Restoration in the Anthropocene: reconsidering the primacy of “native ecosystems”

Abstract The third edition of the Society for Ecological Restoration's International Principles and Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration places recovery of “native ecosystems” at the center of what counts as legitimate ecological restoration. Here I argue that, in the Anthropocene, this emphasis reflects a value‐based choice rather than an ecological inevitability. Ongoing climate change, biological invasions, and marine/land use changes are producing novel ecosystems across large areas of the planet, many with no historical analog and no realistic pathway back to a native state. A framework anchored in historical fidelity risks setting unattainable targets, being least useful in the highly altered landscapes where intervention is most urgently needed, overlooking functionally valuable novel ecosystems, and remaining conceptually static despite highly dynamic ecological realities. In turn, I propose that restoration ecology should adopt a pluralistic framework built around four complementary pathways: recovery of native ecosystems where feasible; transformation toward climate‐resilient assemblages; stabilization or enhancement of valuable novel and hybrid ecosystems; and functional restoration within human‐dominated landscapes. This approach retains native ecosystems as an important benchmark while broadening the criteria for restoration success to include ecological function, resilience, and societal value under changing environmental conditions. The intent is not to relax standards but to make ecological trade‐offs explicit, and to expand restoration's relevance across the full spectrum of ecosystems shaped by the Anthropocene.