trauma, that cannot be solved... Read more
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3. What are the economic dimensions, valuation challenges, and opportunities in the restoration and sustainable use of natural capital?

This research cluster addresses the economic frameworks for restoration of natural capital, including valuation complexities, cost-benefit analyses, and incentives for sustainable use. It is important because robust economic arguments and valuation approaches are essential to justify investments in ecological restoration and inform policy that balances ecological sustainability with economic growth.

The economics of restoration: looking back and leaping forward
by J. N Blignaut and 
2 more
Martin P de Wit
james aronson

2017

Key finding: This comprehensive review traces the evolution of ecological restoration economics, highlighting a paradigm shift from viewing restoration as a cost to recognizing it as a value-generating activity enhancing natural capital... Read more
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Restoration of natural capital: A key strategy on the path to sustainability
by J. N Blignaut

2017

Key finding: This work argues for a tri-fold strategy to sustainability centered on technology, behavioral change, and restoration of natural capital (RNC), underscoring that RNC investments show strong economic benefit-to-cost ratios... Read more
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The Natural Capital Accounting Opportunity: Let's Really Do the Numbers
by Pierre Glynn

2023, BioScience

Key finding: This paper advocates for formal natural capital and ecosystem goods and services accounting (NCA and EGSA) integrated into national economic statistics like GDP, enabling standardized, repeated, and comprehensive assessment... Read more
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Related Topics

  • Arid and Semiarid Regions
  • Ecological restoration
  • Critical natural capital
  • Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES)
  • Conservation Biology
  • Environmental Modeling & Simulation
  • Aquatic Invertebrates
  • Environmental Economics
  • Econometrics
  • History of Biological Sciences

    • All papers in Restoring Natural Capital

    The relationship between ecological restoration and the ecosystem services concept
    by james aronson

    2025, Ecology and Society

    Ecological restoration and the mainstreaming of the concept of ecosystem services will be critical if global society is to move toward sustainability. Conference of the Parties 21 (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on... more
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    Lessons learned and linkages with national policies
    by Franz Gatzweiler

    2025

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    Discounting, ethics, and options for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem integrity
    by John Gowdy

    2025, Griffith Research Online (Griffith University, Queensland, Australia)

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    The benefits of ecological restoration exceed its cost in South Africa: An evidence-based approach
    by J. N Blignaut

    2025

    Ecological restoration has become a development intervention of choice at the highest levels of governance at a global level. In due recognition of the restoration of ecosystems' capability and potential to contribute to economic,... more
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    Stakeholder meanings and robustness in social-ecological systems : implications for managing change
    by Ernita van Wyk

    2024

    Alignment of stakeholder behaviour with policies and rules is a key concern where natural resources are managed in the public interest. This thesis is based on the premise that behaviours are founded upon meanings as meanings direct... more
    Plate 3.5 (left) and 3.6 (right). Indigenous silver trees (Leucadendron argenteum) in Table Mountain National Park. (Photos: Ermita van Wyk) 4 The pre-forestry colonial Tokai landscape Che Dutch East Indian Company (VOC) was the world’s most prominent trading enterprise by he 1650s. Their trade was predominantly in black pepper but also included cloves, nutmeg, Sinnamon and mace. To procure these products, the Dutch had to travel the seas to the Far East. Although Portuguese sailors were among the earliest to navigate successfully around the southern tip of Africa in 1486 (Bartholomew Diaz) and again in 1497 (Vasco da Gama), the Dutch followed between 1595 and 1597 and saw an opportunity to establish a halfway station yetween Europe and the Far East so that sailors could get fresh water, fruits and vegetables at he Cape. In 1652 ninety Dutch settlers arrived by ship and built a fort called Good Hope and >stablished vegetable gardens near the settlement. As the settlement at the Cape expanded, the Company (VOC) established farms and orchards further south of the original settlement (in what is today the Rondebosch area; about 7 km, about 5 miles, from the original settlement) and illocated farm land to selected company employees in the same area (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007).
    underpin potential collaborative arrangements in social-ecological systems. In this framework, the for change in a social relationship is mediated by two variables, relational capital and relational connectedness. As actors interact repeatedly with each other, multiple states can be generated for relationships and these states are characterised by different behavioural strategies and outcomes (e.g. compliance, avoidance, tolerance or contestation). Trust and commitment form the other par invested relationa wo key attributes of relational capital. Trust is a state in which a party believes that the ies will not act against its interests and commitment denotes the energies and resources by parties in a long-term relationship. According to the Nkhata et al. (2008) framework connectedness is characterised by social and professional bonds, connections among the activities of actors and how the resources of actors are tied together. The two variables together describe change whereby relationships grow, mature, collapse and reorganise based on mutual adaptations in behaviour. By using the Nkhata et al. (2008) framework, it is possible to interpret how meanings, the perception of benefits and institutional arrangements influence relationships and the emergent behaviours over time. Importantly, it also provides a conceptual basis for imagining the future and for highlighting implications for enhancing system robustness. According to this framework, relationships progress through phases of an adaptive cycle. In the Tokai example there were few public users and relational capital and connectedness among users and the forest agency were low during the early years (late 1880s to 1970) of forest plantation establishment and expansion (Fig 6.1 [1]). interpret how meanings, the perception of benefits and institutional arrangements influence
    Table 4.2. A schematic of four dimensions of human systems. Meanings can be elicited through appropriate interpretation when actors participate in the exterior dimensions. Adapted from Maiteny (2000). A range of literature dealing with meanings was consulted to derive classes of meanings and their descriptions (Table 4.3).
    a The framework developed in Chapter 2 suggests that rules, or, regulatory instruments (‘public infrastructure’) are developed collectively by the users and by the public infrastructure providers. Together they negotiate contexts and meanings, order meanings and come to agreement on the distribution of costs and benefits. Rules and policies are formulated and affirmed upon these deliberations and decisions. Public infrastructure is therefore an outcome of stakeholder negotiation. In this way the stakeholders jointly influence the rules and the attributes of the rule-making process and shape the attributes of the resource to conform with their preferences. Perceptions of the public participation process are thus considered to affect behaviour of those who use or seek to use the resource.
    Table 4.1. Users perceive benefits differently and allocate different meanings to the benefits and the context.
    Plates 5.10 and 5.11. Indigenous fynbos recovering in lower Tokai following the removal of pine trees. (Photos: Ernita van Wyk)
    Table 4.5. Categories of Ecosystem Services (benefits) and their interpretations, based on the MEA (2003).
    Fig 6.2. Shared meanings and relational connectedness sustain collective identity in relation to a shared resource. I suggest in Fig 6.2 that high levels of relational connectedness, established through formal and informal processes, encourages stakeholders to identify with and develop a sense of belonging to the collective and commitment to the meanings held by the collective. When they do this they align public infrastructure and their behaviours with the values of the collective which contributes to maintaining system robustness and the ‘enduring structures’ that Cilliers (2006) envisaged as necessary for managing complex systems and in particular for devising purposeful and strategic adaptations to change. informal processes, encourages stakeholders to identify with and develop a sense of belonging
    Table 4.3. Fourteen categories of meanings relevant to ecosystem services (nature-based benefits) based on a literature review.
    Plate 5.13 (left) a sign for Tokai Forest before the change in public infrastructure. Plate 5.14 (right) a sign for Tokai Plantation after the incoming agency became the land manager of Tokai. (Photos: Ernita van Wyk)
    Table 3.1. The main historical events leading up to the transformation of the Tokai landscape from plantation forests to open heathland (Fynbos). 8 Suitability of Tokai as a case study
    Table 5.2. Summary of meanings associated with plantation forests, Fynbos and reduced meanings as a result of the permanent removal of pine trees from Tokai. Table 5.3. Summary of benefits associated with plantation forests, Fynbos and reduced benefits as a result of the permanent removal of pine trees from Tokai.
    Figure 1: A conceptual framework, adapted from Anderies et al. (2004), showing resource user behaviour driven by the experience of benefits as well as the regulatory instruments that are designed to reflect a prioritisation of meanings and the negotiated distribution of benefits.
    The Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) was established in 1998, amalgamating 25 000 ha of land on the Cape Peninsula previously under separate management by a number of different agencies and with insufficient coordination between them (www.sanparks.co.za). The TMNP falls entirely within the municipal bounds of the City of Cape Town (Fig. 3.1). TMNP is an open-access park, except for three points of entry where access and entry fees are managed. Access to Tokai Forest and Park is free to hikers but activities such as dog walking, mountain biking and horse riding require an ‘activity card’ for which membership carries an annual fee. Table Mountain National Park is the most visited of all of South Africa’s national parks (about 4.2 million visits annually). The Cape Peninsula (and TMNP) is situated within the Cape Floristic Region, which reflects high levels of botanical richness and endemism (Rebelo ef al. 2011). The relatively recent decision to permanently remove the pine plantations from Tokai prompted exchanges in the popular press in relation to the change. This observation encouraged me to explore the situation in Tokai as a potential case study. Plantation forests (mainly Pinus species) Table Mountain National Park is the most visited of all of South Africa’s national parks (about
    Table 4.4. Ecosystem Services (Benefits) Framework (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2003). The MEA framework enables us to conceptually link benefits (ecosystem services) to less tangible meanings within a defined landscape context. Ecosystem services have been categorized in a numbet of ways by various scholars (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2003; Hermann et al. 2011). For the purposes of this study I draw on the MEA framework to describe services (benefits) (Table 4.4) because it recognizes natural as well as human-modified ecosystems as sources of benefits and because this framework is explicit about tangible and intangible benefits. These elements are in line with this study’s aim to describe a range of benefits and to illustrate how changes in vegetation influence the supply of benefits and therefore the associated meanings and behaviour.
    Plate 3.2. A Google Earth image of the Tokai plantation in April 2014 (Sourced: 2 August 2014). The dark patches are remaining plantations. Pale-coloured blocks indicate where plantations have been permanently removed. were established in the late 1800s at Tokai. The extensive planting of conifers for timber production created a large area of shaded landscape. Whilst these forests primarily supported a timber-producing concern, the plantation landscape was also available for recreation, especially during the latter part of the 1900s. The shaded areas included slopes and level areas in the valley which drew different types of recreationists. Tokai also became popular because, for urban residents, it allowed access to an extensive recreation area without having to travel too far. Policy changes described later in this chapter, resulted in the recently initiated (2005) and currently ongoing permanent conversion from plantation forest to open (without shade) native heathland. The decision underpinning this transformation has some support but is strongly resisted by others. For this study, I purposefully situate the current issue (simultaneous support and resistance to landscape change) in an historical context. The aim was to explore how the evolution of user experiences over time, contributed to how meanings were constructed, developed and reinforced. The following sections provide an account of the historical Tokai landscape and events leading up to the present.
    At the time of its most extensive distribution, the Tokai plantation covered 610 hectares. Durin; the early days, much work in the plantation forests was done using horses and mules. Mule: were used extensively during this time to extract timber to the roadside, to cart wagons and, to lesser extent, to open fire breaks. Forestry staff used horses to visit various working teams in the plantation and to patrol the plantation to monitor illegal harvesting of forest products or wil« flowers. Later on, horses were also used for recreation in the plantation forest. During the winte months the Cape Hunt Club hosted drag hunts in the plantation. “These hunts were popular an¢ many people used to turn up to watch them. There were quite a number of riders and also lots o hounds to smell-out and chase the drag. And the Department would erect jumps for th horses at several points, always in the fire belts.” (Peter Good pers. comm.). Plate 3.10. Timber extraction with mules, Tokai 1948. With kind permission from Peter Good.
    Plate 5.1. A family walking with their dogs in a section of the Tokai plantation forest still remaining in 2013. (Photo: Ernita van Wyk)
    Plate 5.4 (left). Mountain bikers entering Tokai (Photo: Ernita van Wyk). Plate 5.5 (right). A mountain biker riding in a young Tokai plantation during 2004. With kind permission. “With mountain biking, we go through all those single tracks under the trees... Tokai is challenging from a mountain biking and running point of view... and it’s more interesting, with more paths... from a [horse] riding point of view. I actively choose to exercise in Tokai because of the cover.” (Interview 35) (Plates 5.4 and 5.5) *Piet van Zyl was plantation manager at Tokai from 1982 to 1994.
    Fig. 4.1. A conceptual framework linking benefits, behaviours, meanings and context to describe and interrogate user responses to landscape change.
    Plate 3.17 (left) Cars being parked by runners arriving for the annual 15 km Forest Run in the Tokai Forest (2012). Plate 3.18 (right). Horse-riders on the pathway between the plantation and the Fynbos (heathland) being restored, 2012. (Photos: Ernita van Wyk.) Plate 3.17 (left) Cars being parked by runners arriving for the annual 15 km Forest Run in the 3.5.3. Plantation forestry under pressure
    Plate 3.3 (left) and 3.4 (right): The green subspecies of Leucospermum conocarpodendrum, or tree pincushion, a tree-like shrub 3-5 m tall is said to have been a dominant species in the Tokai area. (Photo: Alice Notten, SANBI, Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens) uses were brought to the Tokai area during colonial times. Current understanding of what vegetation would probably have occurred there comes from various sources. William Purcell compiled a comprehensive plant species list from the farm neighbouring Tokai, ‘Bergvliet’, from 1915 to 1919 and this is used to inform current vegetation restoration efforts (Hitchcock ef al. 2012). Attempts are currently being made to document a more comprehensive collection of historical information on the cultural and ecosystem characteristics of the Tokai area. Historical evidence suggests that pockets of afromontane forests would have been present but confined to he valleys by fires (Anderson & O’Farrell 2012), and that the rest would have been Fynbos heathland) with substantial populations of ‘kreupelhout’ pincushions, i.e., Leucospermum conocarpodendrum (Plates 3.3 and 3.4).
    Plate 3.12 (left) and 3.13 (right). Timber products (left: Eucalyptus logs and right: pine logs) from Tokai during the 1960s. With kind permission from Piet van Zyl, Tokai plantation manager 1982-1994.