Successes and failures reported in a multiscaled framework constituted by biophilic projects engineered toward environmental recovery

Abstract

The process of landscapes' fragmentation has led to having two realistic complementary options: (a) developing techniques and approaches for conserving the healthy remaining forest fragments and (b) restoring degraded places. The second option can be conducted by projects that focus on restoring or rehabilitating the degraded environment. In this research, a framework was tested through a set of pilot-scale projects in a highly urbanized Municipality of the southeastern Brazilian region (Sorocaba, São Paulo State). Four projects were carried out in order to test the efficacy of techniques devoted to solving different problems of environmental degradation (isolation of fragments, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, and bioinvasion) in different environments (terrestrial [forested and nonforested] and aquatic [rivers]) through the acceleration and orientation of the process of restoration. Here, we show the main findings, discuss the potential and weaknesses found in each project, and offer some recommendations for future potential users. The projects are constituted of techniques and approaches that are all cheap, naturally based, and easy to be implemented and with a high probability of social comprehension and acceptance. In each project, we got interesting outcomes, considering all successes and limitations (for example, a high reappearance of vegetation in streams and strong control of soil erosion). This model embraces the main aspects of environmental recovering through a feasible, realistic, and socioecological approach, and it brings high potential to be used by other researchers and also for technicians and decision makers who search for feasible and realistic projects.