Restoring degraded ecosystems is crucial for human wellbeing and biodiversity conservation. Nowadays,
ecological restoration goes far beyond recovering a degraded ecosystem according to a historic reference.
Instead, more specific restoration goals are set, following global environmental strategies that are individually
highly important, but often conflicting. Furthermore, various pitfalls exist regarding the evaluation of ecosystem
degradation and, directly related to this, the question what is the most desirable ecological state of an ecosystem.
Ignoring such issues can lead to a failure of restoration projects and do more ecological (and social) harm than
good. A crucial aspect in tackling conflicting goals and circumnavigating restoration pitfalls is the considerate
choice of the indicators to assess ecosystem degradation and restoration capacity.
In this Perspective, grasslands and rangelands are used exemplarily for ecosystems with globally high restoration
demand. I discuss potential restoration pitfalls related to enhancing carbon sequestration, soil fertility, and
ecosystem service multifunctionality. For all three goals, strong trade-offs and unwanted side effects exist. For
example, while increasing carbon storage and restoring soil fertility are widely acknowledged environmental
goals, both can compromise other restoration targets such as grassland biodiversity and further ecosystem services,
depending on the specific context. Thus, there are no universally applicable indicators for ecosystem
degradation and restoration. Instead, indicator systems have to account not only for strong trade-offs among
restoration goals but also for a number of environmental and socio-ecological misconceptions, such as presented
for the case of grassland ecosystems.
I argue that one-sided goal setting and an imprudent choice of indicators can misguide the science-policy
dialogue and related restoration efforts. To avoid this, restoration programs must integrate holistic assessments
of their objectives across spatial scales and with all stakeholders concerned. The associated ecological
indicator system for restoration success and program performance must therefore also be based on multidisciplinary
and participatory approaches. Restoration and degradation indicators have to further ensure the target
ecosystem is correctly and comprehensively identified, and the manifold conflicting land management objectives
associated with heterogeneous human societies are taken into account. Researchers can assist this process by bydefault
considering the socio-ecological context of a restoration target and by identifying trade-offs arising from
potential solutions, before these are suggested to the public. Only when all these aspects are considered,
restoration projects at the local to global scale will result in long-term sustainable outcomes.