Past Global Changes Magazine, vol.30, no.1

2021 marked the beginning of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, aiming to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. Honoring this important initiative, this issue of PAGES Magazine highlights the immense, and largely untapped, potential for synergy between paleoecology and restoration ecology. Examples illustrate the importance of paleoecology in establishing restoration “baselines” or reference conditions, determining the degree of anthropogenic impact, maintaining cultural landscapes, managing fire, and restoring missing ecosystem processes such as herbivory and pollination. This issue highlights opportunities to seamlessly integrate paleoecology and neo-ecology alongside other disciplines and knowledge streams, thereby contributing to the mainstreaming of long-term data into restoration ecology and biodiversity conservation.