About Us
The Center for Ecosystem Restoration is a non-profit organization with the mission of revitalizing New England's communities and ecosystems through the practice of integrated environmental restoration--work which seeks to improve both the built and natural environment. Our goal is to chart a course for sustainable economic development, helping communities to prosper through work that improves the land, water, air, climate and biodiversity on which we all depend. CER doesn't compete with existing organizations; rather we seek to partner with other organizations--private, non-profit, and governmental; local, state and federal--to accomplish restoration.
Over the past decade, scientists and managers have developed new tools and approaches for restoring rivers, wetlands, shorelines, forests and other natural features of the American landscape. Grass-roots organizations, government agencies and academic institutions have demonstrated that, using these methods, decades—even, in some cases, centuries—of environmental damage can be repaired. The best among these projects improve communities as well as ecosystems: enhancing quality of life, building neighborhood economies and furthering environmental justice while benefiting fisheries, wildlife, and biodiversity. Funding sources for this work have increased dramatically—federal, state, corporate and foundation-based—as agencies and advocates have increasingly recognized the power of restoration to transform and improve the environment.
Many successful projects have already been completed in New England. Yet the scale and pace of restoration on the ground and in the water are limited by the availability of resources at the local level. Community-based organizations are in an ideal position to carry out restoration, but often lack the technical and administrative capacity to identify, plan and implement restoration projects that may cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Center for Ecosystem Restoration brings resources and capacity to bear at this critical local level—identifying, developing and completing projects; assisting community-based organizations; raising awareness; and providing information needed to accomplish restoration. Through this approach, we believe we can significantly improve the pace, scale and quality of environmental restoration in the Northeast, while demonstrating an organizational model that can be applied elsewhere in the region and around the country.