Abstract: To curb unceasing degradation of the ecosystem,the Chinese government has implemented a series of critical ecological restoration projects, which have played or are playing important roles in guaranteeing regional ecological security and sustainable development. However, in the past these ecological restoration projects were mostly ecological–problem oriented, giving little attention to ecological functions, thus resulting in poor joint connection between ecological restoration and regional coordinated development in some aspects, which in turn impeded these projects to bring into full play their ecological and economic benefits. Hence, ecological restoration in China should get to be ecological function-oriented rather than ecological  problems-oriented and set the restoration of ecological functions as the major goal of the ecological restoration of the country. In order to improve  benefit of the ecological restoration and effectively enhance the capability of the ecosystem of producing ecological products, it is essential to integrate ecological restoration projects sponsored by various government departments in China, set up a scientific decision-making system for ecological restoration projects, and build up a  dynamic evaluation system for appraising ecological function-oriented ecological restoration projects.

Key words: ecological project, ecological function restoration, restoration goal, ecological product