Climate change and human activities have become a more important driver of the degraded ecosystem, which may lead to biodiversity decrease, productivity decline and habitat loss. How to restore degraded ecosystems for sustainable development has aroused great concern from the academic community. Thus, this paper assessed the current situation in the degradation in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and analyzed natural and human factors of ecosystem degradation. Furthermore, we reviewed the effectiveness and limitations and recovery mechanisms of the restoration approaches e.g., plant restoration, animal recovery and their combined remediation. It is concluded that indigenous organisms should be preferred by the analysis of their biological potential and fundamental niche under the regeneration in plants and animals, and the introduction of these species are mainly used by collecting provenance, improving wildlife habitat and building biological corridor. The invasive risk of alien species is introduced to ecosystems, and their adaptability and ecological function should be assessed. Meanwhile, plant-plant and/or plant-animal interactions such as the ecological niche, allelopathy and mutualism, and ecological memory should be utilized to restore former ecosystem structure and function.