Environmental justice in ecosystem restoration frameworks

Ecosystem restoration projects are happening frequently around the globe, driven in part by an increased awareness of the importance of healthy ecosystems to humans. These projects play an important role in mitigating the negative environmental impacts that vulnerable communities face. However, no clear frameworks exist on how restoration can be developed in ways that explicitly prioritize environmentally just processes and outcomes. While some frameworks exist that include principles of engagement and the use of multiple knowledge types, there remains a need for the intentional and specific inclusion of environmental justice in restoration frameworks. Restoration frameworks are prescriptive models that provide steps to guide restoration efforts of researchers, activists, and governments. Here we present a systematic literature review of restoration frameworks that represent research conducted across the globe with restoration test sites from nearly every continent. The majority of restoration frameworks currently fail to incorporate justice principles into any phase of restoration, nor do they prioritize justice as a process or outcome. Environmentally just frameworks need to integrate multiple types of justice including recognition, procedural justice, and distributive justice, as well as community empowerment in decision‐making. To address the lack of these aspects in current restoration frameworks, we propose a novel framework that incorporates these key principles of environmental justice into the restoration planning and implementation process. The intentional incorporation of environmental justice practices into ideation, scoping, and implementation can greatly increase the benefits of restoration to vulnerable communities while fostering ecosystem health.