As the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration launches into action, urgent attention is needed to the power and politics that shape the values, meanings, and science driving restoration, to enable the creation of equitable restoration initiatives. In this webinar, we adopt a feminist political ecology lens, with a focus on gendered power relations, historical awareness, and scale integration, to examine the socio-political and economic dynamics of restoration. We demonstrate the potential of such a perspective for thinking about the social inclusivity of restoration agendas and initiatives, and demonstrate its applicability to different restoration contexts.

We bring this perspective to life through three case studies published in a special issue of Ecological Restoration that asks: “Restoration for Whom, by Whom?”. The first case, based in Kenya, shows how attention to power relations is needed to create more equitable Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes. The second, which focuses on the restoration of an urban lake in Bengaluru, India, demonstrates the importance of taking a historical perspective to understand equity considerations in restoration. The last shows the importance of conducting multi-scalar analyses to promote inclusion in and through restoration, using wetlands restoration as an example. Together, these present more grounded and nuanced ways forward for inclusive restoration initiatives.