Ecosystem degradation leads to a reduction of biodiversity and ecological goods and services. And now, within the last decades, restoration ecology has blossomed into one new discipline in order to recovering the degraded environment. This paper focuses on restoration ecology to introduce the background and development, to clarify related terminologies (such as restoration, rehabilitation, and reclamation), and to illustrate the gradual improvement of degraded ecosystem to facilitate the communication and application of restoration in science and management.