A 10-year ecosystem restoration community of practice tracks large-scale restoration trends

In 2004, a group of large-scale ecosystem restoration practitioners across the United States convened to start the process of sharing restoration science, management, and best practices under the auspices of a traditional conference umbrella. This forum allowed scientists and decision makers to interact in a new type of setting, with science being presented from a perspective that informed ecosystem restoration decisions, and decision makers articulating their decision needs in a manner that informed the types of science questions that needed to be addressed. From that beginning, a core ecosystem restoration practitioner group has formed a community of practice that continues to build and maintain momentum for this type of ecosystem restoration engagement. In the fall of 2013, this community of practice became permanently organized as the Large-scale Ecosystem Restoration Section within the Society for Ecological Restoration. Over the past decade, this community has evaluated and expanded upon ecosystem restoration themes ranging from defining and measuring success, adaptive management, adaptive governance, and linking science with management decision-making. Current and future themes include novel ecosystems, ecosystem goods and services, urban ecosystem restoration, and climate change and ecosystem resilience

Envelope.

Patent for a new and improved envelope. This design calls for "a projecting flap, to which the postage stamp or stamps may be attached in such a manner that the said stamp or stamps may be canceled by perforation (or by means of a punch or otherwise) without danger of injuring the contents of the envelope" (lines 14-19)

Urban wetlands: restoration or designed rehabilitation?

The continuing loss of urban wetlands due to an expanding human population and urban development pressures makes restoration or creation of urban wetlands a high priority. However, urban wetland restorations are particularly challenging due to altered hydrologic patterns, a high proportion of impervious surface and stormwater runoff, degraded urban soils, historic contamination, and competitive pressure from non-native species. Urban wetland projects must also consider human-desired socio-economic benefits. We argue that using current wetland restoration approaches and existing regulatory “success” criteria, such as meeting restoration targets for vegetation structure based on reference sites in non-urban locations, will result in “failed” urban restorations. Using three wetland Case Studies in highly urbanized locations, we describe geophysical tools, stormwater management methods, and design approaches useful in addressing urban challenges and in supporting “successful” urban rehabilitation outcomes. We suggest that in human-dominated landscapes, the current paradigm of “restoration” to a previous state must shift to a paradigm of “rehabilitation”, which prioritizes wetland functions and values rather than vegetation structure in order to provide increased ecological benefits and much needed urban open space amenities

Do Taxes on Large Firms Impede Growth? Evidence from

ABSTRACT Many developing countries pursue policies that impose different effective tax rates on firms of different sizes. For example, the self-employed, who account for large fractions of the workforce, may pay little or no tax, while larger firms pay higher tax rates. This paper uses a span-of-control model in the spirit o