Assessment Questions: Evaluate whether the essential ingredients for success are present in your community and situation.
A printable version of this tool to take into the field.
Across the communities where ecological restoration has taken hold, certain conditions show up repeatedly. Some are social: shared awareness of the problem, committed local leadership, the capacity to work through resistance. Others describe the relationship between community and ecosystem: memory of how things once were, diversity that provides options, a willingness to let nature recover on its own terms. EcoTipping Points calls these the Ingredients for Success.
The ten ingredients aren't a checklist to complete before you can act. They're a diagnostic lens. Some will be present in your situation; some will be weak or absent. Knowing which is which shapes what's possible and where to put your energy.
Each ingredient page helps you assess whether that condition exists in your community, identify strategies for building on what's already there, and decide how to respond when something critical is missing. Some ingredients need attention from the earliest fieldwork onward; others are most useful once your community has candidate interventions to test in Reverse It.
Each ingredient includes guidance on how to recognize it, amplify it if present, build it if absent, or work around it when necessary.
Communities that can draw on outside knowledge and support (without ceding control) move further faster.
A community's shared understanding of a problem and how to address it, including collective ownership and commitment.
Restoration efforts must work with both natural systems and community needs, creating mutual benefit that sustains itself.
Restoration takes years. Communities that succeed have people willing to stay committed through skepticism, setbacks, and slow progress.
Ecosystems know how to recover. The most powerful strategies don't fight nature; they get out of its way.
Using powerful symbols and rapid results to build and maintain community engagement.
Every restoration faces resistance. Communities that succeed find ways through it with strategy, solidarity, and persistence.
Diversity is insurance. Communities and ecosystems with more variety have more options and paths forward when conditions change.
The past holds blueprints. Communities and ecosystems that can draw on what worked before have a head start.
Success doesn't protect itself. Communities that build resilience are prepared for disruptions that will come.