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 Image credit: Flickr user slworking2 (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) 1559 words / 6-minute read Light pollution is increasing almost everywhere in the world. [1,2] We know that this has serious consequences for society and the environment. [3] Its rate of increase is faster than that of population growth in many countries. This implies that the rate of consumption of artificial light at night is growing. [1] Researchers think that this results from the lower cost of operating light-emitting diode (LED) lighting compared to earlier lighting technologies. If this is true, it undercuts the claimed environmental benefits attributed to the high energy efficiency of LED. We don't yet know what this means for differences in energy consumption, if indeed energy savings are offset by the growth of new lighting. We also know that harms associated with light pollution are reversible. It does not persist in nature like other forms of pollution. When we deploy proven solutions, we see the reductions in light pollution that we expect. [4] Through concerted efforts, we can imagine a future in which it reduces in intensity according to predictions. This is not only limited to slowing the further growth of light pollution. Activists are beginning to talk about 'restoring' natural nighttime darkness in some places. But what does this mean, and what would the world look like if it were successful? This month we look at the notion of nature restoration and what lessons the broader conservation movement has for dark-skies advocacy. What is "nature restoration"?When we talk about 'restoring' nature, it's important to agree on what that term means. It is often discussed in the context of another word, 'rewilding'. It refers to reverting to environmental conditions resembling those that existed before human manipulation. One finds the term applied often in situations in cities where removal of development traces encourages natural processes to return. [5] It is important to distinguish rewilding from another kind of restoration referred to as "Nature-based Solutions". [6] The International Union for the Conservation of Nature defined this term in 2006 as "actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural and modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously benefiting people and nature." [7] But it's not always synonymous with ecological restoration. In contrast, one definition of 'ecological restoration' is "assisting in the recovery of ecosystems that have been degraded or destroyed, as well as conserving the ecosystems that are still intact". [8] The authors who suggested the definition argue that the rising use of the term 'Nature-based Solutions' "may partially be a rhetorical response to shifting priorities and terminology by funders of research and practice". Yet they say that Nature-based Solutions "reflect a genuine commitment to achieving societal benefit." While the terms are distinct, they "are similar and can be mutually supportive." Why does this matter? Some scholars have criticized Nature-based Solutions as a relic of colonialism or even a form of greenwashing. [9] It centers humans, in the sense of achieving social benefits, over any intrinsic value nature may have on its own. It relies on truly sustainable environmental management, which is rarely achieved in practice. It also implies that humans won't conserve something unless they value it, presumably for selfish reasons. In this sense, it follows the implications of a famous quotation from the Senegalese forest engineer Baba Dioum. In 1968, Dioum said "In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught." [10]  A common approach to ecological restoration: a designated rehabilitation area is signed with the intent of keeping visitors out while rewilding occurs. Photo by Steve Hillebrand (U.S. Fish and WIldlife Service), public domain. Dark skies: 'restoring' nature, or a 'Nature-based Solution'?All these ideas proceed from the assumption that there is some value to nature restoration, whether for humans or nature itself. Appeals to human wants and needs may be a means to an end in this regard. Dark-sky advocacy often focuses on the purported human benefits of improved outdoor lighting, such as security, public safety, human health and more. While advocates also point out the harm that light pollution poses to ecosystems, they tend to frame the argument in a way that caters to human motivations. Examples of this include focusing attention on so-called 'charismatic megafauna' like sea turtles or nocturnal insects that pollinate food crops. In this sense, advocacy efforts seem to align with Nature-based Solutions as a matter of pragmatism. Efforts to bring dark night skies back to areas affected by light pollution usually take the form of "landscape scale nature restoration". The Scottish Nature Agency defines this term to mean "land managers working together to restore nature on a large scale, across multiple land holdings and resulting in multiple benefits for nature and people." [11] It further suggests that "this approach is more effective at achieving environmental, economic and social benefits than working in isolation, on smaller, single sites." DarkSky International has pursued this for years through its International Dark Sky Places program. [12] The program can be described as Nature-based Solutions with two main goals. First, it aims to increase public awareness of light pollution and reward participating sites for taking steps to address the issue. The second goal — restoring natural nighttime darkness over typically large geographies — is more outcome-based. The evidence for success in achieving the restoration goal is mixed. [13,14] In recent years it has put increasing emphasis on cities as a source of both problem and solution. Through new designation categories like its "Urban Night Sky Places", it advances the idea that restoration of darkness in more distant sites depends on changes in the lighting of cities. But this approach is still so new that we don't yet know if it works as advertised. Would a stronger appeal to Nature-based Solutions still result in meaningful restoration of dark skies? One might look toward Attention Restoration Theory for clues. It holds that a connection exists between access to nature and total human wellbeing. [15] But for one thing, we don't know for certain whether the natural nighttime space is a "restorative environment". It's also unclear whether experiences in nighttime darkness helps move the needle on nature restoration initiatives. That's particularly true given a broad (and maybe innately human) fear of the dark that stokes hesitation toward some nighttime restoration initiatives. It might be an obstacle to moving people to care about this aspect of nature to the point where they would give up something else they valued to protect it. Other social concerns can override the human valuation of natural spaces. A recent example is the U.S. migrant detention center popularly known as "Alligator Alcatraz". In mid-2025, this facility opened at a disused airstrip in Big Cypress National Preserve, a federally protected land in south Florida (and an International Dark Sky Park). Aside from concerns about light pollution due to detention activities at the site[16], activists alleged other environmental harms that were not subject to review or meaningful oversight. One might well ask whether the American public would have accepted this activity in a higher-profile U.S. national park like Yosemite or the Grand Canyon.  Daytime and nighttime aerial images of the U.S. federal migrant detention facility in south Florida known informally as "Alligator Alcatraz". Photos courtesy of Ralph Arwood. To protect and restoreAlthough public attention to light pollution has risen steadily for decades, it is still climbing the "hill of awareness". We have identified a collection of best conservation practices, and there is some evidence for their efficacy. Yet we're a long way from implementation in many parts of the world because it's just not a priority for most of the public. This argues for a more top-down approach as compared to countries like the U.S., where outdoor lighting policy is distinctly local in flavor. At the same time conservation is often focused on larger landscapes where few people live. To not only slow the growth of light pollution around the world but also reverse the trend requires different ways of thinking. What about tying restoration to legal requirements? The recently enacted EU Nature Restoration Law aims to do so, obligating EU member states to develop plans to restore at least 30% of habitats in "poor condition" by 2030, 60% by 2040, and 90% by 2050. It even contains some language about light pollution. [17] For now the law is forward-looking, and we don't know if it will yield good results. Globally, the successful strategy may well instead be to "bend the curve" of light consumption per capita. That is the amount of light emitted in a territory per head of population. In earlier times, that figure seemed to be stable. The advent of LED, with its extreme energy efficiency, seems to have prompted its increase through what economists call "elastic demand". But human behavior proves difficult to change through heavy-handed regulation. Instead, the more appropriate goal may be to change the human relationship to ALAN. We recently wrote about a combination of hard and soft law in the form of so-called "lightshed management" as a possible approach. It sets targets for light pollution reduction while engaging in extensive community outreach to nudge people toward different behaviors in terms of how they use outdoor lighting. Here, too, the idea remains a theoretical one only for the moment. Without targets — preferably binding ones — it is going to be difficult to achieve true restoration of nighttime darkness. Considering the motives for restoration carefully and asking critically whom they benefit is an important step. The implementation best practices remain mostly to be determined. The stakes remain high if we do nothing, but our confidence in successful results once we apply suitable efforts is equally high. References
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