https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/
By 2030, it will be necessary to revegetate at least one billion hectares of land worldwide to reach the United Nation’s sustainable development goals. Canada has set an ambitious goal to conserve and revegetate 30% of the country’s land mass by 2030. As global leaders in sustainable resource development, the Canadian mining sector has a unique opportunity to contribute to these shared goals.
The goal of revegetation is to recreate a functional and diverse ecosystem that resembles the original pre-industrial conditions as closely as possible. Plant communities can be established through sowing seed, planting seedlings, or allowing the area to be recolonized slowly over time.
Planting seedlings is often impractical for larger sites due to the higher cost of plant materials, labour, and shipping. Allowing areas to recolonize naturally can be prohibitively slow, is often not in-line with compliance requirements, can inadvertently give invasive species an opportunity to dominate open sites, and may simply not be successful in sites with a long history of industrial use.
Sowing native seed, termed seed-based restoration, is often the only practical option for revegetation of larger sites. Seed-based restoration refers to the practice of sowing seed of varieties native or endemic to an area with the goal of recreating a functional and diverse ecosystem that resembles the original pre-industrial conditions.
For the rest of this article: https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/featured-article/restoration-harnessing-technology-to-improve-revegetation-outcomes/