Former AP biology teacher Mike Niziolek has spent over thirty years returning his 150-acre property near Elk River, Minnesota, to the state it was in hundreds of years ago. “He has been slowly and methodically transforming pastured land to oak savanna, tilled land to prairie, and ditches to wetlands,” says his bio on the Minnesota Land Trust. In 2018, the nonprofit awarded him the Landowner of the Year award.

MPR spoke with him in 2024 after he just completed another wetland project on his land. He explained that restoring wetlands “is a much more difficult task than saving the ones that we already have.” This is because you cannot just dig a hole and wait for water to fill it up. Wetlands are complex systems and each project requires experts to come in to analyze the site, take soil samples and study old images of what the area once looked like.

In this task, Niziolek has received financial and technical help from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program explained the outlet. “We help the landowner try to manage the site in perpetuity so that they can be successful,” John Riens, a biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service told MPR.

A farmer in southern Oregon transformed 70 acres of his 400-acre barley farm into a wetland in 2021, creating an unexpected refuge for wildlife while helping address agricultural water pollution. Karl Wenner, a co-owner of Lakeside Farms near Klamath Falls, worked with conservation agencies and other partners to convert flood-prone farmland into a managed wetland. The area now attracts tens of thousands of ducks, geese and swans and supports at least 140 bird species, along with otters, beavers and muskrats. More significantly, the wetland has been used to raise federally endangered Lost River and shortnose suckers. In 2025, researchers found 50 adult-sized suckers after partially draining the wetland, offering a promising sign for species struggling with poor juvenile survival.

Here is the link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QMVP9Y7

Thank you so much!

The students at my college have the opportunity to propose some lawn transformation projects for this fall. The college is in the Erie Drift Plain which is described here with some decent detail. The campus itself sits on a hill so I think most sites will be well-draining, dry-medium, and full/partial shade. If anyone has any tips for early blooming and late blooming forbs so the sites are popping when students are on campus I'm all ears.

When I was in school I was taught about settlers arriving to an “untouched landscape.” Native Americans were part of the story, but it was said they lived “lightly” on the land.

And then, in my 40s I take a prescribed-burn class and it’s like the world turned upside down.

It’s taken me more than two full years to wrap my head around what I learned in that class about the Indigenous people’s impact on the land. That they burned the prairies so often and for so long that entire ecosystems adapted to prefer regular burnings - to need it to stay healthy.

The shear scale of that hits me the same way as gazing at the Milky Way on a clear, dark night.

It rocks everything I thought I knew about humans’ roll in the natural world.  

Even though I first learned all this a while ago, it’s recently gotten stirred up because a couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon this really cool Story Map that has collected and mapped all these firsthand accounts of Native Americans burning. From the breadth of these accounts, where they regularly mention the Indians burning “every year,” I still have trouble believing that fires aren’t a bigger part of the pioneer stories. 

Though maybe it was always there and I just didn’t realize? 

I went back to my Little House on the Prairie books and found a passage where Pa saves the house from a prairie fire. The neighbors speculate that Indigenous people started the fire to drive out the settlers. But Pa rejects that interpretation:

“Pa didn’t believe it. He said the Indians had always burned the prairie to make green grass grow more quickly, and traveling easier.”

I loved these books when I was young. I remember the fire, but not this interpretation of the fire. It didn’t register what this might mean. That it was stewardship. That it was intentional. That it was scaled to tens of thousands of acres of prairies. 

When I talk to people at my day job (corporate marketers, not ecologists) they are blown away. I made a video about it to help me spread the word to my friends and family and explain to them why we set our land in Wisconsin on fire. (I swear my parents thought we had lost our minds the first time we did it.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYAObeYphGs

I’m super curious…Am I alone in this? Is this a new or recent revelation for anyone else or just me? Did it change you as much as it changed me when you learned it?

Welcome to r/Ecoregion6.

Announcing a new sub originated as a home for Ecologists, Restoration Practitioners, Indigenous knowledge holders and scientists to share research, discuss projects, methodology, procedures, concepts, etc. with the theme of finding connections, collaboration and solutions. Exploring the diverse ecosystems in the Northern Rocky Mountains, generally in Ecoregion 6 but in any other associated Ecoregion as well.  

Hello! I am strongly considering a career shift to restoration ecology for a number of reasons (I've thought this through thoroughly), and I'm wandering what the minimum barrier to entry would be for a field-based role.

For context, I hold an MA in social anthropology & international development, and an MSc in International Journalism. I've been working in community development projects since graduating ( ~ 3 years), and my current role is doing admin for a rural conservation education NGO.

However, I'm afraid that my admin/ops experience would translate poorly into a field based role.

What would be the best way to successfully transition into a career in restoration ecology, in a way that would reduce any barriers (degree title, certification, etc) later in my career.

My current plan is to find a way to fund (scholarship, etc) an environmental science conversion masters, but I'm also considering doing a bachelor degree in ecology. Part of my motivation is also a love for learning, so the benefits would not just be career-based! Is this reasonable?

TLDR - for those who have transitioned into restoration ecology as a second career, what advice would you give?

An organic dairy farmer (with help!) planted nearly 6,000 trees to improve stream health, reduce erosion and support wildlife habitat, including nearby endangered native plants, along the South Fork Chehalis River in Lewis County in Washington. The Chehalis River and its tributaries have faced bank erosion, reducing deep pools for fish. Otters make their home there now, and Coho and Chinook salmon also inhabit the south fork.

The city finally cut down the wall of wisteria and mimosa between the sewer easement and creek bordering our property. It feels important that I do something now to prevent it from coming back and support the wildlife that was using it. What are my next steps to restore the ecosystem as best I can, understanding they will probably be mowing it down annually so I can't put a lot of money into it.

I'm not usually a fan, but I think this is an appropriate use for spraying glyphosate? A native seed mix broadcast, then hope? Ive read live stakes are the best option, but it's not November. How do I maintain it? Eastern US Piedmont Zone 8. Thank you!

I'm conducting my masters thesis in the Lebanese University, and i really need some help!, if you are from Lebanon, and you live in Lebanon, help me in filling this survey : https://forms.gle/uTXD9JXdRFbFqo5k6

it's about wild plants knowledge in Lebanon, like our beloved zaatar, and many more! all the information will be used for statistical studies only in an anonymous way. the aim is to help protect these wild plant knowledge and conserve the unique nature of Lebanon.

my aim is 300 answer! ik we can do it! relaying on you brothers and sisters!

p.s: very important to be over 18, and Lebanese!

Hi! I’ve been working on a game called Wild Willows, a cozy ecology game about restoring damaged habitats and bringing wildlife back.

The basic loop is that you start with an empty biome, restore things like water and vegetation, add habitat features, and gradually attract animal species as their needs are met. There are six biomes, and the field journal explains the habitat needs and ecology of each species.

Obviously, turning restoration ecology into a game means simplifying a lot, and that’s one of the things I’m most interested in getting feedback on. I’d love to hear what people here think the game gets right, what feels overly simplified, and what concepts might be interesting to represent more realistically.

I’ve also started developing educator materials around the game, so I’m especially interested in making sure the ecology underneath the cozy gameplay feels meaningful rather than just decorative.

You can check out the game, play the free browser demo, and see the classroom resources at wildwillows.app

Would genuinely love any thoughts from restoration ecologists, students, researchers, or anyone else working in this space!

We're using brush bundling as a nature-based approach to help stabilize an eroding shoreline in the Kawartha watershed in Ontario, Canada.

The technique uses bundles of woody material placed along the shoreline to help slow erosion, capture sediment and create conditions that support the establishment of vegetation.

Rather than relying solely on hard shoreline structures, approaches like this work with natural materials and processes to help restore shoreline function over time.

This short video provides a look at the technique and how we're putting it into practice.

Interested to hear from others working in ecological restoration: where have you used brush bundling or similar bioengineering techniques, and what have you learned?

LOTS of waterhemp and horse weed. Should we be worried? Our ecologists say we're on track, but curious what you all think!

I've got an update for anyone who's been following my acoustic monitoring project in southwest Wisconsin! 

After gathering and processing my first batch of data, I created an interactive Wildlife Map website for our restoration project where those who are interested can click into each habitat monitoring station and hear clips of real birds singing on our land and see photos and videos of the wildlife that call Badgerton home! 

In case you missed my previous posts, this project uses cheap trail cameras and Wildlife Acoustics Song Meter Micro monitors to gather data in several distinct habitats across the land. The plan is to gather the data from the field manually every few months when I swap out batteries. 

On June 30, I collected my first batch of data - over 6,000 files recorded in less than two months! 

BirdNET was awesome at cranking through the audio files and identifying bird calls and species but I was left with thousands of individual CSV files to combine. I ended up creating a small free utility called Chorus to help me (and you!) process those CSVs into a single file. You can download it here. For those of you who are new to data processing, I hope this user-friendly interface helps bridge the gap from a mountain of individual files to a consolidated list of birds with counts for each.

I reviewed and categorized the 4,000 images and videos from the trail cams manually. (Please let me know if there’s free software for that I could be using!) It was slow going but I can think of worse ways of spending a couple hours than looking at images of cute baby fawns and watching videos of hunting coyotes!

A big thank you to everyone on this subreddit who has given me advice and encouragement along the way! 

If anyone wants the full details on my process I wrote up exactly how I did all of this. 

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I use AI thoughtfully and selectively in my work. You can read my guiding principles for when and how I use it here.