Goal-Oriented Restoration of Degraded Alpine Grasslands on the Tibetan Plateau: Rethinking Targets and Pathways

Grassland restoration is important for addressing ecosystem degradation and improving ecosystem services; however, the ultimate goal of grassland restoration, namely restoring degraded grasslands to a “healthy state”, lacks systematic and unified technical indicators. Focusing on the degraded alpine grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau, we critically examine the conceptual and operational dilemmas of the “healthy grassland” standard and argue that, when applied as universal standards, neither fixed-threshold criteria (e.g., vegetation cover, biomass, and diversity) nor reference systems based on pristine meadows can provide scientifically sound and practically operable restoration targets. Drawing on alternative stable state theory and the novel ecosystems concept, we propose a shift from reference-based to goal-oriented restoration, with restoration targets stratified and classified by degradation degree, site conditions, and stakeholder demands. Synthesizing published meta-analyses and representative cases from the Tibetan Plateau, we show that restoration outcomes differ markedly with measures, recovery time, and regional conditions, and we outline a tentative tiered goal system of ecological security, functional recovery, structural optimization, and sustainable management as a testable framework, combined with adaptive management to reconcile multi-objective trade-offs. We conclude that goal-oriented, classified restoration provides more realistic and operable indicators of the ecosystem services that restored grasslands can be expected to deliver.