Landcare Revegetation :: essays research papers

Rehabilitation is the process of recl asking land for economical orconservation purposes. This process usu solelyy involvesre-vegetation. The main aim in rehabilitation is to either return theland to a self-sustaining ecosystem or prepare the land for humanuse, i.e. crops, pastures and plantations. Rehabilitation should pull in ones hornsplace at a rate that is significantly higher than natural succession.Several principles are implemented for successful rehabilitation. Ofthese principles entangles the need for preventing disasters andanticipating problems before they arise, if this is taken to shape then rehabilitation willing be less costly and troublefree. When rehabilitating a site, all the components making up theecosystem need to be looked at individually. They include imperfection,climate, vegetation, time and animals. These components need tointeract at certain rates in order for the desired effect to beachieved and so might need to be altered. There are otherprinciples of rehabilitation, which will be discussed, in greaterdetail. There are many methods and strategies involved in rehabilitationwhich, are proper(postnominal) to a site. In this case, surface mine reclamationand farmland will be looked at. A step by step illustration of theprocesses involved will be covered. When rehabilitating mine land,it is important to first prepare a plan before mining takes place.Researching and obtaining data on the floral and faunal elementsof the ecosystem by conducting surveys of the upper, mid andunder-story species present. If the aim is to restore the land to itsoriginal ecological balance and to conserve the species present,then further studies should be conducted on the ecology of thenative species, i.e. inseminate biology of all species. Propagationtechniques and the order of re-establishing species should bestudied. When rehabilitation work was conducted on the bauxitemines in the southwest of W.A., special research was conductedon the germination requirements of sown seed. The aim in this case was to re-establish a self-sustaining forest,which maintains water, timber and all the valued qualities of forest.The timing component was carefully considered when removingtopsoil in summer to ensure maximum seed store this was achievedwhen the forest was cleared after seed set took place. Handseeding was done soon after ripping in order to ensured that theseeds other propagules were healthful established before germination.When conducting mining operations it is generally desirable thatrehabilitation work takes place at the same rate as mining occurs. The soil component in this case needs to be removed in layers(topsoil and overburden) and stock piled during the miningprocess. The topsoil is very important because is contains most ofthe seed, propagules and micro-organisms which are mandatory for