concept

Alternative stable state

The same place, but an ecosystem that can stand in two entirely different configurations — and once it has flipped to the other, it does not flip back on its own. Kelp forests are the clearest case: lose the kelp and a three-dimensional forest full of juvenile fish and damped waves becomes a flat, low-productivity urchin barren. Adding a few kelp plants back is not enough, because the urchins are now abundant and eat the new growth. The new state reinforces itself. This is why "we will replant" is often not an answer to structural destruction.