ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the scholarship on ecological restoration law in order to better understand its methods, goals, achievements and other foundational dimensions. It explores the role of non-state actors in restoration governance, including to the level of individual landowners. The book describes how eco-restoration governance relates to its alternatives, within and beyond the field of restoration, and contributes to understandings of how legal scholars and practitioners can contribute to debates about these options in the active recovery and management of the biosphere. It examines how scientific knowledge is incorporated into eco-restoration standards and procedures, and the obstacles and opportunities to a better synergy between science and policy. The book highlights and critiques the multiple scales of eco-restoration, from the local to the global realms, with implications for how close governance is, and should be, to affected human communities and the recovering ecosystems.
