PAST AND PRESENT OF ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION IN THE VENEZUELAN CONTEXT

Ecological restoration as a discipline has became more visible in the last decades, after the creation of the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) and the subsequent creation of different local and regional networks, some of which have become established in several Latin-American countries. In Venezuela, despite having a high deforestation rate, restoration ecology has recently emerged as a strategy for recovering degraded lands, mostly being local initiatives or researching projects, while participation in regional networks of ecological restoration has been limited. A wider integration amongst public and private institutions, as well as NGOs, is needed, so that more ambitious initiatives with an ecosystemic approach may be set. Only in this way, this discipline may accomplish an active function of recovering the degraded lands in the country, and therefore, it is essential to strengthen the Venezuelan Network of Ecological Restoration.