Undertaking ecological restoration requires imagination and insight, not because we invent the ecosystems but because many of the properties and processes are not immediately evident, particularly where sites are in various states of degradation. Of these properties and processes, capacity for natural recovery after disturbances is of great import to restoration; yet, because it is often cryptic, it is not as broadly appreciated as it needs to be for optimal outcomes.

As can be seen in this or any other issue of Ecological Management & Restoration or examining the published or unpublished literature generally, natural regeneration approaches are being increasingly recognized part of the ecological restoration toolbox, whether we are speaking of spontaneous regeneration that can occur ‘passively’ after degradation drivers are removed or assisted regeneration that can occur after often highly active intervention (Gann et al. 2019). But it wasn’t always thus. It has taken many decades for these implementation approaches – pioneered in on a range of continents by practitioners (Radi 1993; Shono et al. 2007; Ardill 2017) and by ecologists strongly embedded in on‐ground practice (Cairns et al. 1977; Winterhalder 1989; Polster 1989; Ludwig & Tongway 1996; Prach & Pysek 2001) – to even start to be given the attention they deserve. We need to ask why is this the case?

Without doubt one important explanation relates to the fact that, in every country subjected to waves of colonization, the colonizing communities worked hard, season after season, to suppress naturally regenerating ecosystems and replace them with their home country’s agriculture and horticulture. As local natural regeneration capacity (along with Indigenous knowledge) became diminished within the footprint of our impacts over the centuries that followed, so too has the evidence of this capacity of indigenous ecosystems and cultural knowledge relating to its management. We should not be surprised then, that the assumption is often made in restoration that agricultural and horticultural approaches are necessary, even when approaches that harness ecosystems’ intrinsic recovery capacity remain viable.

But there are other explanations. Even though numerous early‐to‐mid 20th century restoration ecologists drew attention to natural regeneration capacity it is fair to say that the implications of their work to practice has not been well translated or broadly taught at universities for a range of reasons. The most important of these reasons are that firstly, recovery capacity per se (Holling 1973; Westman 1978) has been confused by many teachers with succession (sequence of recovery), one of the first victims of cancel culture; secondly, Holling’s successors have (very productively) shifted the focus of resilience theory into a social‐ecological direction, but unfortunately drawing attention away from its underpinning biological mechanisms. It is only over more recent decades that practitioners and ecologists and practitioners have been calling for more attention to the importance of fostering natural regeneration capacity in guidelines for restoration practice (McDonald 2000; Shono et al. 2007; Chazdon 2008; Clewell & McDonald 2009; Evans et al. 2015; Chazdon et al 2017; Standards Reference Group SERA 2017). This is now coinciding with the emergence of styles of restoration – for example Rewilding (Perino et al. 2019) and Proforestation (Moomaw et al. 2019) – that particularly focus on us humans stepping aside for a while and allowing natural recovery to the extent possible prior to supplementing that with informed reintroductions.

The most persistent explanation for the shortfall in appreciation of natural regeneration‐based approaches, however, is the sheer cryptic nature of resilience mechanisms as mentioned earlier. Underground, underwater, overhead or nearby sources of recruitment require not only insight and imagination to ‘see’ but also a willingness and preparedness to look. To illustrate this, I will confess to a recent error of my own. At a restoration site where my colleagues and I have been successfully advocating for and applying assisted regeneration treatments to attain natural regeneration of natives (i.e. rigorous weed management following wildfire), I was recently considering boom spraying an adjacent buffer strip with a selective herbicide to reduce its potential to spread weed seed to the ‘good’ areas. The flowers of the dominant weed, Yellow Catsear (Hypochaeris radicata), were blindingly dominant; it was close to the holidays and I wanted a simple solution. It wasn’t until I started spot‐spraying the ‘good edge’ in preparation for the spray (at a time of day when the flowers of the weed had closed) however, that my eyes opened to the fact that this ~0.1 ha strip contained small but not insignificant abundances of 19 native species, with only seven weed species present. I have seen this numerous times before but was fooled by the predominance of the weed and my own busyness. Indeed, I have been frequently surprised by the extent natural regeneration potential can be severely masked by weed abundance and yet triggered by resilience‐based restoration approaches (see under ‘regeneration’ at www.emrproectsummaries.org).

Further important points need to be made on this theme. Restoration planners and practitioners have a lot to lose by pre‐emptively assuming that regeneration is not possible. Certainly reintroductions are an indispensable approach for species that cannot regenerate or are genetically limited; and it is likely native abundance can fast‐track site stabilization against weed. But sidestepping the process of first trying natural regeneration approaches risks losing two very important components of restoration – accuracy in diagnosing appropriate ecological targets and potential loss of project authenticity. In terms of accuracy, natural regeneration can provide evidence of the target ecosystem that previously occurred on the site as well as evidence of the suitability of particularly species to recruit under current environmental conditions, allowing improved accuracy in predicting what species might need reintroduction. In terms of authenticity, natural regeneration can help infuse projects with this elusive quality, so often lacking in projects that too readily adopt regional reference communities without considering local nuances. Such projects miss out on not only potential functionality of the species selected but also the continuity of relationship and sense of place between humans and the prior ecosystem, a continuity that can then persist into the future.

Technical reinstatement of an ecosystem is not the full story. In ecological restoration the action of reinstatement is strongly embedded in conservation philosophy which itself is about conserving relationship of human communities to native ecosystems. These relationships have occurred through human partnership with the rest of nature over millennia – relationship which is very often central to our wellbeing as humans. Assisting regeneration, whether prior to or after reintroductions, can help us reinstate links to the prior ecosystem in a way that can allow it to adjust and evolve in the face of environmental change – and continue our relationship during this transition process.

Assisting natural recovery is about instilling a degree of humility into our thoughts and actions. Ecological restoration is biological decolonization, stepping back and providing space for ecosystems to recover on their own and assisting them to do so if that recovery potential is repaired. If we are talking about relationship with our local ecosystems, this needs to be done in tandem with cultural decolonization, engaging with Indigenous traditional owners and humbly supporting them to continue their practices of working together with the rest of nature to manage ecosystems, wherever that potential remains or can be assisted.

进行生态恢复需要想象力和洞察力，这不是因为我们发明了生态系统，而是因为许多特性和过程并未立即显现出来，尤其是在遗址处于各种退化状态的地方。在这些特性和过程中，干扰后自然恢复的能力对恢复至关重要。但是，由于它通常是神秘的，因此并未获得最佳效果所需的广泛了解。

从本期或任何其他期《生态管理与恢复》中可以看到，或者从总体上检查了已发表或未发表的文献，无论我们说的是“被动地发生的自发再生”，自然再生方法正日益成为生态恢复工具箱的一部分。在去除降解驱动物或辅助再生之后，通常在高度积极的干预之后可能会发生这种再生（Gann等人2019）。但这并非总是如此。从业人员（拉迪在开创了一系列大洲-它采取了数十年来对这些实施办法1993年，庄野等人。 2007 ; Ardill 2017年和强烈镶嵌在地面上的做法生态学家（凯恩斯）等。 1977年; 温特海德1989 ; Polster 1989年；路德维希＆Tongway 1996 ; Prach＆Pysek 2001）–甚至开始受到他们应有的重视。我们需要问为什么会这样？

毫无疑问，一个重要的解释与这样一个事实有关，即在每个遭受殖民浪潮的国家中，殖民地社区都一个接一个季节地努力工作，以抑制自然再生的生态系统，并用其本国的农业和园艺替代它们。在接下来的几个世纪中，随着我们影响范围内的当地自然更新能力（以及土著知识）的减少，与之相关的土著生态系统和文化知识的能力也得到了证明。那时我们不应该感到惊讶，即使在利用生态系统内在恢复能力的方法仍然可行的情况下，经常会在恢复时做出这样一种假设，即必须采用农业和园艺方法。

但是还有其他解释。尽管许多20世纪初至中叶的恢复生态学家提请人们注意自然再生能力，但可以说，由于种种原因，他们的工作对实践的影响尚未得到很好的翻译或在大学中得到广泛的讲授。这些原因中最重要的是，首先，恢复能力本身（Holling 1973； Westman 1978）被许多老师混淆为继承（恢复的顺序），这是取消文化的首批受害者之一；其次，霍林（Holling）的继任者已经（非常有成效地）将复原力理论的重点转移到了社会生态学的方向，但不幸的是，注意力已从其基础生物学机制上转移了。只是在最近的几十年中，从业者，生态学家和从业者一直在呼吁更多地注意恢复实践准则中培养自然再生能力的重要性（McDonald 2000； Shono等人 2007； Chazdon 2008； Clewell＆McDonald 2009；2009）。 Evans等人； 2015年； Chazdon等人 2017 ; 标准参考小组SERA 2017）。现在，这与恢复风格的出现相吻合，例如Rewilding（Perino等人， 2019年）和Proforestation（Moomaw等人， 2019年），它们特别侧重于我们人类走了一段时间，并在一定程度上允许自然恢复在知情的重新介绍之前补充它。

然而，对基于自然再生的方法欣赏不足的最持久的解释是，如前所述，弹性机制具有纯粹的神秘性。地下，水下，高架或附近的招募来源不仅需要有洞察力和想象力来“看到”，而且还需要有意愿和准备好去看。为了说明这一点，我将承认自己最近的一个错误。在一个恢复现场，我和我的同事们一直在成功地倡导并应用辅助再生处理来实现本地自然再生（即野火后进行严格的杂草处理），我最近正在考虑向喷杆喷洒相邻的缓冲带上的选择性除草剂，以减少具有将杂草种子传播到“好”地区的潜力。杂草的主要花，黄猫（Hypochaeris radicata（）占主导地位。假期临近，我想要一个简单的解决方案。直到我开始点喷“好边缘”以准备喷雾时（在一天中杂草的花朵关闭时），我的眼睛才睁开这个约0.1公顷的条包含19种本地物种的少量但并非微不足道的丰度，仅存在7种杂草。我以前见过无数次，但被杂草的优势和我自己的忙碌所迷惑。确实，我经常感到惊讶的是，自然再生潜力被杂草的丰度严重掩盖，却被基于复原力的恢复方法所触发（请参见www.emrproectsummaries.org的“再生”部分）。

关于这一主题，还需要提出进一步的要点。恢复规划人员和从业人员通过先发制人地认为不可能进行恢复，会损失很多。对于不能再生或受遗传限制的物种，肯定地引入是必不可少的方法。而且自然丰富的植物可以快速追踪对杂草的站点稳定。但是，回避尝试自然再生方法的过程可能会失去恢复的两个非常重要的组成部分–诊断适当生态目标的准确性以及项目可靠性的潜在损失。就准确性而言，自然再生可提供先前在该地点发生过的目标生态系统的证据，以及特定物种在当前环境条件下是否适合招募的证据，可以提高预测哪些物种可能需要重新引入的准确性。在真实性方面，自然再生可以帮助注入具有这种难以捉摸的质量的项目，因此常常缺乏太容易采用区域参考社区而不考虑当地细微差别的项目。这样的项目不仅错过了所选物种的潜在功能，而且错过了人类与先前的生态系统之间的关系和位置感的连续性，这种连续性可以持续到未来。

恢复生态系统的技术还不是全部。在生态修复恢复的作用强烈嵌入保护理念这本身就是对保护的关系人类社会对当地生态系统。几千年来，这些关系是通过人类与自然界的伙伴关系而建立的，这种关系对于我们人类的福祉而言通常至关重要。无论是在重新引入之前还是之后，都可以通过辅助再生来帮助我们恢复与先前生态系统的联系，从而使其能够面对环境变化进行调整和发展，并在过渡过程中继续我们的关系。

协助自然恢复就是在我们的思想和行动中注入一定的谦卑。生态恢复是生物非殖民化，它退后一步，为生态系统提供了自行恢复的空间，并在恢复潜力得到修复的情况下帮助它们进行恢复。如果我们在谈论与当地生态系统的关系，则需要与文化非殖民化同时进行，与土著传统所有者互动，并虚心地支持他们继续与自然界其他人一起管理生态系统的实践，无论有何潜力仍然存在或可以协助。