It seems like the concept of novel ecosystems might fit.  Exotics cause all sorts of perturbations.  In the case of trees and other plants there is typically no way to get the genie back in the bottle.  Accepting this and managing for novel ecosystems (let's say forests) to provide the array of ecosystem services that are desirable.

I have a paper on my researgate list, Watershed restoration after calamity.  Perhaps it migh give you some ideas on efforts taken after significant events.

Good example can be found from Indonesian case. The details can be read from the book of Ecology of Java and Bali by Tony Whitten (1996) and also there is a person named Prigi Arisandi who received the Goldman Environmental Prize. He was showcasing the ability of an individual to recover the damaged water system in Surabaya, where waste water from both domestic and industrial system was not treated and was spilled to the local river. This not only damaged the natural ecosystem, degrading biodiversity, and caused many children to suffer cancer (60% of which cancer patients in the local city were children that lived in the river bank), but also reducing the river capability of delivering quantifiable amount of water in good quality. His approach was a holistic one, went into the local schools to teach children how dangerous it is to have waste water untreated. After this, he went to make a campaign and reported to local news, which then threatened the local government along the way and managed to bring all the involved stakeholders to the court. This was a deliberate action done by local government and the companies even though the regulation and environmental act was set. 

http://www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/prigi-arisandi/

It should also be more specific about which environment is considered as the ability of environment is different. There is a theory about this, the relation between disturbance and biodiversity, which is the intermediate disturbance hypothesis. One indicator to see whether an environment is recovered or not, is by using a bioindicator. Some disturbances can even promote biodiversity depending on the frequency of the disturbances. Floodplain for example, there are a lot of disturbances happening, between the anthropogenic one, or even seasonal flood. The organisms that live in the floodplain can then be used to indicate whether the environment is recovered even after any disturbances, because there is always a pioneering species that starts. Please refer to a paper from my Professor for bioindicator methods.