Forbes.com: Now THIS Is What We Call Green Jobs: The Restoration Industry 'Restores' The Environment And The Economy

Most people associate economic growth with expansion of the human built environment. Constructing more roads and more commercial and residential developments—“gray infrastructure”—means more jobs and a healthier overall economy.

However, increasing gray infrastructure often comes at a cost to natural ecosystems. For instance, over half of the globe’s wetlands, which provide “free” water filtration services, have been lost since 1900. As the global economy eliminates these mostly free services provided by nature’s “green infrastructure,” more “gray infrastructure” must be built to replace the lost ecosystem functions. What is almost entirely missing from the conversation is a detailed accounting of the economic output and jobs in the U.S. that are created through ecosystem conservation, restoration, and mitigation actions—the activities of what we will call the “Restoration Economy...”

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