# Special Issue on \"Ecotechnological Green Approaches to Environmental Remediation and Restoration\"
###### Abstract  
Ecological technology (or ecotechnology for short) is an ecofriendly technology used to develop sustainable ecosystems that integrate human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both [1; 2; 3]. It is evolving rapidly and has proved its potential in addressing a wide spectrum of environmental problems as well as the plethora of pathological symptoms, indicating the degradation of biophysical resources, which plague our planet today. It relies on ecosystem components and works in accordance with ecological principles in tackling environmental problems and improving both the health of the ecosystem and human wellbeing [4; 5; 6]. Within ecotechnology, there is a commitment to using ecological principles and the complexity of living communities and ecosystems alongside technology to solve environmental problems, as opposed to depending on chemical, mechanical, or material technologies in problem solving, as is the case in environmental engineering [7; 8]. Most conventional engineering processes seek to force their designs onto nature, even contradicting the essence of nature and damaging the fabric of her life. We can identify some problems associated with environmental engineering relying primarily on cleaning up pollution; firstly, it functions only as a 'quick fix'. Secondly, it may be deemed a'shell game' being played with pollution, akin to removing one pollutant from the environment only to cause pollution somewhere else. The living library of nature--i.e., biodiversity comprising countless species of plants, animals, and microorganisms--is really an immense inventory of living tools and functional units of ecotechnology that can be used for reducing pollution loads, toxicant removal, contaminant remediation, biofuel synthesis, land reclamation, erosion control, wastewater treatment, bioregenerative reclamation, carbon sequestration, sanitization, etc. [9; 10; 11; 12]. The diversity and best mix of species within new ecosystem designs represent a challenge for ecotechnologists. Ecotechnology advocates for bioremediation of contaminants through biodegradation or biological metabolism by minuscule microbes and other biological agents [13; 14]. Ecotechnology tries to test the'microbial infalling' that states that no natural organic compound is totally resistant to biodegradation subject to appropriate environmental conditions. Ecotechnological methods mean to reduce the ecotoxicity of man-made synthetics/xenobiotics to the environment and facilitate the eco-assimilation of those compounds into ecological cycles, thus reducing the amounts of hazardous residues that otherwise end up in cost-intensive landfill and incineration facilities [15]. Ecotechnological processes help in reducing the ecological footprint of human waste and in combating global warming and climate change; they are carbon-positive, nitrogen-positive, low-cost, user-friendly and eco-friendly. Restoration of degraded ecosystem relies on the art, intuition, and scientific and objective knowledge of ecotechnologists [16; 17]. The following ecotechnological approaches can be adopted to address different environmental problems: (1) Ecosystems are used to reduce or solve a pollution problemthat would otherwise be harmful to other ecosystems; some examples of these systems are wastewater treatment and phytoremediation. (2) Ecosystems are imitated or copied to reduce or solve resource-related problems; some examples of these imitations are replacement wetland and forest restoration. (3) The recovery of ecosystems is supported after significant disturbance through processes such as lake restoration and mined land restoration. (4) The recovery of ecosystems is modified in an ecologically sound way to solve a given environmental problem; some examples of recovery processes are biomanipulation and selective timber harvest.