Abstract: The scientific term “ecological restoration” was originated in Western world in the early 1980s and introduced to China later on by some Chinese ecologists. The faithful and expressive Chinese translation for the term, however, has been still argued about both inside and outside the scientific fields of ecology in China from the beginning till now. To reach a more precise translation for the term, this paper has made three thorough comparisons about the term itself and its different Chinese translations. The comparisons included: one among the definitions and their evolutions from different sources and various periods in Western countries, one among the connotational explanations for its keyword “restoration” (or the verb form “to restore”) in retrospect with etymological viewpoints in traditional and contemporary dictionaries, with EnglishEnglish or EnglishChinese explanations, and the other among some expressions of the term excerpted from governmental websites, newspapers and authoritative speeches. Through those comparisons, it could be concluded that whether from the evolution towards the term itself or its connotational contents in the keyword restoration, and from the pure and applied scientific meanings or ecological engineering practices, the term “ecological restoration” should be translated as “sheng tai xiu fu” in Chinese. We believed that this translation for the term could not only satisfy the basic principles of faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance in translation and interpretation, but also be conducive to promoting and guiding the current actions and engineering implementation of ecological restoration practices in China.

Key words: afforestation and forest management, carbon leakage, net carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas emission