Resistance and Restoration: A History of Ecological Restoration in the US and Canada

Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff AZ

Investigators

Abstract

Ignored for most of the past century, ecological restoration has developed rapidly during the past two decades. It is now widely understood to have a crucial role to play in the conservation of natural landscapes in settings ranging from urban parks to large wilderness areas such as national forests and parks. At the same time, it is gaining recognition as the basis for a new environmental paradigm with profound implications for conservation and the quality of life. At this point, however, there has been little research on the history of restoration, and no systematic exploration of the development of restoration during the period of its recent, and most dramatic development and acceptance as a conservation strategy. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of the development of restoration, providing an account of these recent developments and placing them in the context of earlier developments and the history of restorative forms of land management generally. Since the topic is a wide one, the study will concentrate on the development of restoration in the narrow sense of an attempt to restore all the attributes of an historic ecosystem or landscape, regardless of their interest or value to humans. This form, or mode of restoration--what Jordan and Hall have termed holistic restoration--is of particular intellectual merit because it provides a conceptual core or reference point for the evaluation of other, restorative forms of land management, and because emphasis on restoration in this form has been the distinguishing feature of the restoration movement of the past few decades. This study is also intellectually significant because a distinctive feature is its emphasis on the discovery of restoration as a context for the creation of value, including its value for the environment and its value as a research technique, of course, but also its value as a way of creating and transmitting transcendent values such as community, meaning and sense of place. An important aspect of the history of restoration was the considerable interval--roughly a half- century--between its "invention" early in the twentieth century and the discovery and self-conscious realization of its value during the closing decades of the century. This study will explore the ways in which the interacting and sometimes competing interests and perspectives of four subcultures--researchers, practitioners, decision makers and advocates for the environment--influenced the development and discovery of restoration. Since it is clear that practitioners played an important role in this process, and also that their contribution is seriously under-represented in peer-reviewed literature, the study will rely heavily on interviews to document developments of the past few decades. The study will help fill an increasingly obvious gap in existing accounts and current understanding of environmental history, providing the first systematic account of crucial recent development in this important field. The impacts of this study are broad, for it will provide an expansive historical perspective on restoration at a critical time in its development as a discipline. It will help clarify thinking about the identity and value of restoration and about its relationship with other forms of land management. It will also provide a basis and historical context for closer and more productive relationships among the interest groups involved in its ongoing development.