0262083167.MIT Press - Nature by Design - Higgs, Eric - Mar.2011

Nature by Design
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Nature by Design
People, Natural Process, and Ecological Restoration
Eric Higgs
The MIT Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any
electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or informa-
tion storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Sabon by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong and
was printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Higgs, Eric S.
Nature by design : people, natural process, and ecological design / Eric Higgs.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
SBN 0-262-08316-7 (hc. : alk. paper)—ISBN 0-262-58226-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Restoration ecology. I. Title.
QH541.15.R45 H54 2003

333.7¢153¢—dc21
2002040783
To the Society for Ecological Restoration, an organization in which
activists rub shoulders with scientists, theory meets action, and
hope overtakes despair
Contents
List of Figures xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
Outline of the Book 9
1 A Tale of Two Wildernesses: Jasper National Park, Meet Disney
World 15
The Bear in the Kitchen 16
The Palisade 22
A Landscape of Threats 27
Freak Landscapes 35
Restoring an Idea or a Place? 40
Wilderness as Theme 46
Colonizing the Imagination 49
Celebration? 52
One Wilderness or Two? 55
2 Boundary Conditions 59
Florid(ian) Images 59
Meandering Ambitions: The Kissimmee River (Florida)
Restoration 64
Beyond the Ecological Curtain: The Morava River Restoration,
Slovak Republic 68
Gardening or Restoration? The Robert Starbird Dorney Garden,
Ontario, Canada 73
Normal History 78
Contingency and Ideals 82
viii Contents
3 What Is Ecological Restoration? 93

Words and Taxonomy 96
The Duck Test 101
A Legacy of Definitions 107
Process and Product 110
Assisted Recovery 112
Management 116
Historical Range of Variability 118
Sustainable Cultural Practices 119
Ecological Integrity 122
The Evolution of Words and Worlds 124
4 Historicity and Reference in Ecological Restoration 131
Photographing the Past 132
Nostalgia 143
Narrative Continuity 145
Place 148
Time Depth 154
Reference Conditions 158
Taking History Seriously 170
5 Denaturing Restoration 179
Lines across the Path 179
Commodification 188
A Taut Line: What Kind of Science Do Ecological
Restorationists Require? 195
The Commodification of Nature 203
The Commodification of Practice 206
The Promise and Problems of Ecological Restoration 214
6 Focal Restoration 225
Discovery Island 226
Ecocultural Restoration 236
Focal Restoration 241
Ritual and Restoration 249
Participation in Restoration 255
Landscape Coevolution 259
Contents ix
7 Nature by Design 265

Remembrances of Landscapes Past 265
The Ambiguity of Design 270
Wild Design 277
Restoration as Conversation: A Storied Landscape 285
Notes 291
Bibliography 321
Index 335
List of Figures
1.1 Map of Jasper National Park 19

1.2 View of the town of Jasper from Old Fort Point 30
1.3 View of Talbot Lake from Mount Cinquefoil 32
1.4 Paired mosaic showing prominent changes in vegetation 34
1.5 View of the upper Athabasca Valley from Mount
Esplanade 37
3.1 Proposed taxonomic relationships for ecological restoration 98
3.2 Two scales: ecological integrity and historical fidelity 127
4.1 Example of photographic cartography 134
4.2 Portion of 1915 topographic map 135
4.3 Paired photographs from Powerhouse Cliff 138
4.4 The past and future shown as two related continuums 147
4.5 Four sources of reference information 166
4.6 Paired ground-level photographs 168
5.1 Expanded conception of ecological restoration 221
6.1 A model of ecocultural restoration 238
6.2 A model of landscape evolution 261
7.1 View of the town of Jasper facing north from
Whistler’s mountain 268
7.2 The four keystone concepts of good ecological restoration 271
Acknowledgments
This book had its first glimmer in 1990 on a city bus in Vancouver.
Langdon Winner and I were playing hooky from the Moral Philosophy
and the Public Domain conference. I was telling Langdon about my
ideas on ecological restoration, and how the meanings of restoration
and nature were shifting as restoration became an increasingly techno-
logical practice. He said, “Why don’t you write a book on the subject?”
It took another five years before the ideas and circumstances fell
into place.
The project began when I was a visiting scholar in the Science, Tech-
nology and Society Program at MIT in 1995. I am grateful to MIT
professors Leo Marx and Kristina Hill (now at the University of
Washington), Harvard professor Larry Buell, and Wesleyan professor
Joseph Rouse. Work continued in 1996 at the Maurice Young Center
for Applied Ethics. Michael MacDonald, Michael Burgess, and Peter
Danielson contributed to a superb intellectual atmosphere for writing.
The book would have been finished sooner had an utterly compelling
field-based project not arisen. I spent four summers in the field, the
last two ascending mountains in Jasper National Park with Jeanine
Rhemtulla to repeat a series of over 700 survey photographs from 1915.
Needless to say, this clambering ate into the writing of the book, but
I think both I and the book are richer for the experience.
The big pieces of the book came together during a six-month sab-
batical leave in 2000 in the School of Environmental Studies at the
University of Victoria. I was surrounded by people concerned with
restoration in one form or another, including Don Eastman (director of
the Restoration of Natural Systems program), Brenda Beckwith, David
xiv Acknowledgments
Bodaly, Cheryl Bryce, Kim Chambers, Wendy Cocksedge, Patricia

Edmonds, Ann Garibaldi, Trevor Lantz, Lehna Malmkvist, Carrina
Maslovat, Nancy Turner and Paul West.
My institutional base from 1990 to 2001 was the University of
Alberta. I was given the opportunity to do interdisciplinary research and
appreciate the generosity of many colleagues: David Anderson, Pamela
Asquith, Dave Cruden, Linda Fedigan, Milton Freeman, Harvey Friebe,
Jim Hoover, Steve Hrudey, Ron Kratochvil, Hank Lewis, Peter Murphy,
and Carl Urion.
Graduate students have been a constant source of inspiration: Claudio
Aporta, Trish Bailey, Ausra Burns, Craig Campbell, Jennifer Cypher,
Ginger Gibson, Lori Kiel, Christina Lindsay, Tricia Marck, Lisa
Meekison, Nickie Miller, Carol Murray, and Gaby Zezulka-Mailloux.
Jenaya Webb deserves special thanks for her unstinting help with logis-
tics, lab and office management, and problem solving. Trudi Smith
helped in the preparation of the illustrations for this book.
Present and former staff in Jasper National Park helped at many points
along the way: Peter Achuff, Jeff Anderson, Cynthia Ball, Jim Bertwistle,
Kim Forster, Ben Gadd, Paul Galbraith, Alex Kolesch, Rick Kubian,
George Mercer, Leigh Pitoulis, and Mike Wesbrook.
I have benefited from conversations with fellow members of the
Society for Ecological Restoration, including James Aronson, Andrew
Bergen, Tony Bradshaw, Andy Clewell, Wally Covington, Don Falk,
George Gann, Steve Gatewood, Marc Hall, Bill Halvorson, Steven
Handel, Jim Harris, Donna Havinga, Kristina Hill, Andrew Light, Nik
Lopoukhine, Dennis Martinez, Jonathan Perry, Edith Read, John Rieger,
Ted Shear, Julie St. John, and Kellie Westervelt.
Financial support for this project was provided by several grants from
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada,
fellowships from the Maurice Young Center for Applied Ethics, and a
Lansdowne lectureship at the University of Victoria.
James Aronson, Brenda Beckwith, Albert Borgmann, Cheryl Bryce,
André Clewell, Don Falk, Marc Hall, Alex Kolesch, Ian MacLaren,
Jeanine Rhemtulla, Nancy Turner, Viv Wilson, and Anne Wong read
chapter drafts. I am grateful also to three MIT Press reviewers who
offered good advice for honing the final version.
Acknowledgments xv
Staff at MIT Press were a pleasure to work with, and I appreciate in

particular Clay Morgan, Sandra Minkkinen, and Elizabeth Judd. A few
deserve special mention for their pivotal role in helping me develop this
work. I have already mentioned Langdon Winner for his advice on fusing
technology and nature studies. Albert Borgmann has been a mentor since
graduate school, and his theories of technology are central to my argu-
ments. Dick Buchanan pressed me on issues of design. Larry Haworth,
who along with Robert Dorney cosupervised my doctoral studies on
landscape change and technological society, stepped in after Dorney’s
sudden death in 1987 and ensured the completion of my dissertation.
Haworth’s ideas show through in this book, too, and I will never forget
his kindness and professionalism. William Jordan encouraged my earli-
est writings on restoration and bolstered my courage in making contro-
versial claims about restoration. Ian MacLaren taught me about good
scholarship and faith. Jeanine Rhemtulla, an ecologist with whom I
climbed so many mountains in Jasper National Park, listened, read,
and understood my synthesis—this was a true gift. David Schindler,
my partner for almost a decade in a joint graduate seminar at the
University of Alberta, taught me about ecology, good science, and
scientific activism. Nancy Turner shared her wisdom about ethnobotany
and the cultural dimensions of ecological restoration. Sheila Gallagher
and her family offered much to the early stages of this project with hos-
pitality and support. I finished the writing at Berkenfels, near Ottawa,
the family cottage of Stephanie Cairns, and my book was not the first to
be completed in that loving, magical place. David and the late Isabel
Higgs, my parents, and Sally Thornton, who has been a second mother
to me, never wavered in their support. I am, all in all, very fortunate.
Introduction
Many environmental books begin with a desperate attempt to convince

us that we are either not sufficiently aware of the problems facing us
or are not acting effectively to correct them. This one takes a different
approach. I presume that everyone who picks up this book is doing so
because they are searching for a better path, away from the problems
and also from the habits of thinking that make those problems so
intractable in the first place. You would be unlikely to turn to this book
if you thought all was well.
Ecological restoration is about making damaged ecosystems whole
again by arresting invasive and weedy species, reintroducing missing
plants and animals to create an intact web of life, understanding the
changing historical conditions that led to present conditions, creating or
rebuilding soils, eliminating hazardous substances, ripping up roads, and
returning natural processes such as fire and flooding to places that thrive
on these regular pulses. Interest in restoration has exploded in the last
few years, following a gradual buildup of interest and expertise in past
decades. The Society for Ecological Restoration, the lead international
organization promoting restoration, was formed in 1987. The roots of
restoration dig deep into cultures around the world, and restorationists
are just beginning to learn how much is possible when we put our minds
and hearts to the task of undoing the mistakes of the past.
In studying and practicing restoration I have learned of profound cul-
tural shifts accompanying the ecological work. Thousands of restoration
projects take place in North America every year. Many are community-
based efforts that rely on volunteer support. The act of pulling weeds,
planting, configuring a stream bank to match historical characteristics,
2 Introduction
or participating in a prescribed fire that returns an old process to the

land helps develop a ferocious dedication to place. By investing labor
one becomes part of that place. I live on the west coast of Canada, in
Victoria, British Columbia, and there is nothing quite so rewarding for
local restorationists as learning that salmon have returned to spawn
in a stream long dormant. There is more than technical proficiency in
achieving these results. To restore a run of salmon means changing
the structure and ecological characteristics of a stream, but it also
entails reconfiguring the economic conditions and land-use practices
that determine the amount of silt ending up on the spawning beds as
well as the social relationships that make up the economy. To change
one thing in a complex system, as all of us have learned, means chang-
ing the whole system. In some ways I find the cultural dimensions of
restoration as exciting as the ecological ones. By restoring ecosystems we
regenerate old ways or create new ones that bring us closer to natural
processes and to one another. This is the power and promise of ecolog-
ical restoration.
Critics worry that restoration will dilute our efforts at preservation
and conservation and lead to an even deeper technological attitude
toward nature. For the most part the problem of dilution is turning out
not to be substantial. Some environmentalists opposed restoration voci-
ferously in the early days of the Society for Ecological Restoration (circa
late 1980s). What caught restoration advocates off guard was that the
detractors were the very people from whom one would most expect
support. Pockets remain of those who believe that restoration would
blunt preservationist ambitions. For the most part the detractors, includ-
ing the late David Brower, have embraced restoration. Restoration works
in conjunction with preservation, as is evident in continental-scale ambi-
tions such as the Yellowstone-to-Yukon corridor proposed in North
America. Besides, we are clearly running out of places for which preser-
vation is a viable option.
I am more concerned about the second kind of objection, that restora-
tion offers an apology for technological excess. By becoming more adept
at manipulating ecosystems are we not running the risk of becoming
better at controlling ecosystems for our own purposes? It gets even
murkier. What if restoration is a mirror of our cultural values about
Introduction 3
nature? Does it not follow that even well-conceived restoration projects

are in fact just expressions of human will? How do we honor our rela-
tions to place through restoration? These questions energize my concerns
about the future of restoration. Moreover, this is the theme that runs
throughout the entire book. Do not misunderstand me on this point. It
is not that I am arguing against restoration; instead I am pointing out
an Achilles’ heel, a tendency within contemporary practice that if not
resolved will denature our best intentions. If anything I want restoration
to succeed wildly. Restoration offers me the hope that the patterns that
have made people so toxic to natural systems can be changed. And in
the process we can learn how to live more generously with other living
things.
Ecological restoration is fast approaching a fork in the path (some
would suggest the fork has already been passed), an image that came to
my mind years ago sitting with good friends after a candlelit dinner in
a small cabin on the Bruce Peninsula, the spit of land that cleaves Lake
Huron from Georgian Bay in Canada. Someone had just finished reading
several poems by Robert Frost, and again I was touched by the imagery
of “The Road Not Taken.” I was completing my doctoral dissertation
on landscape evolution in Bruce County and trying to figure out what
possibilities lay ahead for a region devastated by intentions that
came with people from away: first the displacement of First Nations
by European settlers, then distant urbanization that used the resources
of the county for feedstock, and finally the nuclear power plant
that reshaped and ultimately withered the economy and culture of the
region. The possibilities were difficult to imagine, but I knew in
some way they had to spring from local sources and involve ecological
restoration and cultural regeneration. People in Bruce County had
been walking along the main path—what lay along “the one less
traveled by?”
On the main path beckons technological restoration with all the finery
and sophistication expected of a practice that sops up our excesses. Here
we find restoration megaprojects, mitigation initiatives, and expanding
companies specializing in restoration. “If you destroy it, we can build it
again,” is the ethos: confident, mainstream, and just a bit cocky. And
what’s wrong with this? Isn’t more restoration better?
4 Introduction
I worry that we confuse grandeur with accomplishment and that we

lose elements of participation and engagement that defined many early
restoration projects. Focal restoration invites us along the other, less trav-
eled path, the one of community engagement and local culture. To focus
means to gather together, whether rays of light or a group of people.
People connect more deeply with natural processes when they get their
hands dirty, literally, and the lessons learned hold fast. Focal restoration
is more precarious and difficult to nurture than other approaches to
restoration. I share with many restoration practitioners the hope that our
efforts will spread ecologically and socially and that complex new cul-
tural activities that honor such efforts will emerge. For example, I hope
that we will become accomplished in returning salmon to urban streams,
and that we can restore connectivity to the eastern slopes of the Rocky
Mountains to let fierce creatures move with less restriction and at the
same time learn to love this wildness genuinely and publicly. These are
ambitious examples rooted deeply in communities, and they require the
support of citizens, local organizations, and all levels of government and
industry. Perhaps eventually the strength of community-based restora-
tion would attract some of those who walk along the main path, and as
they walk on over they will break up some of the pavement and allow
wild plants and creatures to flourish.
Focal restoration leads to one of four keystone concepts of ecological
restoration: focal practice. To restore successfully in the long run, people
need to be strongly committed to restoration, which points us back to
participation and community support. Focal practice joins two tradi-
tional concepts, ecological integrity and historical fidelity, which under-
lie most definitions of restoration. Together these three concepts extend
the usual reach of restoration beyond ecological or technical matters.
There is one more crucial ingredient. I argue that restoration is about
intention or design. Restoring well presupposes an awareness that what
is done in the name of restoration constitutes a deliberate intervention.
Acknowledging our role as designers of ecological and social processes
lends humility to the already-daunting challenge of restoration. In the
end it would be a failure if we did not recognize that the reality of nature
and society are greater than our capacity to understand and manipulate
Introduction 5
them. In advocating design I am proposing wild design, the kind that

operates in sympathy with the vitality of life.
My interest in ecological restoration was sparked during my first year as

a university student in the mid-1970s after a visit to the home of Robert
Dorney, a professor of ecology and environmental planning at the
University of Waterloo. He had bought a modest and unremarkable
two-story house brand new in 1967. It sat along a street with homes that
would be familiar to anyone who has ever lived in suburban North
America: cookie-cutter designs, each with the same mown-grass land-
scaping. Dorney, to the chagrin of many neighbors, ripped up his lawn
and planted what he called a “miniecosystem,” a small forest, prairie,
and wetland in a hundredth of an acre! He tended the garden carefully,
collecting new plants from salvage operations (including several threat-
ened and endangered species), and thinning, weeding, and fussing as nec-
essary. Twenty years later the garden sported over 150 plant species and
some of the overstory trees had to be removed. His inspiration for this
radical experiment came in part from his undergraduate studies in wildlife
ecology in the late 1940s at the University of Wisconsin, when he was
fortunate to take several courses from Aldo Leopold. Dorney remembered
visits to the Arboretum in Madison, to see the early prairie restorations
of John Curtis, Henry Greene, and Theodore Sperry. Dorney died in 1987
cutting down an apple tree in his backyard. Leopold died at the same age,
fifty-nine, fighting a grass fire near his shack north of Madison.
I took Dorney’s idea for a miniecosystem and created one in my
parents’ front yard in Brantford, Ontario, just twenty miles away from
Waterloo. It was my first attempt at anything approaching ecological
restoration. The project flourished for several years with careful tending
until the house was sold in the early 1980s. Despite careful explanations,
the new owners backhoed the garden and returned the frontyard to
mown grass. This was an early and painful lesson about the transience
of contemporary life and the importance of communicating across cul-
tures about the meaning of place. There is some consolation: a neighbor
nearby took up the idea of natural gardening with gusto and commis-
sioned an award-winning garden in her backyard.
6 Introduction
Transience has been part of my life, living south of Vancouver, north

of Toronto, further west in southern Ontario, in New York State and
Ohio, in Alberta, and most recently on the southern tip of Vancouver
Island. Over the last couple of years I have learned of ecological restora-
tion projects near all my former homes—for example, Prospect Park in
Brooklyn and the Black River in Ohio. Most dramatic for me was learn-
ing about Burns Bog, a wetland of major significance along the lower
reach of the Fraser River in Delta, British Columbia, just south of
Vancouver. I spent the first five years of my life in a small suburban
community along the Fraser River. My childhood mental map suggested
that we lived some distance from the river, but when I returned as an
adult I realized the distance was just a few hundred yards. There was a
cold snap one winter that lasted long enough to freeze the surface of a
local pond, and my mother, who had grown up ice skating in the more
wintry climes of eastern Canada, strapped me into training skates and
we spent the afternoon on the ice. My memories of that experience are
crystal clear, and I had no idea that it was an anomaly to skate on the
lower mainland of British Columbia or that we were skating on what is
now known to me as Burns Bog.
I found this out just a couple of years ago when I made a presen-
tation at the Helping the Land Heal conference in Victoria, British
Columbia. A man approached me after the session and wanted to speak
about a wetlands restoration project. He unrolled a large map, which
had been produced on top of an aerial photograph. I asked him for some
orientation, and when he said, “Here’s the town of Delta,” and I looked
more closely, it was immediately apparent that the subject of a major
restoration initiative had in fact been the scene of my first skating lesson
thirty-five years earlier. So much whirled through my mind in that
instant: the scope of landscape change from a small rural wetland to one
surrounded and threatened by development, the way our values change
about what is important, how it is that we reconnect with past land-
scapes, and the power of restoration to recover memory and sponsor
hope. In half a lifetime, a place had gone from vestige to damage to
restoration. These experiences have convinced me that restoration con-
stitutes a calling as much as a profession. My intellectual development
took some unusual turns and long detours, beginning in ecology and
Introduction 7
heading through philosophy and environmental planning until arriving,

most recently, in anthropology. This is admittedly an odd placement for
someone with interests in ecological restoration. Let me explain. Robert
Dorney’s initial inspiration stayed with me, but for most of my educa-
tion I regarded restoration and natural-areas protection work as avoca-
tional, something I would do on weekends and in my spare time. It was
not until the latter part of my doctoral studies that restoration entered
my formal line of thinking. It became a way of conceptualizing different
meanings for nature, a metaphor for appropriate intervention in natural
processes, and an animating social idea. I mentioned earlier that restora-
tion found its way into my dissertation, and just before Dorney’s death
we had planned some writing projects about the conceptual bases of
restoration. I remember my astonishment on moving to New York City
in 1988 and learning of a Hartz Mountain development in Secaucus,
New Jersey, Meadowlands near Manhattan, which involved a complex
trade of a wetland mitigation project for the permit to develop on an
ecologically sensitive site. Ideas flowed together as though I had finally
reached a confluence. My interest in understanding technological change,
not just in terms of artifacts and devices but also with respect to the
distinctive patterns technology represents in contemporary culture, led
to further insight into the way restoration threatened to convert ecosys-
tems into commodities. Of course, this did not square with my under-
standing of grassroots restoration, but it set alarm bells ringing—I grew
concerned about how restoration could promote salutary relations with
natural process and avoid the pitfalls of a technological culture that was
fed on efficiency, novelty, glamour, and velocity. I began to lecture and
write on these themes and soon joined the fledgling Society for Ecolog-
ical Restoration. I remember being thrilled that an organization of prac-
titioners would admit and even encourage a philosopher.
My intellectual shapeshifting continued as I moved professionally into
anthropology in the early 1990s. This had a profound effect on my activ-
ities, among other things by pushing me back to empirical studies. I took
an avid anthropological interest in the belief systems of restorationists:
what restorationists do and why they do it. I turned to the moun-
tains west of Edmonton, specifically to Jasper National Park, where I
fell instantly and completely in love with the landscape, and began to
8 Introduction
understand how ecological restoration might serve as a model for man-

aging such a precious landscape (see chapter 1). Strains of theory and
practice are apparent throughout this book, although some have said my
philosophical voice remains strongest. Philosophers tend toward gener-
alization and universal theories, while anthropologists focus on descrip-
tion and particular observation. The synthesis has been revealing as I
struggle to make sense of the world and of restoration through these
opposing vantage points. Philosophy has given me the courage to iden-
tify patterns that constitute restoration and that might steer us away
from conceptual and practical shoals. Anthropology has strengthened my
predisposition toward understanding both what we perceive and what
lies beneath, the diversity of cultural expression, the importance of par-
ticularity, and the risk of imperialism in restoration.
A problem that I do not elaborate on in the book but that is of growing
concern is the capacity of restorationists to comprehend cultural diver-
sity in restoration. I have made an effort at expanding my understand-
ing of restoration projects worldwide and moving beyond a strictly
North American perspective, but I fear my steps are fitful and inade-
quate. This book carries with it an explicit North American bias. Much
more needs to be done to incorporate an understanding of what resto-
ration means across different cultures, and not just from a North
American perspective. We tend often to oppose economic globalization
because it constitutes the loss of local diversity but nevertheless support
the globalization of a practice such as ecological restoration. The real
challenge is what anthropologists wrestle with constantly: interpreting
what others believe from their own perspectives. Ecological restoration
achieved its early professional identity in North America, and at the time
of this writing, 90 percent of the members of the Society for Ecological
Restoration live in the United States or Canada. There have been some
poignant debates over the meaning of restoration between, say, North
American and European members, but this is nothing when compared
to the cultural differences that await the further contact of restoration
practitioners in all regions. Some perceive the expansion of restoration
as a challenge in navigating through or past these cultural differences,
and this is where the problems begin. Made-in-America restoration has
much to offer by way of sophisticated techniques, practitioner experi-
Introduction 9
ence, and scientific knowledge. Once removed, however, from the

particularities of law and custom, it begins to break down. What an
American restorationist perceives as restoration, or for that matter as
nature or wilderness, is typically different from the perceptions of a Scot-
tish restorationist working on a thousand-year-old cultural landscape, a
restoration group in Eastern Europe dealing with complex new institu-
tional demands and lack of resources, and any practitioner in agro-
ecosystems, where cultural practices are as blatantly important as
ecological processes. How we define restoration, and how we reach out
with our approach to restoration, will determine whether it becomes an
inclusive or exclusive practice. There is considerable risk that we will
enact without embarrassment and perhaps without broad awareness, yet
another chapter in a continuing story of ecological imperialism. I hope
that the models presented in this book move against this trend, and con-
tribute to a more inclusive and locally situated approach to restoration.
Outline of the Book
Chapter 1 begins where my heart has spent so much of the last half
decade: Jasper National Park. This large (over 4,000 square mile)
national park straddles two provinces, British Columbia and Alberta,
just a few hundred miles north of the U.S.–Canadian border and imme-
diately adjacent to its slightly more glamorous cousin, Banff National
Park (see map, figure 1.1). The issues here are familiar to anyone work-
ing in protected areas in the mountainous west of North America and
mountainous regions around the world: a rapid increase in the number
of people visiting the region, escalating resource-extraction activities
surrounding the park, and decades of management that have left, for
example, extraordinary forest fuel loads just waiting for the right spark.
Jasper is an icon of wilderness, which leads to wrinkled brows when I
mention that my main interest is ecological restoration. Inevitably people
ask why restoration is required in a pristine setting. First, I explain that
many parts of Jasper are cultural landscapes that have known human
activity for hundreds, likely thousands, of years. Next, I take apart the
idea of wilderness, suggesting that it manifests our cultural values about
nature and not necessarily what is present on the ground; the idea of
10 Introduction
wilderness is a filter for our understanding of nature. Together these

issues present a formidable challenge for restorationists in terms of
classic questions—for example, that of the role of history in setting
appropriate goals, or that of just how much intervention is appropriate
in a place that people regard as relatively unspoiled. Almost the same
moment I began scribbling notes on Jasper in 1995, I realized that it
served as a shining example of the challenges we face in ecological
restoration. It became the story around which my account of restoration
would be built. I also began to wonder how a growing culture of artifi-
ciality, the kind that produces themed environments such as Disney’s
Wilderness Lodge, would influence our appreciation of wild places.
Thus, in chapter 1, Jasper National Park meets Disney’s Wilderness
Lodge.
I have written this book to appeal to readers who are new to the idea
and practice of ecological restoration, and also for practicing restora-
tionists wanting theoretical perspectives to explain the drift, worrisome
in some respects, of restoration toward the shoals of technological
culture. Chapters 2 and 3 function in two ways. They can be read
together as an introduction to the concept and practice of restoration.
Chapter 2 presents three brief cases: the Kissimmee River restoration in
central Florida, which is arguably the first restoration megaproject; the
Morava River restoration projects in the Slovak Republic, which treat a
cultural landscape; and the Robert Starbird Dorney Garden at the Uni-
versity of Waterloo, which in many conventional ways is not a restora-
tion. These stretch some of the limits of what we mean by restoration
and offer an expanded historical account of practice. Chapter 3 dives
into the dark waters of defining restoration, playing with myriad defini-
tions generated over the last two decades, including those from the
Society for Ecological Restoration. These two chapters are not simply
descriptive; a specific argument about restoration is advanced. At the
end of chapter 3 I propose that when various conventional accounts of
restoration are boiled down, we end up with two primary concepts:
ecological integrity and historical fidelity. The question is whether this
core is sufficient.
In the process of writing this book, especially in the last year, the
subject of historicity—the condition of being historically authentic—rose
Introduction 11
to prominence from a few paragraphs to a section and finally to a full-

blown chapter. I grew concerned that the tide of artificiality would sweep
away the traditional moorings of restoration and render it ahistorical. I
listened to people describing their restoration work without any refer-
ence to historical conditions. Both as a tactic to inoculate restoration
practice against the contemporary malaise of virtual reality, where reality
seems to matter less and less, and as a way of gaining a clear sense
of how and why history matters to restoration theory and practice, I
focus chapter 4 on historicity. No discussion of this kind in restoration
can proceed without also examining the meaning and significance of
reference conditions—that is, the ecological conditions, sometime whole
ecosystems, that we use to create our goals and measure our successes
(and failures).
Ecological restoration is moving into the limelight because it offers a
hopeful response to environmental degradation. Considered a “win-win”
alternative to conventional environmental practices, restoration projects
have been initiated by large government agencies and corporations
as well as by the more traditional, grassroots base. The monumental
attempt to restore the channeled Kissimmee River in central Florida, for
example, is both a remarkable scientific, technological and policy feat
and also a harbinger of the future. “Ecological [or environmental]
restoration” is a phrase found more and more often in newspaper and
magazine articles and television news bites; it has developed a cachet.
Typically, the stories are cheerful ones about small armies of experts and
volunteers making good where previously only wrong had been done.
Dams destructive to fish movement and water quality are being dis-
mantled. Native plants are replacing weedy exotics. Prairies are bloom-
ing again. Lakes previously dead are coming alive again. Good news
travels fast. What is particularly significant is that restoration is coming
to serve as a new metaphor for our relations with natural things: we are
in a restorative, as opposed to, say, a conservationist mode. Thus, we
are witnessing not simply a change in an environmental management
practice, which itself is significant, but a larger cultural shift to restora-
tion. Why, then, am I worried?
People have been apprehensive about restoration for several reasons.
Not least is the concern that restoration activities will displace concern
12 Introduction
for preservation and conservation and we will end up destroying ecosys-

tems precisely because we can build them up. I think this is a substan-
tive concern, but it does not get to the heart of the matter. There is also
the concern that our confidence about restoration is exaggerated, that
we cannot achieve what we hope for in restoring damaged ecosystems.
Again, I think this warrants attention, but it is a technical matter that
deserves careful research. Besides, the veritable successes of restoration
point to the fact that some restoration is wildly successful.
I propose that we think of restoration in two ways: as technological
and focal restoration. Technological restoration is poised to overtake
focal restoration. In its most pernicious form we witness the takeover
of reality, which is evident at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge and so many
other beacons of artificiality. Think of focal restoration as a pale and
poorly watered endemic plant that is facing competitive exclusion by an
invading, exotic species. The fabric of our daily lives is constrained
and conditioned by a set of distinctive technological patterns that are
growing thicker by the day. We live in a world that is increasingly defined
by commodities rather than place. What results from these technologi-
cal patterns is the conversion of things, such as an ecosystem, and prac-
tices, such as ecological restoration, into commodities that are stripped
of sinuous connection with social and natural processes. This is the
central point of chapter 5. That we do not find such a pattern surpris-
ing is, in the end, what is most surprising. Reform must come from an
outside awareness of the consequences of this technological pattern, a
perspective that grows more difficult in proportion to the rise of the
pattern.
In chapter 6, focal restoration is presented as an antidote, or at least
a precautionary alternative, to technological restoration. At best we can
clear a space for the focal practice of restoration and continue to use this
as an anchor for restoration as a whole. If only this were the full chal-
lenge. A merger of the two, technological and focal, is necessary. They
should not be mutually exclusive options. Imbuing restoration with sci-
entific rigor and clarity is essential. We need more and better science to
understand the processes of weedy invasions, seed survival, successional
pathways, long-term durability, and so on. Conversely, technological
restoration needs broad engagement to ensure the success of ambitious
Introduction 13
projects. I am calling for an amalgam of two quite different approaches.

The delicacy of this resolution, of course, is dependent on the vitality of
focal restoration.
The idea of nature by design is anathema to most restorationists,
ecologists, and environmentalists. It suggests the capacity to bend natural
things to human ends. The title of the book is intended to cut in two
directions. The first amplifies the obvious: that ecological restoration is
an intentional manipulation of ecosystems in accordance with our values,
or what we think ecosystems ought to value. Design connotes a master
plan, a framework for rewriting the book of nature. It is, in one main
sense, preeminently technological. We are right to be queasy.
The title reflects the inspiration of two major thinkers. First, Ian
McHarg’s 1967 book, Design with Nature, was a touchstone for so
many who sought a way of working and planning that took ecology
seriously. McHarg was not the first to advocate ecological thinking in
planning and design, but he gave it the widest professional and public
expression. Second, I admire the work of historian David Noble, whose
book America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corpo-
rate Capitalism forced in me a radical reconsideration of productive
processes and the character of technological change in the United States
(he lives in Canada now!). Noble was one of the authors who motivated
me as a graduate student to reconsider the role and significance of tech-
nology in contemporary life and ultimately to understand ecological
restoration in technological terms.
I propose in chapter 7 that design in the best sense is creative
intervention according to common and well-discussed ideas. Good
design is secured by cultural norms, physical (in this case ecological)
realities, and imagination. Some projects seem to endure and stand the
test of time as good examples: the Curtis prairie at the University of
Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum and the North Branch prairie project in
suburban Chicago, both works in progress. Others, I would argue, are
moving into this pantheon, mostly because of a judicious blend of
creative vision, clear intention, and sound implementation. There is every
likelihood that the restoration of Frederick Law Olmsted’s nineteenth-
century design for core areas in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, which involves
honoring the past ecological and cultural patterns and processes,
14 Introduction
Olmsted’s design, and the underlying character of the ecosystems, will

also stand the test of time.
This is how design cuts in the other direction as regards ecological
restoration. Rather than burying human agency behind a wall of eco-
logical justifications, design acknowledges that restoration is also and
always about people working with and within natural process. Design
is about intentionality. Thus, intention—or what I call wild design—
becomes the fourth keystone concept of ecological restoration, joining
ecological integrity, historical fidelity, and focal practices. Acknowledg-
ing that ecological restoration is a design practice is an honest admis-
sion: it reflects reality. Hopefully, taking design seriously will compel us
to treat restoration as an act imbued with enormous responsibility;
ideally, design will amplify and not diminish our commitment to flour-
ishing ecosystems. In the end, I urge that we maintain restoration as a
luxuriant activity, one that reflects not only ecological diversity and rich-
ness, but cultural breadth and variety, too.
1
A Tale of Two Wildernesses: Jasper
National Park, Meet Disney World
What is really learned by walking over grassy hills, through sagebrush, in river
bottoms, beneath the crowns of a forest? What is learned wading rivers, hiking
ridges, climbing mountains, listening to waterfalls, swimming in lakes, lying
beneath the stars? There is not a simple answer to these questions. Perhaps it is
misguided to think there are any essential answers, however some seem to clue
us in.
—David Strong, Crazy Mountains
The question Olmsted posed in 1865 remains unresolved: how to admit all the
visitors who wish to come without their destroying the very thing they value?
The moment people come to a place, even as reverent observers, they alter what
they came to experience. Preventing the destructive effects of human visitation
requires management of water and soil, plants and animals, and people (and this
is now routine at national parks and forests). Yet the idea of management is
anathema to some. This is because they see wilderness as something separate
from humanity—as untouched by human labor and culture, on the one hand,
and as a place where one’s behavior is free and unconstrained, on the other. Both
ideas are problematic; both result, ultimately, in the destruction of what they
value.
—Anne Whiston Spirn, “Constructing Nature”
“Wilderness is not so much preserved as created.”

—Richard White, “The New Western History and the National Parks”
And who among us frequents the wilderness more often than the mall? If you
want to explore the particular reinventions of nature in the 1990s, you must at
some point make a trip to South Coast Plaza, or to the mall and nature store
nearest you.
—Jennifer Price, “Looking for Nature at the Mall”
16 Chapter 1
The Bear in the Kitchen
A bear walked, well more likely barged, through the back door of the
Palisade Centre Research House on a particularly hot July afternoon in
1996. Returning from a seminar in another building, two members of
the field team came upon her in the vestibule munching away on a jumbo
bag of senior/lite dog food. There was, to say the least, mutual surprise.
It took the deft hands of several Jasper National Park wardens (the equiv-
alent of U.S. park rangers) to tranquilize her, but not after a harrowing
charge by the bear out of the house and a subsequent chase into the bush.
This eight-year-old female, cinnamon-colored black bear was placed in
a special travel container and relocated to the upper reaches of the Rocky
River, several drainages over from where we were recounting the story
along the banks of the upper Athabasca River. Several months later, in
early October, she made her way back to the town of Jasper, an arduous
journey for any being, and found modest takings in the well-secured
waste of the community.1 She was killed by one of the animal control
specialists in the park, a “two strikes, you’re out” policy. The risk to
human safety outweighed the risks of allowing a habituated bear to
remain in the park.
We had initially taken little notice of her presence. On the eve of our
initial encounter she had nosed around our site as several dozen bears
had done in the previous two months. The Research House was built in
the 1930s by A. C. Wilby, the second owner of what is now the Palisade
Centre. Wilby was a monied gentleman from England who purchased
the former farmstead from the original homesteader, Lewis Swift, and
converted the 158 acres of working farm to something that resembled a
country estate: enlarged, solidly constructed buildings, high fencing
around the perimeter, and a greenhouse to support horticultural in-
terests. The marks of Wilby’s gentility are evident several decades fol-
lowing his death, after years of changing ownership and operation. The
grounds, for example, were once a cultivated respite from the tangle
beyond, and today well-crafted rock walls poke through the overgrowth
and strange cultivars pop up amidst the weeds and local species. Kathy
Calvert and Dale Portmann, both park wardens in Jasper and the pre-
vious tenants of the Research House, spent considerable time caring for
A Tale of Two Wildernesses 17
the gardens, which is why one can still glimpse what it must have been
like a half century ago.
The South Lawn, as we grandly termed the expanse of mown grass
outside, sports a bountiful crop of dandelions, a delicacy for bears of
both species. Bears seemed to cross our lawn not only in search of edible
greens but also as an easy east-west travel route. One summer evening,
Jeanine Rhemtulla, an ecologist on the field team, took a short,
contemplative stroll to the abandoned horse paddock a stone’s throw
from the house. There, grazing in the old corral, were three grizzlies: a
sow and two second-year cubs. Jeanine stayed her distance, about fifty
yards, and watched undetected and without fear for fifteen minutes.2 This
was a more typical experience with bears that summer. Of the thirty or
so bears we spotted in June and July, all but the one under discussion
stopped for a munch, perhaps a casual sniff at the house, and continued
to the next feeding grounds. In most cases a deliberate human noise—
a door closing or a whistle—would send the bears away.
Not so with this one cinnamon-colored bear. My first glance, late in
the twilight as she emerged from the shrubs at the edge of the lawn,
fooled me: was this a grizzly bear (it wasn’t)? The next morning,
however, she made a number of deliberate attempts to get into the
Research House, apparently in search of the smells that emanated from
the breakfast table. This forthrightness was unusual, and all eight of us
who were working out of the house became decidedly edgy. It took noise-
makers and rubber bullets to shun this bear. Three defensive tactics later
we found her munching dog food.
The reaction to this encounter was mixed and opinions flowed for
days. Wes Bradford, seasoned park warden in charge of animal control,
noted it as the first record of the bear. Apparently, countless roadside
and trailside reports keep him in good touch with most of the regular
bears in the park. He speculated she had come in from areas adjacent to
the park, areas where habituation to human activities is greater. Suzanne
Bayley, a wetlands biologist attending the seminar that afternoon and
recently a panel member on the celebrated inquiry into the state and
future prospects of Banff National Park (the sister park immediately to
the south of Jasper), the Banff-Bow Valley Study, observed with distaste
yet another tragic experience for park wildlife: the bear was ultimately
18 Chapter 1
doomed by the simple fact of dog food lying in wait behind a closed
door. The point was made brusquely that our very presence, and our
actions, were a death sentence for the bear. As director of the research
operations I became immediately defensive, offering up a variety of
explanations and underscoring how careful we had been in running a
clean operation, recounting how many bears had come through the site
without incident.
The experience caused my research group consternation. It was 1996,
the first year of a three-year interdisciplinary research project to map
and understand the relationship between human activity and ecological
processes in the montane ecosystems of Jasper (see figure 1.1).3 Our work
was designed to help with decisions about restoration and management
of the park. We were, and are, acutely aware of human footprints on the
landscape, and now in the wake of a completely unexpected and bizarre
event, had come to distrust our sense of things. The wild had broken
into domestic space, literally: the bear in the kitchen. Was it our fault?
Had we done as much as we could have to avoid such an event? Had
this sort of thing happened to people who had been living previously in
the Research House? Was this a chance event? Was it a habituated bear,
or one that was desperately hungry from a poor berry crop? Is the loss
of a single black bear an acceptable loss, acceptable in terms of having
a regular human presence in the park? What do we know of cumulative
effects: how many single losses are acceptable? Could the bear’s behav-
ior have been caused or amplified by specific habitat losses? Is there a
way of restoring conditions in the park that would reduce such incidents?
What can be done to improve specific human activities? Is there a way
of restoring human practices and beliefs, culture in effect, to make co-
existence with the bear possible? In sum, was this experience serendip-
ity or destiny?
These questions radiate out from a singular instant, one in which wild
(bear) and domestic (people) collided. This simple dualism masks the
bedazzling complexity of public land management. If parks, especially
huge national ones of international renown such as Jasper, are to
promote wilderness, the answer to the questions above is deceptively
easy: get rid of people wherever encounters might occur. This hands-off
approach is attractive for several reasons. First, it matches our traditional
Figure 1.1
Map of Jasper National Park and main points of reference.
20 Chapter 1
beliefs about wilderness: places without people. Second, we are running

out of areas that might rightly be considered wild, which makes their
protection at any cost more reasonable and imperative. Third, in a
era of growing artificiality, where nature is being manufactured and
(re)presented, we pine for the nostalgia of real wilderness. Moreover, a
growing chorus of citizens, activists, scientists, and park managers are
calling for the exclusion of people or at least for a drastic reduction in
the number of people permitted to visit certain wilderness areas. One
group of writers suggest that “the leading champions of biodiversity
advocate making the preservationist legacy of national parks and other
roadless areas the starting point of much-expanded “big, fierce, wilder-
ness” reserves—not for recreational, aesthetic or spiritual enjoyment by
human pilgrims, but as habitat for evolutionarily viable nonhuman
species populations.”4 This preservationist impulse is coupled to rewild-
ing projects such as the continental program of the Wildlands Project5
to restore core areas, expand or create buffer zones, and establish corri-
dors to link one critical area to the next. Jasper National Park, if all goes
according to plan, will be a strong link in a continuous chain of preser-
vation running from Yellowstone National Park (United States) to the
Yukon (Canada).
Those who worked with me on the Culture, Ecology and Restoration
project in Jasper understood the precarious and precious qualities of this
landscape. Biodiversity and ecological integrity were central concepts for
us. At the same time, we were also skeptical about the extent to which
Jasper could be called “wilderness” in the sense of being a place where
the imprints of people are few and far apart; witness our experience at
the Palisade Centre with its mown grass, elegant buildings, and dande-
lions. Moreover, wilderness as an idea obscures and sometimes erases the
significance of culture and the presence of people, or as Ian MacLaren,
one of the project collaborators, points outs, “Parks are not refuges from
our daily lives; no less than the pavement or the chemically treated lawns
and plants of our urban front and back yards, they mirror who we are.
Wilderness is us.”6 What we were after in the operation of national parks
and critical protected areas is not wilderness in the old exclusive sense
of term, but rather places that encourage measured, respectful, and
conservative human relationships with natural processes. This is not the
same as advocating a glib “parks are for people” policy. Instead, it pushes
a reconsideration of human influence in so-called wildernesses, and
the determination of balance between incarcerated nature7 and tourist
excess. In Jasper there is much more human presence, many more his-
torical and contemporary footprints, than meet the eye. The problem, of
course, is to make operational such a way of thinking about wilderness.
Could ecological restoration be a viable approach?
To restore the landscape—that is, to address some of the obvious
damage accomplished by oversight or careless action by returning to
some predetermined time in the past—means incorporating human activ-
ities and in this way changing our minds about what counts as wilder-
ness. But is this a sufficient aspiration? Should we do more than mimic
past human activities? Restoration of wilderness, taken too literally,
involves the design of a kind of historic theme park replete with repli-
cas of long-forgotten forest groves, the proper distribution of grasslands,
watercourses that follow ancient channels, and peaceable natives. This
runs against the grain of our most accomplished understanding of wild
places, rubbing uncomfortably against artificial wildernesses such as
Disney’s Wilderness Lodge (in Orlando, Florida), which simultaneously
reinforces the hands-off view of wilderness while encouraging, perhaps
inadvertently, escalating consumption of wilderness.
This chapter focuses on two wildernesses, one that lays claim to
preeminent status as a wilderness area, Jasper National Park, and one
that seems to have figured out what people want to think wilderness is,
Disney’s Wilderness Lodge. Lessons learned from both indicate that the
idea of wilderness prevalent in North American culture is doing harm
to the thing it purports to represent. Here, in the very exemplars of
wilderness, one natural and the other technological, we glimpse most
pointedly the challenges facing ecological restorationists. In Jasper,
the wilderness-as-untouched-nature discourages active management of
ecosystems that might return them to health in whatever ways health is
defined. At the Lodge, wilderness is treated as a commodity, one that is
sold on the basis of concepts that make it problematic for managing
natural areas.
The challenge is to devise meanings for wilderness, and nature more
generally, ones that are sufficiently open to salutary human activities,
22 Chapter 1
that are mindful of the past, and that filter against insidious and destruc-
tive patterns and activities. Simon Schama, author of the remarkable
study Landscape and Memory, suggests that much of our understanding
of landscape is bound up in memory and imagination and therefore
requires careful consideration of both cultural and natural history: “It
is not to deny the seriousness of our ecological predicament, nor to
dismiss the urgency with which it needs repair and redress, to wonder
whether, in fact, a new set of myths are what the doctor should order
as a cure for our ills. What about the old ones?”8 History matters
to restorationists, and it should: we track patterns of ecological change,
record shifting processes, and all the while, if we are astute about
such matters, we appreciate how our beliefs about the landscape have
changed, too. The past tempers our ambitions and on occasion reveals
clues about ways of engaging with the landscape that make good sense
in the present. Restoration, then, is as much about the retrieval of beliefs
and practices as it is about the regaining of physical conditions. Some of
these may yield important clues and prevent us from continuing to
stumble in our search for ways to restore and care for places valuable to
us. There are important things about the future to be learned in the
ecological and cultural history of so-called wildernesses. Let’s take a
closer look at the place where the bear walked into our lives on that hot
summer day.
The Palisade
The Palisade Centre, an environmental research and education facility

operated by Parks Canada, is nestled on the east side of the Athabasca
Valley, in the shadow of the Palisade, a massive limestone cliff formed
from a thrust fault roughly 500 million years ago.9 As recently as perhaps
the 1950s, it would have been possible to view this great cliff a kilo-
meter distant from the window in my office at the Palisade Centre, but
now it is obscured by the forests that have grown up in the path of a
massive 1889 fire. The centre is hemmed to the east by the twin-tracked
Canadian National transcontinental rail line, and just beyond is the
Yellowhead highway, an alternative east-west travel route to the Trans-
Canada highway further south. As a concession to park wildlife, the
highway is two-lane through the park, but twinned and four-lane imme-
diately east of the boundary. I get up very early on crisp, fall mornings
to hear the bull elk bugle their intentions. It is the only time of day when
the traffic does not overwhelm their plaints.
Lewis Swift, originally from Ohio, settled the land that lies beneath
the Palisade Centre in 1895, immediately following the great fire of
1889.10 He found the valley to be moderate in temperature and able
to support a reasonable harvest of northern vegetables and grains. In
less than a decade, the farmstead became a provisioning point for
various expeditions into the mountains further west. He married a
Métis11 woman, Suzette Chalifoux, and together they farmed the area
until 1935. Swift had several neighbors when he moved to the region
who operated farmsteads along the river. The Moberly brothers who
operated two of the farmsteads were Métis descended from a railway
surveyor, Walter Moberly.12 The Moberly family had been active in the
fur trade that took place in the valley throughout the nineteenth century
in the wake of David Thompson’s successful crossing of Athabasca Pass
on January 8, 1811.
The nineteenth century in Jasper was shaped by the Hudson’s Bay
trading posts that operated at several points along the valley. Little is
known of earlier inhabitants of the Athabasca Valley, partly because
there were no permanent communities of Native peoples, and partly
because the lineage of the Métis peoples is closely connected with the fur
trade and with the Cree and Iroquois peoples from farther east. There
are scattered references to tipi rings and Indian trails,13 ceremonial
sites, and hunting activities. Reports also exist of a relatively unknown
group known as the Snake Indians who were supposedly wiped out by
a competitive group of Stoney natives. Relatively little oral historical
work has been done in the region, but what has been accomplished
shows considerable use of the valley at least during the nineteenth
century, the interval that directly connects descendants in the Grand
Cache, Entrance, and Lac Ste. Anne areas to the east of the current park
boundary. Ethnolinguistic studies in and around the park hint that as
many as four separate languages may have been used by groups
who traveled, hunted, resided, or traded along the upper reaches of
the Athabasca River Valley: Secwepemc, Cree, Stoney, and Ktunaxa.
24 Chapter 1
Archeological and paleoecological evidence, of which much more is

needed to fill in our understanding of the prehistory of this critical region,
is strong for human habitation, or at least use, back to glaciation
(approximately 11,000 bp).14 There are, for example, over sixty histori-
cal and prehistoric archeological sites in the small study area in which
the Culture, Ecology and Restoration project was centered. The region
resonates with human presence.
Recent research proposes extensive and intensive traditional manage-
ment of the valley,15 although the only direct evidence was obtained by
Henry Lewis, a colleague and specialist in aboriginal use of fire, in the
early 1970s, and later by Peter Murphy, a forestry professor at the
University of Alberta, who interviewed one Edward Moberly in 1980 at
his home in Entrance. Moberly reports that “in the spring that’s the first
thing everybody does is burn the meadows. . . . This way the meadow
doesn’t grow in—willows and things doesn’t come in—it’s always the
same site and it’s always clean.”16 Later in the interview Moberly
recounts almost a dozen different functions for controlled burning:
disease control in wild sheep, production of firewood, opening up areas
for travel, maintenance of regular hunting areas, and so on. With this
direct evidence and research emanating from areas west17 and northeast18
of Jasper, it is quite likely that a variety of different management
techniques were employed in the Athabasca Valley over considerable
stretches of time. We might speculate that the pastoral openness of the
Athabasca Valley that greeted Ross Cox in 1817 after descending from
Athabasca Pass was a consequence not only of a wildfire mosaic but also,
perhaps primarily, of anthropogenic fire: “The genial influence of a June
sun relieved the wintry perspective of snow-clad mountains, and as it
rose above their lofty summits, imparted a golden tinge to the green
savannahs, the open woods, and the innumberable rivulets which con-
tributed their waters to swell the Athabasca.”19 It is remarkable how little
formal scholarship is available on the upper Athabasca. This makes the
task of piecing together an understanding of traditional management
very difficult.
Relatively little is known about the history and prehistory of the Jasper
region, and only now are scholars, local historians, and park staff begin-
ning to assemble a composite view. One of the reasons for the lacuna is
obviously the eviction in 1910, three years following the creation of

a Dominion Forest Reserve in 1907 (later to become Jasper National
Park), of the Métis peoples from the upper Athabasca Valley. As a result
rich, continuous oral history has mostly been lost. Swift, a white man,
and his family were permitted to stay and eventually were given free title
to 158 acres of land along the Athabasca River. This was the only free-
hold in the park. The evictions, coupled with the apparent lack of direct
connection to First Nations’ communities that existed prior to the Métis
settlements in the nineteenth century, contribute to a cultural amnesia.
What motivated the expulsions? In the case of Jasper, the motivations
were more complicated, involving turn-of-the-century perspectives on
wilderness and on the role of people, especially Native peoples, in wild
lands. The Métis dwellers were evicted to make way for a “proper”
wilderness but also to lay open the possibility of commercial and re-
creational opportunities. We will no doubt add this to the list of lamen-
table and shameful activities perpetrated by the Canadian government
on Aboriginal peoples, and learn again that racism and uncompromis-
ing images of landscape are often bound together. At the least we should
embrace the humility that comes from understanding that our ideas
about landscape change—how will our present ambitions be regarded a
century from now?20
Railroad development followed the expulsion of the Métis families and
defined the character of human use in the valley in the twentieth century.
Visitors to Jasper nowadays are mostly unaware that by 1915 there were
two entirely separate railways—the Canadian Northern and the Grand
Trunk Pacific—that operated in the valley. Intense competition fueled the
rush for a rail line over the Yellowhead Pass, one of the lowest moun-
tain passes along the entire stretch of the Rocky Mountains in Canada.
The Yellowhead was recommended as the preferred route by Sanford
Fleming in the 1870s, but the complexities of railway politics in Canada
resulted in 1885 in the construction of the Canadian Pacific line further
south over the Crowsnest Pass. By the early 1900s the obvious com-
mercial advantages of forging links between eastern and western Canada
prompted the development of these two transcontinental railways. These
were not gentle rivalries. In the end only one survived, and the rail align-
ment now serves as the roadbed for much of the Yellowhead highway
26 Chapter 1
through the park. Now overlooked and almost entirely forgotten is the
sheer ecological influence of these massive rail-construction projects. The
valley was logged for rail ties, bridges, weirs, construction camps, and
firewood. Gravel was mined for the railbeds. The ecological wealth of
the valley was laid out in two long strips.21
Lewis Swift’s 158 acres have had a colorful history. In 1906, then again
in 1908, Swift ran railway surveyors off at gunpoint and subsequently
the line was relocated slightly to the east. It seems that the original plan
would have the rail line run directly on top of one of his cabins. To
modern sensibilities Swift might have appeared a victim of zealous devel-
opment. In fact, it appears he had grand ambitions of his own. His plan
was to capitalize on the new travel route by creating a cottage develop-
ment called Swiftholm, which would occupy the better part of his
acreage. In design it resembled a contemporary suburban neighborhood,
with cabins jammed against one another. Swift had attracted financial
backing from Charles Hays, then president of the Grand Trunk railway.
No doubt multiple factors, including the outbreak of World War I,
influenced the ultimate demise of the development, but Hays’s death
aboard the Titanic in 1912 was arresting news. Swift is perhaps best
known for his fastidious and monumental irrigation system that took
water from the eponymous Swift Creek, and via a series of lateral hill-
side channels, deposited water on the flats along the present railway
tracks. The need for such extensive irrigation provides clues to one pre-
requisite at the time to successful agriculture in the valley.
With the sale of the property to Arnold Wilby in 1935, the original
function of the land as a farmstead was lost, although Wilby did
continuously attempt to convince park officials of his agricultural and
horticultural aims. In fact, Wilby constructed a country estate and dude
ranch, and the infrastructure built in the 1930s and 1940s is with us
today. The property was sold privately one final time on Wilby’s death
in 1947, and from there to Gordon Bried (1951), and back to the park
in 1962. Although the land is again held in public trust and unlikely to
be bargained away, similar leasehold properties elsewhere in the park
have recently traded for multimillion-dollar amounts.
There is delicious irony that one of the areas most intensely and
variously worked over the last century or so would now be the focus of
park-wide research on long-term human influence. The Palisade Centre,

this 158-acre vestige of private land ownership, bisected by the lines of
modern technology, covered by the preoccupations of five generations of
residents and many more whose lives have not yet been revealed through
archeological studies, is a microcosm of montane ecology in Jasper. It is
at once distinctive, as all places are, and in some ways typical of many
areas in the park that are laminated by the activities of people. The task
ahead for park managers and researchers is figuring how best to incor-
porate such knowledge of cultural and ecological history into long-term
management. And part of the challenge is in reinventing ways of under-
standing wilderness. This is the central lesson of our experience in Jasper:
ecosystems change, which confounds ecological restoration, but so too
does our cultural understanding of those ecosystems.
A Landscape of Threats
Those who have visited Jasper recently, or who live nearby in the city of
Edmonton or in any of the smaller communities to the east and west,
will know that pressures on the park are mounting. The sheer size of the
park, over 4,000 square miles, will work as a pressure-relief valve as long
as the heat of visitation and development remains beneath a certain
threshold. But who knows what that threshold is? Like so many
spectacular protected areas in proximity to population centers, there is
a continual three-way tug between those who seek to protect, those who
seek balanced development, and those who quest after limitless ameni-
ties. That this tension remains undiminished over a century has as much
to do with a dual mandate for Canadian parks—leaving ecosystems
unimpaired for future generations and enhancing visitor enjoyment—as
with the economic struggles among ideologically divergent groups. Even
today, when the dual mandate is theoretically resolved in favor of
ecological protection, the actual patterns of development have not sub-
stantially altered.
The matter is more acute in Banff National Park, Jasper’s neighbor
to the south and Canada’s first national park (established in 1885).
Critical attention has been poured on Banff in the form of the Banff–
Bow Valley Study,22 a two-year, multimillion-dollar task force charged
28 Chapter 1
with producing future management recommendations, which it did in

the fall of 1996. Other sources of attention have included an eye-opening
article in the National Geographic.23 The parks and protected areas along
the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Canada and the United
States represent a gradient of human influence: the pressures felt by those
who manage Yellowstone National Park in southern Montana are
greater than those felt by the staff in Glacier, and in turn, Glacier has
wrestled with issues that are just now moving north to Waterton
National Park and Banff. One can get a sense of what Jasper is going to
face in the future by peering south.24
Jasper National Park is one of a cluster of national and provincial
parks in Canada that together form a UNESCO (United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage Site.
This is scarcely surprising. Like Yellowstone and Yosemite, Banff
and Jasper, in particular, are emblematic of Canada and are familiar
to people around the world. The natural features are compelling: the
Columbia Icefields, Maligne Lake, Lake Louise, the Burgess
shale, canyons, waterfalls, enormous geological complexity, and
functionally complete ecosystems, including large carnivores. Banff, and
to a lesser extent Jasper, were created not only to protect these features
for posterity, but also to promote enjoyment and profitable tourism.
For years the only reasonable access to Banff, Lake Louise, and
Jasper was by train, and it was no coincidence that the massive
hotels built in these locations are still owned by a railway company.25
Early in this century, these national parks were embarkation points for
adventurous travelers who wanted to explore more remote reaches of
the country. Now they are oases of ecological diversity roped on all sides
against encroaching industrial, agricultural, and resource-extraction
operations.
It is indeed an image of siege or contagion that prompts so many
to defend the ecological integrity of places such as Jasper. Armed with
management tools—environmental impact assessment, the ecological
management paradigm, surveys (social and biological), restrictive poli-
cies, enforcement—beleaguered park staff hole up against the new
onslaught of seemingly endless budgets cuts. The erection of barricades,
literally and figuratively, has much to do with values that some refer to
as natural regulation, a deliberate hands-off policy that allows natural

processes alone to shape ecosystems. As David Graber points out,
The unifying principle of national park management today is the perpetuation
of native ecosystem elements and processes. That is, keep all the native species;
seek the free play of fire, water, wind, predation, and decomposition, the
processes of the ecosystem; fend off alien organisms; and then permit the eco-
system to sort itself out. As management policy, it is rarely if ever fully expressed,
but it has been a goal at which managers could aim.26
However, the maintenance of natural structures and processes is

extremely difficult to achieve with a continually escalating rate of
visitation. More serious, though, and perhaps the strongest argument
against rigid natural regulatory policies, is the difficulty that some ecosys-
tems have in rebounding against the imposing odds of having inappro-
priate seed sources, lack of good refuges for sensitive animals and plants,
and weedy species. Moreover, natural regulatory models ignore the
extraordinary and often unrecognized amount of historical human
influence in park ecosystems. A “natural” model may have included
people but people doing different things than they are now doing.
Above I described some of the changes that had resulted from Swift’s
farming operations at what is now the Palisade Centre. Taken across the
entire Athabasca Valley in Jasper, not to mention the subalpine and
alpine zones, the extent and intensity of human influence are staggering.
Most of it is closed to the common “view from the road.”27 Visitors to
Jasper I have spoken with typically emphasize the grandeur of the scenery
and the restorative powers of the unbridled wilderness. But take a walk
up Old Fort Point, a small knoll that provides a panoramic overlook of
the valley and the town. From the road one is surrounded by a forested
landscape, but the view from on high is arresting. A town of 4,700
people, replete with a sizable railyard, and the massive Jasper Park Lodge
hotel complex—including an eighteen-hole golf course—sprawl across
the valley (figure 1.2). This perspective adds urgency to the concerns of
the park’s staff. The Athabasca Valley is relatively narrow, and in the
bottomlands lie the ecologically richest montane ecosystems. Here,
battling for living space and movement, are the dwindling populations
of grizzly bears and wolves. Human developments at the center of the
park are serving as a barrier to shy carnivores. Not surprisingly, humans
30
Chapter 1
Figure 1.2
View of the town of Jasper, from Old Fort Point, one of the dozen low-altitude survey stations (most of the
survey stations were from mountain peaks). The top photo, from 1915, is by M. P. Bridgland (see chapter 4),
and the repeat image (below) is from exactly the same location in 1998 (J. Rhemtulla and E. Higgs).
and the rest of the animals are drawn to the moderate temperatures, ease
of movement, and diversity of the valley.
Walking away from the road, one quickly finds traces of many other
human activities, though in some cases it takes a studied eye to pick out
the effects. The most obvious are the transportation corridors, including
abandoned, secondary, and service roadways. Less obvious are the
pipelines for oil and gas, which leave long swaths cut out of the land-
scape, and the communication cables buried alongside. We have also
uncovered old networks of trails, and the many signs of the two rail-
ways, one of which is extant. Similarly, most people can pick out, at least
if they are looking for them, the changes to the Athabasca River and
associated wetlands brought about by road and rail construction. The
Yellowhead highway in several places runs along dikes that were
constructed to create a more direct route but that cut off small lakes
from the hydrology of the Athabasca River. Talbot Lake is an example
in which no thoughtful attention was given to the water flows, flood and
otherwise, that connected the lake and the river (figure 1.3). The level of
the lake rose several feet and is now different from what it was before
road construction. How different? We do not know because no studies
were undertaken prior to construction. Erased from immediate view by
decades of impressive flooding are the wood and rock berms that ran
almost a mile upstream along the bank of the Snaring River to prevent
floodwaters from washing out the railway bridge. This impressive labor
made a significant difference in streamside vegetation and banks. More
pervasive and less obvious still is the extensive fishstocking program.
Over a span of several decades, exotic sport fish, rainbow trout for
example, were raised in a park hatchery and released into dozens of
lakes. The effects of these new organisms were dramatic and led in
many cases to a radical transformation of the structure of aquatic eco-
systems.28 Many are surprised to learn that hunting continued to be a
factor affecting wildlife populations until the mid-twentieth century, even
in the wake of the decimation of wildlife in the early 1800s for the fur
trade. Predator control continued until the late 1950s, when a circular
was issued to park staff indicating that practices such as the use of
cyanide guns and other forms of poisoning were no longer necessary in
wildlife management.29
32 Chapter 1
Figure 1.3
View of Talbot Lake from Mount Cinquefoil. The top composited photo from
1915 is by M. P. Bridgland (see chapter 4), and the repeat image (below) is from
exactly the same location in 1999 (J. Rhemtulla and E. Higgs).
One of the most dramatic and talked-about influences is fire suppres-

sion. Just after the establishment of the park, fire-suppression policies
were implemented in Jasper, as they were in most other jurisdictions in
the mountain west. Fire proved a very real threat to settlements and
infrastructure, and in areas where logging was a priority, wildfires meant
loss of revenue. Fire suppression in Jasper primarily addressed the former
concern, although it seems plain that fire was regarded as a cultural
threat as well; it challenged the autonomy and control of people living
in wild regions. Ironically, reducing suppression activities would have
allowed less damaging fires on a regular basis, and we would not now
be in the position of having a staggering load of flammable material
in the park. As one warden put it to me, “It is not a matter of whether
we will have a huge fire, but when.” Suppression is often said not to
have been truly effective in Jasper until after World War II, which is
somewhat misleading. The large fires that swept the valley in 1889 left
relatively little to burn. It would be decades before large areas of the
valley would again present a serious fire hazard. The results of suppres-
sion techniques are clear: there have not been any major wildfires in the
montane ecosystems in eighty years. The valley bottom, which previously
resembled a complex quilt of grasslands, forests, and savannas, is now
almost a carpet of green trees (figure 1.4). A study conducted by Jeanine
Rhemtulla to compare photographs from 1915 and repeat images taken
by her eighty-two years later in 1997 shows a stunning shift from early
to late successional forest types. Crown closure has become more
pronounced in coniferous stands. Some forest encroachment into grass-
lands is apparent, and herbaceous and shrub cover has declined.
Anthropogenic activities have increased significantly. Finally, the area
she studied has become more homogeneous.30
Other influences represent the same pattern, in some cases involving
obvious characteristics, in other cases characteristics subtle or un-
observable to the untrained eye, or instill other cases characteristics that
have been mostly erased by the flow of time. Logging was common in
the park for construction materials in earlier periods. Elk and wolves
were hunted to extirpation and reintroduced. Without the same level of
predation accounted for by declines in the number of predators, elk
populations have surged to what some believe to be historically high
34
Chapter 1
Figure 1.4
Paired mosaic comprising four composited images from 1915 by M. P. Bridgland (top) and J. Rhemtulla and E. Higgs in 1998
(below). Changes in vegetation are especially striking.
levels and are causing a threat to human safety and the integrity of
browse vegetation such as young aspen trees. Coal was mined in the park
until 1928, and aggregate continues to be extracted from within the park
for road construction and maintenance.
Let us not forget about the town of Jasper. Visitors from afar are
surprised to find a full-featured town nestled in the middle of the park.
Once dominated by railway employees and park staff, it is now home to
a booming year-round tourist industry. It is caught at the moment
between the comfort of a small town and the impetus of development.
Proposals abound for new facilities: expanded ski areas, golf courses,
and accommodations. So far, only strict park policies and the relative
lack of external pressure have kept the lid on expansion. The
circumstances are so delicate that any number of small changes—con-
nection to the provincial electrical grid (thereby removing the limits
imposed by local power generation), twinning of the highway, changes
in park policy—could produce an avalanche of commercial activity that
would rival activity in Banff and points further south.
The way I have presented human influences tends to split them into
discrete activities and pressures. The concern turns especially ominous
when we consider the cumulative effects of a century of industrial-era
development. Each separate change is typically a relatively minor blip,
but over time these blips join together to form a composite and often
dramatic pattern of change. Some argue, for example, that Jasper is
approaching, perhaps has tumbled over, a critical threshold that would
ensure the integrity of umbrella or indicator species such as the grizzly
bear. No single factor has led to the precarious state of the grizzly, but
a suite of separate influences. This makes resolution of the matter, in this
case the fate of the grizzly in the Jasper region, much more complicated.
And, so far, few approaches have proved successful, from policy or
legal perspectives, in dealing with cumulative-effects assessment. This
condition holds for many analogous species and ecosystems.
Freak Landscapes
The combined weight of human influences presses us to consider how

to think about long-term management interventions, assuming that
36 Chapter 1
interventions are both necessary and inevitable. It was Cliff White, a

longtime warden in Banff National Park and specialist in prescribed-fire
techniques, whom I heard first use the term freak landscape to describe
the condition of a region that has been extensively altered.31 Freak is an
apt word in the sense that it conveys the idea of abnormality, which of
course leads quickly to the idea of normal. Are we supposed to be man-
aging Jasper in terms of normality, which presupposes a definition of
normal? Can human influences in a wilderness national park be normal?
There is little doubt that the montane valleys in Jasper are freak land-
scapes. This is because the rate of change in the past century, especially
in the last couple of decades, far exceeds the long-term rate of change.
Understanding this requires a comprehensive and integrative view of
human influence. Not all changes are manifested as obvious “sores,”
such as an unreclaimed gravel pit. Others, such as fish stocking, are
known (at this point) only to a few keen park visitors who can break
through the conceptual barriers created by a culture of fishing to under-
stand that stocking of lakes is of concern, and further to realize that
beneath the surface of many lakes lies a community of organisms radi-
cally different from what would have been observed prior to stocking.
Less obvious are the faint traces in the montane valleys of small-scale,
mostly subsistence agriculture and trapping from around the turn of
the century (figure 1.5). Mostly Métis, the dwellers of the valley who
engaged in these practices were astride two cultures: traditional Native
practices and the Euro-American economy.32 Should this human influ-
ence be placed in the same category as, say, fish stocking? Is it so clear
that turn-of-the-century agriculture belongs in the same category as sub-
sequent, more pervasive human influences? If not, then where is the line
drawn? This same categorical problem could be pushed back to the
active fur-trade era (1810–1870) or earlier, to when people were using
the valley almost 11,000 years ago. Regardless of the interpretation,
to take culture seriously is to acknowledge at least a different meaning
of wilderness, if not to raise “the fearsome possibility—that there then
is no wild nature in parks: parks are constructions.”33
Documenting these subtle changes—cultural and ecological—is
painstaking, expensive scientific work but remains the only sure and
durable way of moving beyond the question-asking stage. Awareness is
A Tale of Two Wildernesses
Figure 1.5
View of the upper Athabasca Valley from Mount Esplanade. The inset shows the site of the Ewan Moberly family
farmstead, with one of the fields still plainly visible in the recent photograph. The left photo from 1915, is by M. P.
Bridgland (see chapter 4), and the repeat image (below right) is from exactly the same location in 1999 (J. Rhemtulla
37
and E. Higgs).
38 Chapter 1
increasing about the extent and qualities of human activities in so-

called wilderness areas, but it has yet to be decided what counts as
normal human activity in a landscape. Judgments often prevail after
information has been gathered. Negotiations, coupled with respect for
clear knowledge of a place, will yield sensible ideas of normal (or
perhaps challenge the very foundation that normality provides). The
more we study, the more we understand that the landscape in Jasper
is the result of decades of cultural belief and practice at work: shifting
management philosophies, types and modes of visitation, national-level
park policy, and the simultaneous desire to use and preserve nature
and wilderness.
Jasper park managers want to reintroduce certain processes in the
landscape for many reasons, and in my experience not all these reasons
have been articulated clearly. The most obvious and easily justifiable to
senior managers and to the public concern the loss of ecological integrity,
often expressed in terms of the precipitous decline of a particular species:
the grizzly bear or harlequin duck. Some managers are motivated by an
obligation to right demonstrated wrongs: it is not difficult to convince
people that suppressing fire in the montane landscape was a wrong-
headed policy and that corrective measures are warranted. Others who
have intimate knowledge of the park are compelled by its “freakishness”;
they cannot abide the thought that something is the result of caprice or
is a monstrosity of our own creation. In combination, these motives point
toward restoration: “the process of assisting the recovery of an eco-
system that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed.”34
Restoration, as we will see in subsequent chapters, is a complicated
and at times vexing term. To restore something, for example a painting
obscured by years of grime, is to bring that object back as closely as
possible to its original condition. Choices are made constantly in the art
and architectural restoration world about the most appropriate goals for
restoration. For example, in the case of an old building that has been
altered many times since its creation, to what point in the past is one
striving to return?35 The analogy with ecosystems is not precise for one
important reason: ecosystems are dynamic. There is no original condi-
tion for an ecosystem in any meaningful sense; one cannot fix a specific
point in time. This returns us to the problem of normality: Is normal a
helpful concept in a dynamic landscape and does it serve as a basis for

setting goals?
Let’s take Jasper, for example. Motivated by the freakish quality of the
landscape, a team of managers, scientists, and local residents wishes to
devise a plan for the long-term restoration and management of montane
ecosystems—for instance, the mixed grassland and forest complex in the
Henry House area. Here, in an area of no more than 100 acres, are found
an emergency airstrip, an old trade waste pit, decommissioned and active
roads, historic railway sites, and the first controlled burn project in
the park (from the late 1980s). If this is not sufficient material with
which to work, add the transnational railway and highway that bisect
the area. What would be the primary goal of restoration? Is a point in
time—for example, the year before the establishment of the park, 1906—
a good choice? Once this structural decision is made, exhaustive histor-
ical ecological studies would be required to document the conditions at
the time (e.g., more grasslands, less forest cover), and techniques
deployed to bring these conditions into being. Trade-offs would have to
be made, of course: Are there mitigating measures that could lessen the
effects of the highway and railway? Is it feasible to decommission the
airstrip? An obvious problem with this approach is that it requires
regular management to keep the ecosystems within a narrow range
of variability, or else one is merely turning back the clock. Careful
monitoring is required, and measures such as frequent, low-intensity
fire would be necessary to maintain the conditions of an earlier period.
Of course, 1906 may not be a great choice because settlement and fur
trading had significant influence on vegetation and wildlife throughout
the previous century. And to push back past 1800 begs the question of
climate change and Aboriginal land-management practices. Would
returning these anthropogenic practices to the valley be appropriate, and
even if it were, would we want to do so?
A process-oriented approach would call for a return of dominant
processes to the landscape as they might have existed prior to the prac-
tices that have resulted in the freak landscape. Less temporal precision
is required here. For instance, we could calculate the fire-return intervals
across the landscape, fire being a crucial process, and ensure either that
wildfires are allowed to burn or that prescribed fires are set, to accord
40 Chapter 1
roughly with this historical frequency. This is an attractive option, for

it avoids some of the traps of a structural approach. But it has some
critical flaws. Are we running the risk of imposing yet more influences
on the landscape, a higher level of freakishness if you will, without being
certain that this is going to result in a better landscape, however better
is defined, however landscape is defined? And is this restoration in the
strict sense of returning to some past condition or dynamic state, or is
it enlightened meddling? I will be dealing with issues of terminology and
definitions in chapter 2.
Restorationists in Jasper—indeed, in any so-called wilderness area—
face two contemporary challenges. First, how can we effectively link up
the myriad site-specific considerations such that they form an integral
landscape, one subject to natural (however defined) processes instead of
managerial vicissitudes? This is the problem of temporal agreement: If
one ecosystem or ecosite is restored according to prepark criteria, and
another ecosite is restored according to process considerations, will these
two projects be discordant? Thinking on a broader scale, a landscape
level, is required to reconcile site-specific relationships. Presumably we
do not want restoration activities to be restricted to a national park; the
park may be a good catalyst in promoting coherent restoration of adja-
cent landscapes. The best approach is to work across scales, or at least
to ensure that one’s work is positioned well in relation to various scales.
The second challenge is how to incorporate human influences into
restoration planning most effectively. This involves developing appro-
priate ways of conducting sensitive environmental histories, forming
closer ties between natural and social scientists, and working with the
idea that perhaps wilderness is not about the abolition of people but
about good ways of working with people in a natural setting that
ecologist Daniel Botkin describes as “a new perception of nature.”36
Restoring an Idea or a Place?
Those entrusted with the care of wilderness parks—park wardens, main-

tenance crews, interpreters, researchers, senior managers, politicians—
cannot make the hard decisions about restoring ecological integrity
without also addressing changing public views about wilderness, nature,
and parks. Parks serve a critical prudential function of securing and pre-
serving habitat for species and ecological communities that would wither
under less protective policies, although we know also that good-hearted
attempts to manage them can produce freak landscapes that do not
provide the proper conditions for fragile ecosystems and rare cultural
landscapes to flourish. They embody a vision of the world in two parts,
with protectionist rules for nature inside the park and exploitative rules
for nature elsewhere. In a culture that accepts this dichotomy, people
may exult in the wild beauty of the protected places and support parks
with cash donations, but continue otherwise in a lifestyle that erodes
the foundations of ecological integrity. The result, sooner or later, is a
set of highly fortified islands of threatened wildness surrounded by a sea
of relatively heedless industrial activity. Does restoration, properly con-
ceived, offer the reflective and practical basis for a rethinking of
wilderness parks and by extension other so-called natural areas?
To restore something means to consider what that thing is and what
it means. This is perhaps the primary value of restoration, a way of
reflecting deeply on appropriate action. Restoring an ecosystem or an
ecological process or many ecosystems within a larger landscape requires
clarity about goals: What are we after? How effectively can we, if at all,
act as a proxy for the places being restored? An understanding of the
past is useful in helping to relieve some of the burden of such questions.
Richard White writes:
Because so much of our understanding of the national parks is caught up in the
idea of wilderness and wild nature, this history has implications for the
park. Parks, of course, do preserve wild habitat and even some wilderness in
the sense of land unaltered by human activity. But if many areas of the parks
were shaped by Indian use, then they were not pristine areas of wilderness. They
were and remain contingent, historical landscapes. Furthermore, the changes
that have occurred in the national parks since the incorporation of the parks can
only be understood in relation to the suppression of various Indian practices:
burning, hunting, and grazing. Wilderness is not so much preserved as created
[my emphasis].37
Setting appropriate goals is predicated on a creative fusion of scien-

tific and cultural knowledge. Knowing the history of a place is a pre-
requisite to understanding it, and knowing its history means taking
people as well as ecosystems seriously. A goal for an ecosystem will
42 Chapter 1
always depend on value judgments no matter how much we cloak

our judgment in a patina of scientific precision. Deciding the appropri-
ate percentage cover of grasslands in the montane valleys of Jasper is
rooted in historical knowledge about the distribution of grasslands,
but it is also informed by the likelihood that Aboriginal burning prac-
tices created and maintained a particular, changing mosaic. Factored in
such a decision will be economic concerns about maintenance costs, and
judgments about how much change visitors are willing to accept. More
difficult still is the challenge of comprehending and managing for a tur-
bulent future. American environmental essayist Stephanie Mills writes:
“Add to this the baleful fact that global warming threatens to move
vegetation ranges faster than vegetation can move, and the paradigm to
which to restore blurs.”38 Setting goals will, and should, be an adaptive
process.
Thus, the concept of pristine wilderness begins to pale as we learn
more about human influence. Our guiding images of vast unspoiled
reserves, shaped by long and complicated Euro-American cultural values,
are in need of renovation. The restoration of wilderness parks may be
as much about the restoration of an idea as of a place, and of course we
must give careful thought to whether wilderness is the idea we want to
prevail. Wilderness is a constructed notion as well as real place; in the
parlance of literary theorists, it is both the signifier and the signified.
Michael Soulé and Gary Lease were keen on exposing what they
regarded as an invidious postmodern trend to comprehend nature and
wilderness as cultural phenomena. The contributors to the volume
Reinventing Nature show the matter to be much more complex than an
academic theory gone wrong (assuming it has gone wrong).39 The truth,
contingent of course, must lie between an essentialist view of wilderness
in which everything we take to be present is real, and a constructivist
view that holds that wilderness is a mere construction. Wilderness is
simultaneously constructed and real, or as Wallace Stevens expressed it,
“the nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”40
I work in Jasper National Park because the rocks and topography and
quality of light and countless ineffable things draw me here. Yet I know
that my perceptions of this place are colored richly by my early life in
the lower Fraser Valley of British Columbia, and later in thickly popu-
lated southern Ontario, where nature was always something to drive to

and wilderness was far away, up north. My experiences shape my beliefs
about Jasper, and to really see this place it is necessary for me to ques-
tion my perceptions. It is, but it is also what I make it to be.
At one level it is intuitively obvious that we color our perception of
things with experience. I have been curious to know what a person who
drives the famous Icefields Parkway between Jasper and Lake Louise in
a thirty-foot motor home, festooned with the air-conditioned comforts
of home, really sees. What is their take on the flocks of wild mountain
sheep that lick the salt from the road and block the highway from time
to time? Do motor-home travelers take time to feel the qualities of
sound and smell that are elusive to indoor senses? Are they experi-
encing the solitude and solace that draw me into the backcountry?
Down the Yellowhead highway ten miles, toward the town of Jasper, is
the Jasper Park Lodge. It is redolent with the history of gracious railway
travel in Canada, and recalls an era when wealthy easterners and
Europeans would ride by rail to magnificent luxury hotels.41 In the
1970s, Jasper Park Lodge was upgraded for year-round use. Renovations
continue. Boasting of almost 500 guestrooms, hotel managers are
hoping for approval of a major expansion that would more fully
occupy what is already the largest leasehold in the park. Guests can
swim, play golf on a well-appointed eighteen-hole course (watch out for
elk!), dine on exquisite offerings, ski in the winter, and partake of all the
usual amenities of a top-notch resort. At the high end, one can stay in
Point Cabin, which comes with its own chef, for roughly $1,500 a
night (taxes extra). What perceptions of the landscape do those who play
here form?
Surrounded by anthropologists over the past few years, I have grown
accustomed to issues of cultural relativism and try to avoid stereotyping,
criticism, and dismissal of the experiences of people I do not know. As
someone who prefers the spare comfort of a backpack on a mountain
hike to the excesses of a motor home, it is difficult to steer clear of judg-
ment. At the same time I realize how little I know about the experiences
that others have in this place.42 And at 1.6 million visitors a year and
growing (estimated in 1999) with another 1.2 million who pass through
the park on the Yellowhead highway, such knowledge is crucial.43
44 Chapter 1
The constructedness of reality was plainly evident in the bear-in-the-

kitchen incident related at the beginning of this chapter; the presence of
that animal meant many things depending on where one stood in rela-
tion to it. For some it was yet another example of the despoiling conse-
quences of human activity in Jasper, and for others it meant an awkward
and frightening border struggle between the wild and the domestic. A
line stretched taut between essentialism and constructivism has been
hovering above us for all of the modern period. Here is Wordsworth
writing at the end of the eighteenth century:
Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the senses,
the anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
the guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.44
This power to “half create” suffuses the modern era and inspires a fun-
damental ambiguity on which our knowledge of nature and wilderness
is situated. We understand two seemingly inconsistent verities about
things: that there is nature out there that lies beyond our ability to cocre-
ate, and that our forms of perception make it resemble what we choose.
Wordsworth was writing as the dominant economic structure of capi-
talism was in formation, and before industrialism had become the pre-
dominant mode of production and consumption the preeminent ethos.
The passage out of the modern era in the latter half of the twentieth
century provided us with a less secure sense of reality by illustrating at
almost every turn that what we think is real is either a distortion, a
figment of our imagination, or a clever projection.
In the last three decades in North America, longer in Western Europe,
scholars in literary studies, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, psy-
choanalysis, and science studies have pointed to the process of creating
or constructing our world according to habits of thought. In more radical
guises, constructivism involves the idea that reality is socially negotiated
and contingent. The divide is vast between essentialism—the view that

reality is given and immediately grasped—and constructivism, and this
fissure has shot through much of academia. Moving too far along that
taut line toward constructivism means that reality, that fungible, tan-
gible experience of a place such as Jasper, diffuses in a mist of virtua-
lity. The strength of the contemporary economy is built increasingly of
virtual leisure and work, and this view of life is beginning to pervade
the Athabasca Valley and every other place to which we attach real
significance.
In Jasper, the park is buffeted to an extent greater than most desire by
the winds of change. Perhaps the most difficult one to understand, and
ultimately the most important if we take seriously a connection between
deep belief and action, is the way that people’s values about wilderness
are changing. The late Alexander Wilson, a formative thinker in the
Society for Ecological Restoration, suggested that the North American
concept of nature is conditioned by the automobile and changes in mobil-
ity and vantage points, the aesthetic conditions of suburban living, the
rise of formal nature and outdoor education, television and media pro-
gramming, and theme parks.45 These are difficult matters to study and
chronicle, not least because they are largely immune to quantitative
analyses.
A good place to begin any study of institutions that change our atti-
tudes toward nature is the Disney Corporation. There is little doubt that
Disney through its films and television programming of anthropo-
morphized animals has done as much as any other source to alter our
perceptions of nature and wilderness, and mostly in the name of
entertainment. Disney dominates the culture industry at the beginning of
the twenty-first century, which is one reason why Jennifer Cypher and I
took on the task of studying the Wilderness Lodge at Disney World. A
group of designers at Disney sat down to decide what broad cultural
values people (primarily from the United States) would associate with
wilderness and produced an exceptionally compact and grand view of
wilderness in the form of a themed hotel—a design that builds on care-
fully constructed, repetitive ideas. Could it be that more people will learn
about wilderness from Disney than from so-called wilderness areas
46 Chapter 1
themselves? The restoration of damaged ecosystems in a national park

such as Jasper, an icon of wilderness in Canada—which in turn stands
for untrammeled nature (mistakenly, I would argue)—depends to a
certain extent on the public values used in setting goals and allocating
resources to realize those goals. Moreover, the very tendency to set goals
or prescribe what natural places can or should do is an indication of an
increasingly programmed view of wilderness. Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
constitutes another kind of wilderness, and a very salable one.
Wilderness as Theme
The Wilderness Lodge is a four-star hotel set in the growing entertain-

ment complex of Disney World in Orlando, Florida. An ingredient in the
stunning success of Disney World is hotel development, in which hotels
are imbued with the character of specific time, place, or event. There
are thirteen large commercially successful hotels, each with a distinctive
theme (e.g., the Grand Floridian, reminiscent of times past in the host
state). The Wilderness Lodge is designed to convey the experience
of staying in a grand Western U.S. national park hotel, a remarkable
feat considering it has over 700 rooms and is located in steamy central
Florida. Apparently the idea for the project was strongly supported by
Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney, someone who relates to the outdoors
through boyhood experiences in the Adirondacks.46 The Lodge seeks to
capitalize on deeply held American beliefs about wilderness, simpler
lifestyles, the frontier, and Native Americans. Wilderness is transmogri-
fied into a theme.
Disney’s constructed realities have reached their North American acme
at Disney World, in which the Disney Corporation has produced three
separate theme parks, a shopping village, and several other attraction
areas on a 28,000-acre property wholly owned and managed by Disney.
Disney’s latest nature theme project, opened in 1998, is styled as an
animal preserve, Animal Kingdom, where guests can go on safari and
observe actual “wild” animals in their “natural” habitat.
The motto of the Lodge is “Don’t just stay, explore!”, a phrase eerily
similar to so many advertising slogans devised by states and provinces
over the last few years to advertise the natural splendors of their regions.
The Lodge fits into Disney World in a very special way, far removed from
the more obviously landscaped areas, straddling a fine line between
wanting to look natural in its surroundings and wanting to toot the
Disney horn about how much “imagineering” it took to create a forest
in a Florida swamp. Without the care and planning of a Disney product,
the Wilderness Lodge might fly in the face of the overall message about
nature presented throughout Disney World, in which a particular view
of progress is naturalized. Yet Disney absorbs the Lodge into this doc-
trine of progress by emphasizing certain elements of the story of the
Lodge. The human struggle against the wilderness is the tale told here,
and the bringing of the frontier under human control, by both physical
and ideological means, places the Lodge and its history firmly within the
ideological bounds of Disney.
Timberline Drive leads the visitor away from the buzz and excitement
of Disney World to a more tranquil setting. Gradually, design elements
begin to do their work in convincing the visitor that she or he has entered
a new realm. One passes through a dramatic gate (very similar to the
kind of gate that arches over the road leading to the Jasper Park Lodge).
The trees become taller and more conifer. Road signs have changed from
the typical metal-on-metal to ones that are supported by rough-hewn
poles. There are a few redwood trees in the median strip close to the
main entrance of the Lodge, struggling in a foreign environment. The
Lodge appears to be constructed of logs and is covered with a many-
leveled green roof. A valet dressed in a faux–park ranger uniform greets
visitors on their arrival.
The lobby lies beyond massive, permanently open wooden doors and
sliding glass doors that separate the hot, humid Florida day from the air-
conditioned space within. Here is what Jennifer Cypher reported on
entering:
It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust to the light, which filters into the room
as if through mountains and forest. The lobby is enormous. Over seven stories
high, wooden balconies at each level encircle it. Huge stripped logs support the
room at its perimeter, and bundles of logs topped by animal carvings reach for
the timbered roof. At the far end of the lobby is a fireplace, its chimney nine
stories of stratified rock formations. Two totem poles face each other from across
the lobby, each reaching almost to the ceiling, decorated with carved and painted
images familiar to those who have seen the carvings of the Native people from
48 Chapter 1
North America’s Northwest Coast. The stone floor is rough granite around the
room’s perimeter, giving way in the center to highly polished stone inlaid with
designs suggesting Navajo and Hopi blanket patterns. Iron and stretched skin
tipi-shaped light fixtures hang from the ceiling; the ironwork depicts Native
people on horseback pursuing buffalo.47
The attention to detail is exquisite. Food served in the Whispering

Canyon Café features a cowboys-and-Indians decor and frontier-style
cooking. The gift shops specialize in Western objects and environmental
games, toys, and souvenirs. Inside, guest rooms repeat the themes. The
bedspreads resemble patchwork quilts, the furniture is mission style, and
the paintings are specially prepared copies of turn-of-the-century works
that depict nature without the gore. The fireplace represents the stratig-
raphy of the Grand Canyon, which is second only to the drama of Silver
Springs Creek. The creek gushes forth from its apparently real source in
the lobby of the hotel and heads for the courtyard outside, where it drops
over rocks and tumbles wildly toward the lake on which the Lodge is
located. Just before it reaches the lake, the creek culminates in Fire Rock
Geyser, a 180-foot, every-hour-on-the-hour, hydraulic extravaganza.
Taller and more reliable than Old Faithful, the poignant symbol of
Yellowstone National Park, Fire Rock is operated by a hidden appara-
tus that mimics its better-known if somewhat estranged relative, despite
the humid environment of Florida.
Materials for the Lodge are not what they appear. It is a tribute to
Disney’s “imagineers” that stream rocks are made of carefully painted
concrete, and the logs are not real logs but simulated wood made of
concrete. Some of this is done to create building efficiencies and meet
safety regulations, but elsewhere there are Disney flourishes that become
part of the entertainment mystique. Guests are encouraged to spot the
subtlest details. In the grand fireplace, which offers itself as an educa-
tional experience in the geology of the American West that guests can
view from balconies at each floor, there is a Mickey Mouse silhouette
carved into one of the geological layers. Such is the transmogrification
of wilderness.
Interpretive materials paint a purple past. The Silver Creek Star is a
newsletter distributed to guests that explains how the Wilderness Lodge
was established to preserve the beauty of its surroundings, obviously
playing off the significance of wilderness parks. A complicated tale is told

of fictional Colonel Ezekiel Moreland, who set off on the trail left by
Lewis and Clark with a crew of naturalists, former soldiers, and explor-
ers. Moreland is a rugged individualist who challenges the toughest tests
the West has to offer: “I take to the wilderness alone. . . . The good earth
will provide me with everything I need to survive. . . . I have my gun, I
have my courage, and I have my determination.”48 Moreland discovers
Silver Creek Springs and ultimately brings his daughter Genevieve west
to help create the Wilderness Lodge, an edifice that will encourage the
preservation of the natural beauty of wilderness.
This unabashed story adorns the narrative about wilderness created
by the Lodge itself. It reinforces the ideas of nature without people, wild
and dangerous unknowns, noble Indians, gritty settlers, and the soul of
the American people who sought to preserve beauty against rapacious
developments. Each of these individual elements is insufficient to carry
the narrative, but when combined, they recreate an imaginative wilder-
ness. If wilderness is the apex of experience, the Lodge represents a dis-
tinctive and extraordinarily well-crafted retelling of such experience. In
making a spectacle of this experience, indulgence is raised to new heights.
And indulgence sells extremely well if the numbers of guests are a reli-
able indication.49 However, we really do not have much idea what guests
think of the Lodge beyond their immediate embrace of the facility. The
Disney Corporation was generous with their staff time and access to
facilities, but they frowned on independent surveys or studies of guests.
Cypher was able to observe and to a limited extent interact with staff
and guests at the Lodge, but there remain important questions to answer:
What meaning(s) of wilderness do the guests take in? Are they eco-
tourists? What is the relationship between the preconceived views of the
guests and the themes expressed at the Lodge?
Colonizing the Imagination
The Disney version of wilderness rests on a complete fabrication not only

of experience but also of place. At one level this should cause us no
concern. Fabrications in the form of circuses, carnivals, and world’s fairs
have been around for a long time. They are intended to be entertaining,
50 Chapter 1
Fun for the Whole Family. To read the Wilderness Lodge as mere enter-
tainment is, of course, to miss some fascinating and disturbing features.
A development such as the Lodge builds on ingrained public ideas about
wilderness, which is to be expected, but such a project in the hands of
an agency as powerful as the Disney Corporation has the potential
to reshape meaning. Such meaning is bound up with larger cultural
patterns of commodification and consumption, as well as with the search
for a simpler past, control over nature, and historical amnesia about the
role of peoples in settling the West. In many cases it was not a bounti-
ful, productive, and friendly conquest of new land, but comprised violent
struggles to assert one way of life and view of the world on other peoples
and landscapes.50 That this pathology of conquest goes largely un-
mentioned in the Lodge is a tribute to Disney’s ability to bend percep-
tion, especially at a time when there is growing awareness of the
complexity, ambiguity, and contingency of historical records. The appeal
of such a simple story of benign settlement in a breathtaking wilderness
setting may be that it anchors the world to a story that is at once simpler,
kinder, guiltless, and congenial to the idea of wilderness.51 After all, what
story do people want to hear when on vacation, as most are when they
visit either Disney attractions or national parks?52
Also striking is the fact that in visiting the Lodge one is not really
having an experience of a simulated wilderness but of a simulated
representation of wilderness. During her visit to the site, Cypher found
it difficult to engage with anything natural—that is, uncontrolled,
unweeded, unplanned. There is a nature preserve, Discovery Island
(sponsored by Friskies, the cat food company) on Bay Lake, but once
outside the hotel there are few places to walk, no place to go without
an escort or plan or car. Hence, the Wilderness Lodge offers little in the
way of experience at the level of direct contact with animals and plants,
even to the extent that one has in visiting a zoological or botanical
garden.
Disney, like the tourist and entertainment industries in general, is in
the business of selling programmed experience: consummation through
consumption of reality, or more accurately, virtual reality. In doing this,
Disney is intimately involved in the production of landscapes and the
selling of stories about nature. Disney World uses space to create and
reinforce ideologies especially supportive of capitalism and consumption.

Capitalism is emphasized, of course, because it represents the acme of
the American economy and is probably the only route to creating such
concentrated entertainment. Consumption is what makes the Wilderness
Lodge and similar attractions possible. I think of this every time I visit
one of the new style of interpretive centers popping up in parks every-
where: state-of-the art buildings, expensive video productions, enter-
taining children’s displays, interactive information kiosks, fetching
graphics, alluring memento shops and snack bars. Education is the
guise, but I feel that most often consumption is driving these facilities.
The idea begins, as it did in the multimillion-dollar Icefields Interpre-
tive Center at the world-renowned Columbia Icefields in Jasper
National Park, with multiple and conflicting demands: education, traffic
flow, basic visitor services, cost recovery and profit. Elaborate
educational displays are designed to explain the phenomena outside the
window, but the display is so compelling that the visitor center becomes
an end in itself. Designers artfully craft messages that are tuned to
contemporary interests, which are in turn conditioned by popular
culture. As people become inured to destination consumption—as with
Niketown stores, where selling shoes is only an aspect of the cul-
tural experience of being there—visitor centers fall in step. Thus, the
Icefields Center is itself a destination, and the consumption of ideas and
goods is a comforting experience in an otherwise hostile world of ice and
mountains. Why visit the glacier when the glacier is reproduced safely
and comfortably inside a building or through the virtual engineering of
video? These thematic centers of consumption are of one piece with the
Wilderness Lodge, though admittedly smaller and perhaps therefore
more benign.
Cypher and I refer to the pattern that connects all of the diverse
attempts to manufacture experience as colonization of the imagination.53
Disney’s imagineers and designers working at other institutions are not
merely regulating impressions of experience, they are reconfiguring
people’s imaginative capacities. The Wilderness Lodge is changing what
people understand wilderness or nature to be, and this in turns shapes
their views of the real thing. This has less to do with a conspiracy and
more to do with the extraordinarily successful empire created by Disney
52 Chapter 1
and fed by consumer impulses, reinforced by exposure to other aspects

of the entertainment marketplace: Disney films, videos, stores, and
countless references in popular culture. It is too easy to stop here and
ignore the ideological intentions of Disney, and also the effect that this
enterprise and others are having on the ways we comprehend reality;
after all, Disney is not alone in commodifying nature.54
The colonization of the imagination is part of a larger pattern of colo-
nialism and imperialism that characterizes the development of North
American life and that is spreading all over the world through the
processes of economic and cultural globalization.55 Dramatic as it may
seem, in colonizing the imagination what the Lodge and similar projects
are accomplishing is a friendly takeover of the reality that underlies
themed experience. By turning wilderness into a conceptual product, one
that is adaptable and pliable, Disney is also creating a new reality. The
wilderness outside the empire becomes subject to the interpretations of
the empire, and our capacities for imagination and action are dessicated.
Celebration?
The reach of Disney comes precisely because the corporation has figured
out how to imbue entertainment with deeply held beliefs, and then to
take these beliefs and shape them to meet corporate interests. There is
an ideology to Disney beyond big business, and this is sometimes for-
gotten in the rush to embrace the so-called magic of entertainment. There
is an evangelical Disney. Walt Disney, Disney’s founder and now chief
archetype, imagined a future dominated by small-town America: white
picket fences, single-family homes, safe streets, and wholesome enter-
tainment. He believed in this vision fervently and used it to design enter-
tainment that would appeal to an America (now the world) lost in
struggles for identity. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in Cele-
bration City, a $2.5 billion dollar development just outside Disney World
in Florida. It is an experiment that Russ Rymer terms “redemptive urban
design.”56 Ironically perhaps, Celebration City is the proof of a promise
Walt Disney made to Florida just before his death in 1966—that EPCOT,
the popular theme park depicting a high-tech future, would also be a
real community, one that would embrace 20,000 people. If Celebration
is the wave of the future for communities, as Michael Eisner believes,

then it is almost purely nostalgic: “Disney pervades. The Celebration
town seal, emblazoned on everything from coffee cups to manhole
covers, is a cameo of a little girl with a ponytail riding a bicycle past a
picket fence under a spreading oak tree as her little dog chases along
behind. It is an icon of innocence and freedom, and it bears a Disney
copyright.”57
The designers of Celebration City have taken their job seriously: estab-
lishing a small town requires more than the manipulation of “hardware.”
The creation of “software”—community spirit, organizations, social
cohesion—is a delicate and challenging matter for any designer and not
one that many have been able to execute, if today’s sprawling, disori-
enting cities are any indication. Disney designers searched for the soul
of small-town America by studying communities that did demonstrate
such integrity, much as the designers of the Wilderness Lodge visited
national parks and national park lodges for inspiration. Typically, in
Disney imagineering a “backstory” is written, one that creates a mythic
past. This was a primary technique used to generate the Lodge. However,
in Celebration City, such a gambit was rejected, with developers relying
on an implied past rather than on one that is fabricated. I have not been
able to get over the eerie feeling of Celebration. I entered a skeptic and
left, well, an unwilling believer. The layout of the town is superb. The
mercantile district welcomes the pedestrian with smells of fresh-baked
organic bread and mesquite grill. The theater conjures up the 1950s, a
purportedly simpler time. The artificial lake anchors the community.
Bicycle and walking trails permeate the development. Posing as a
prospective house buyer, I found myself secretly admiring the clever
flourishes, the artfully designed houses. So much thought went into the
design that it struck me that perhaps it does take massive capital and
heroic intention to design a good community, even if the housing prices
are out of reach for many Americans and few can find work locally (Cele-
bration is, after all, a bedroom community for Orlando). Perhaps the
strangest experience occurred on ordering a morning coffee at a quaint
café overlooking the lake. Wanting to soak in the ambience of Celebra-
tion, I asked for my coffee in a real cup. The server replied, “Sorry, sir,
we don’t have real cups. You’re the first person to ask for one.”
54 Chapter 1
Celebration City may appear to those of us who eschew such total

planning as a crass attempt to spread Disney ideology. Yet it has proved
popular with prospective buyers, who entered a lottery just to have an
opportunity to buy a house. Apart from a high-minded rejection of the
project, what real criticism can we offer, criticism that might point to
the center of what is troubling about developments such as Celebration
and the Wilderness Lodge? The question of authenticity comes to mind
immediately—a point that Rymer emphasizes:
Of course, “bona fide,” like “authenticity” and “rigor,” is a complicated concept
in Celebration. What do such terms mean in a town whose history is retroac-
tive, whose tradition is that of the entertainment company that founded it, whose
lake is dammed and whose creek is pumped, whose creators say “lifestyle” for
“life” and insert the phrase “a sense of” before every vital principle? Celebra-
tion is billed as being in the great American tradition of town building, but it is
a town whose mission isn’t the pursuit of commercial advantage, or religious
or political freedom, or any idea more compelling than a sense of comfortable
community. Its ambition is, in the end, no greater than to be like a town.”58
But what does it mean to be “like” a town instead of being a town?

A similar question can be asked of the Wilderness Lodge. At one level
its ambition is to be nothing other than a very accommodating hotel,
one that attracts by constructing a salutary mythology of wilderness.
After all, what could be wrong with wilderness? In studying the Lodge
together with real issues in a real national park, another level is appar-
ent: the real consequences of artificiality and themed experience. The
immersion of more and more people in an atmosphere such as the Lodge,
coupled with the power of media images portraying complicated, often
contradictory messages about wild nature, results in a compounded
problem. Not only is the myth of wilderness promulgated, with all the
attendant dangers of wild places, but nature is also rendered as some-
thing subject to our ultimate control. Wild things are all right as long as
they are not too wild and the choices we must make to keep them wild
are not too difficult to endure. As Cypher comments, it is “wilderness
without the dirt or danger.”59
This is the central dilemma I think managers in places such as Jasper
must come to terms with. The public on which they rely for their support
through political institutions may become increasingly fickle about
management alternatives, and perhaps less tolerant of the discomforts of
real park experience. Might the combination of privatization and themed

experience produce demands for money-back guarantees and insurance
policies on hikes along the Skyline Trail, one of Jasper’s famous high-
altitude treks? Weather may be alterable but not controllable. Ian
MacLaren commented to me that the bear-in-the-kitchen experience was
cinematic because we were conditioned by so many similar Disney tele-
vision stories—could my retelling of the tale reflect a learned disposition
to seeing nature as an artifact of commercial production? Park wardens
are inclined to agree, noting that themed experience, whether through
television, museums, school curriculums, or theme parks, is causing
people to do bizarre things while traveling through parks such as Jasper
such as walking right up to a black bear munching berries at the side of
the road; it disrespects the integrity of that being, and denies knowledge
of its fierceness, fragility, and wildness.
The plight of Jasper is very real. Nearly a century of on-the-ground
practices, rooted in traditional values of wilderness, have produced a
freak landscape, one out of character with the long-term ecological and
cultural history of the region and one that may ultimately thwart
attempts to conserve and restore biodiversity and create appropriate cul-
tural practices. It is one thing for the public to be open-minded about
prescribed burning as a way of reintroducing fire as a process in the
landscape, to take one example, but quite another to accept charred
landscapes, extensive smoke, and the knowledge that much remains
experimental. “It would,” as MacLaren speculates, “be like visiting Paris
during a museum workers’ strike.”60 The world of a real national park
is not nearly so innocent as the world of wilderness represented by
Disney.
One Wilderness or Two?
In the decades ahead, people will be increasingly preoccupied with elec-

tronic mediation in the form of electronic games, Web design and main-
tenance, virtual reality simulations, e-mail, Internet browsing, and
multimedia conveyances. Our knowledge is becoming indoor knowledge:
fewer people move beyond television and computer screens,61 bio-
logy departments are shifting from field to lab projects, students in
56 Chapter 1
universities—my university at least—are receiving far less experience in

the field or even direct hands-on education than they did ten years ago,
and fewer people venture into the backcountry of Jasper National Park.
These are the physical manifestations of a large cultural shift in our
disposition toward places and things we regard as nature.
David Orr, a leading American environmental educator, urges us along
another path toward greater “ecological literacy,” knowledge of things
as they are through felt experience. What he proposes is anathema to the
sound bite, the snapshot nature program on television, the quick-fix
textbook, the single-issue lobby group, or what people used to call
indoctrination: “The fact that this kind of intimate knowledge of our
landscapes is rapidly disappearing can only impoverish our mental land-
scapes as well. People who do not know the ground on which they stand
miss one of the elements of good thinking, which is the capacity to dis-
tinguish between health and disease in natural systems and their relation
to health and disease in human ones.”62 Comprehension of the intricacy,
“authenticity, indigeneity, fierceness, and spontaneity; resilience and
health above all,”63 of wild places, writes Stephanie Mills, requires
personal, intimate, slow-paced knowledge of exactly the kind that we
are largely extinguishing in our institutions and our lives. I fear that we
are becoming endlessly proficient with geographic information systems,
the maps, and in the process becoming progressively estranged from
the places to which they refer, or even reality itself.
Wilderness—nature without people, untamed wild open spaces—is
clouding judgment and best intentions:
But the trouble with wilderness is that it quietly expresses and reproduces the
very values its devotees seek to reject. The flight from history that is very nearly
the core of wilderness represents the false hope of an escape from responsibility,
the illusion that we can somehow wipe clean the slate of our past and return
to the tabula rasa that supposedly existed before we began to leave our marks
on the world. . . . Only people whose relation to the land was already alienated
could hold up wilderness as a model for human life in nature, for the romantic
ideology of wilderness leaves precisely nowhere for human beings actually to
make their living from the land.64
Cronon’s work raises a disquieting question that ecologists and envi-

ronmentalists are quick to point out: What do we do about areas that
do, in fact, come close to matching the traditional ideal of wilderness?
Writing as Cronon does from Wisconsin or California,65 both regions of

intense cultivation and dense settlement, one is apt to have a different
view of wilderness and working landscapes than someone who inhabits
less peopled places.
This is one of the main reasons I chose Jasper National Park as a
central example. It is in many respects a paradigmatic example of
contemporary wilderness. As David Strong writes, “A transcendent
encounter with wilderness and wild things is possible in our time, now
and then, because we have voluntarily not brought absolutely everything
under control, having protected from this unsettling, rearranging
process, some wild places in the form of legal wilderness areas, wildlife
reserves and national parks.”66 For reasons of geography and fate, Jasper
has had modest human involvement with ecosystems, except in the
heavily used montane valleys. The gaze of the visitor is usually directed
upward toward the awe-inspiring mountains, which immediately erases
the sensation and fact that one is traveling along a national highway and
alongside a major railway, buried pipelines and fiber optic cables, and
dozens of archaeological and historical sites. Even if we were to create
two zones, as park managers have largely done—front country and back
country—in which the populated valleys are treated as use zones and the
majority of the landscape (>90%) is wilderness, this distinction would
miss both the ecological significance of the peopled valleys and the con-
tinuity that has always existed between the main valleys and those that
are more remote from present-day travel routes. There will always be
regions that are so craggy, forested, and formidable that people will turn
away; these are the regions that fit the archetype of wilderness. But, few
of these places have been free of people over the long haul. Traditional
travel routes for indigenous peoples that led to summer camps, hunting
areas, and sites of sacred significance must have created a landscape per-
ceived very differently than the one we know today. The idea of wilder-
ness obscures these subtle historical and ecological facts. In advancing
the concept of wilderness to describe Jasper we are, as Cronon suggests,
getting back to the wrong history.
Comparisons to works of art are dubious, but Jasper is like a price-
less painting; it represents both rarity and extraordinary integrity. Yet it
is in a crucial way not very constructed; its reality is palpable to those
58 Chapter 1
who choose it over television or some other mediated experience. It may

in fact have sufficient “commanding presence and telling continuity”67
that its character penetrates even the windows of an automobile or motor
home. Jasper challenges our notion of wilderness precisely because it is
at once both a remarkably wild place and a place that has been marked
and shaped by human activities for thousands of years.
The concept of wilderness needs redefinition. The redefinition process
that began with the efforts of a few scholars and managers thirty years
ago has begun to percolate through management activities in so-called
wilderness areas and will eventually seep into public consciousness. I am
not alone in recommending abandonment of the term wilderness and
replacing it with more precise and less loaded phrases. Wildness is
the condition of being unconstrained and unconventional, perhaps
wayward. One does not easily predict wildness. To be part of it, one
must engage in reciprocal relations, giving as much as one takes, listen-
ing as much as talking. It requires what Gary Snyder terms “the etiquette
of freedom.”68 Wildlands are those where such relations take place.
This book is about the power, potential, and limitations of ecological
restoration. By choosing to describe a place that most people think is
a preeminent wilderness, I have introduced indirectly an acid test and
a conundrum for restorationists. The question should not be, “can we
restore wilderness,” but can wildness be restored? An expanded view of
restoration must account for the possibility that people can be part of
wildness, that they can be participants in modest, regenerative, respect-
ful activities over long intervals in precious areas. My hunch is that if
we can solve both the practical and abstract issues of restoring a place
such as Jasper, which will necessarily involve bending the traditional
meanings of both restoration and wilderness, the challenge in other
locales will be that much easier. Back in the park, ecological restoration
is synonymous with the restoration of hope; the icy-edged mentality of
inevitable development and consumption can, over time, melt away to
expose a respectful, reciprocal engagement with this landscape. Then the
aim will not be to protect threatened reserves per se, but to change the
imagination and ambitions of people, and in so doing permit the flour-
ishing of wild places. The call must be for education, not indoctrination,
the latter being the province of themed experience.
2
Boundary Conditions
The collapse of the famous estuary produced the predictable dull-eyed baffle-
ment among bureaucrats. Faced with a public-relations disaster and a cataclysmic
threat to the tourism industry, the same people who by their ignorance had
managed to starve Florida Bay now began scrambling for a way to revive it. This
would be difficult without antagonizing the same farmers and developers for
whom the marshlands had been so expensively replumbed. Politicians were
caught in a bind. Those who’d never lost a moment’s sleep over the fate of the
white heron now waxed lyrical about its delicate grace. Privately, meanwhile,
they reassured campaign donors that—screw the birds—Big Agriculture would
still get first crack at the precious water.
For anyone seeking election to office in South Florida, restoring the Everglades
became not only a pledge but a mantra. Speeches were given, grandiose prom-
ises made, blue-ribbon task forces assembled, research grants awarded, scientific
symposiums convened . . . and not much changed.
—Carl Hiassen, Lucky You
Florid(ian) Images
The Ninth Annual Conference of the Society for Ecological Restoration

(SER) was held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in November 1997, a nearly
ideal time for a northerner to head south for a week of sunlight and heat.
I had missed the chance a couple of years earlier to visit the Wilderness
Lodge at Disney World with Jennifer Cypher, then a graduate student
working with me on describing how the business of creating nature
related to the business of restoring nature. For her the creation from
scratch of a themed hotel playing on American values of wilderness
represented the most extreme view of restoration, the deliberate creation
of a historical image (see chapter 1). I arrived in Orlando a day early to
stomp around Disney’s Wilderness Lodge and Celebration City before
60 Chapter 2
heading south to the conference. After navigating the airport and finding
motel accommodations along the neon strip running east from Disney
World, I headed to the Wilderness Lodge just after sunset to eat a themed
meal at the Whispering Canyon Café (I couldn’t afford to stay at the
Lodge). Touring the Lodge was everything Jennifer had promised: an
eerie conjunction of the real and fake, or what Jim McMahon has called
designer ecosystems.1 The word simulacrum—a copy with no true
origin—haunted me. Everything was designed and created; even the
rocks were made of concrete and painted to look real. I gawked at
the nine-story-high fireplace representing the stratigraphic layers of the
Grand Canyon. The grandiosity of such designs and the ardor by which
Disney’s “imagineers” bring them to life wore me down. After a couple
of hours I found myself succumbing to the magic of Disney. There is a
kind of giddiness that accompanies boundary-crossing events, when the
imagined collides with the actual to produce a new portrait of reality.
As a corrective, I spent the evening wandering around outside searching
for elusive signs of indigenous Florida, something real to hold onto. The
search ended at the end of the farthest boat dock facing Discovery Island,
a nature preserve, with flickering lights on either side of the shadowed
island, as I tried to imagine the pre-Disney landscape. Back at the run-
down motel room, jet-lagged with a glass of rum in hand, I pondered
whether someone could visit the Wilderness Lodge and walk away with
a deeper feeling for wild places.
Breakfast the next morning was in Celebration City, Disney’s planned
community, at a chic pondside café. Coffee is recommended before vis-
iting Celebration City lest the apparent authenticity of the place, the vivid
conjuring of its designers, overwhelm one’s critical capacities. Unnerved
by pull of the region, I grabbed the rental car and began the long drive
south to Fort Lauderdale, stopping of course at Cape Canaveral, one
of the sites of NASA’s space program. (More questions: Why were the
waterways around the Space Center posted as “snake-infested”? Would-
n’t it be more appropriate to think of the land surrounding the water-
ways as “space program–infested”?) Two hours from the Greater Miami
area, the traffic and development intensified. The changes were imper-
ceptible at first, but at least an hour outside of the city traffic was clogged
and the roadsides festooned by satellite communities, hotels, strip malls,
Boundary Conditions 61
and billboards. The density and glitter were overwhelming. Wending past
exotic car dealerships, motorcycle emporiums, and malls, there was
nothing to indicate I was less than two miles from the ocean, or that this
strip cut across a narrow coastal plain, a band of sand separating
the Atlantic from the Everglades.2 Fort Lauderdale turns its back on the
Everglades; everyone is moored to their view of the ocean. The swamps
and other wetlands just a few miles inland constitute a dark, confusing,
forbidding place. Along the coast the world is utterly manicured.
Marinas dot the Intracoastal Waterway and seep into the dozens
of canals that make Fort Lauderdale the “Venice of America.” The
beach is tended each morning by tractor-drawn rakes. Even the
ocean looks domesticated with brightly lit passenger and cargo
ships moored just offshore. It was an odd location for the annual SER
conference.
What drew me first to the Society for Ecological Restoration were the
remarkable successes of community groups and scientists, government
employees and corporations, who by careful work and commitment had
reversed some of the damaging ecological effects of human activity. Com-
munity, too, was being rebuilt in the process. The annual conferences
rejuvenate weary restorationists. In Fort Lauderdale, I took in sessions
on southern longleaf pine restoration, historical ecology, educational
initiatives, restoration projects from Eastern Europe, and an evening
of enchanting readings by members of the Orion Society’s Forgotten
Language tour. Restoration work in south Florida, perhaps because of
the scale and pace of development, is as advanced as restoration is any-
where in North America. George Gann’s nonprofit Institute for Regional
Conservation has compiled a comprehensive database for native and
exotic flora in south Florida. Kellie Westervelt’s Cape Florida Project,
operated under the aegis of the American Littoral Society, is a model for
volunteer participation. The Archbold Biological Station in Lake Placid,
Florida, has developed a sophisticated prescribed-fire program that
integrates community values and scientific knowledge, and builds in
stochastic functions with an up-front humility about what can and
cannot be accomplished. It is difficult not to be inoculated against
cynicism after seeing some of the ambitious plans and successful
projects.
62 Chapter 2
Walking late at night along the edge of the Intracoastal Waterway, my

view of the water and manatees blocked by gleaming yachts, each worth
more than I will earn in my lifetime, I began to imagine what Fort
Lauderdale would become if it turned itself into the Everglades and
stopped trying to control an unruly ocean. Exclusive hotels connected
by overhead walkways to the manicured beach would be pushed aside
in favor of the life that teems amidst maritime dunes and people who
are willing to track respectfully along the shores: inhabitation instead
of consumption. Such dreaming comes easily at SER meetings, where
nothing seems unattainable in the face of intelligence, cooperation, and
hard work. I used this dreaming in my own region as well, trying to
imagine Jasper National Park a century from now. The sting of disbe-
lieving laughter at seemingly outrageous proposals is softened by an
awareness of the scale of historical change: imagine your place a hundred
years earlier and use this image to think of the next century. I grasp the
belief that virtually anything can happen over the course of a century,
and we would be wise to remember this.
Alas, my dreaming did not last long. At 28,000 feet above the coast-
line of Florida, heading for home, I saw the stark line of development
cordon the inland wetlands like a bleeding Magic Marker line along
the eastern shore. Cynicism crept back in as I pondered the efforts
of restorationists against the juggernaut of land speculation, Sunbelt
condos, shameless wealth, and strip malls. Carl Hiassen’s novel Lucky
You, the story of intrigue, land speculation, and lottery tickets in south
Florida, was perched on my lap in the airplane and I realize now that
his darkly lit and twisted view helps me understand the line between
wildland and development. The heroes in his book occupy the in-
between zones: the bushed ex-governor who haunts the wetlands, a
Seminole man who understands crocodiles (as much as anyone
can understand crocodiles), a black woman veterinary assistant named
Jolayne Lucks who desperately wants to save a small tract of wet forest
from a money-laundering real estate scam.
Restorationists occupy the border zones of contemporary life,
mediating between a view of nature as untouched wilderness and one
as gridded garden, their activities praised neither by zealous developers
nor by protective environmentalists. On the way home to Alberta,
crossing literal and figurative borders, I realized how much my own

understanding of why and how we restore nature is conditioned by
boundaries: between nature and culture, one region and another, past
and future, authenticity and simulation. What makes restoration so fas-
cinating and troubling at the same time is such border crossing through
the boundary zones of conventional activities and beliefs. Restoration
pushes the limits of our understanding of nature and reality, which
is why debate around restoration is so lively and so many people are
attracted to it as an alternative environmental practice. Living in the
boundary layers has its problems, too, most notably when the perime-
ters are ill-defined and continuously shifting. Life at the interstices is
never clear and single purposed. Restorationists are tugged in all direc-
tions and operate from a wide variety of ideological positions, so much
so that it is unclear generally and specifically what counts as restoration.
Is intentional human intervention necessary? Where is the line drawn
between projects faithful in creating or recreating previous ecological
assemblages, and those that bow to aesthetic or prudential considera-
tions? When is restoration merely aiding and abetting development? Is
fidelity to history a necessary condition of restoration, or is a mere nod
toward the past tolerable? Must restoration depend on professional
competence, or are the meandering experiments of amateur practi-
tioners acceptable? How are process and product best weighed? Should
cultural practices be encouraged? Moreover, how many burdens should
be placed on ecological restorationists to restore not only ecosystems but
cultural practices and beliefs as well? These are among the questions
that come to mind when considering the character of contemporary
restoration. They pop up like unwanted plants, weedy questions.
The best place to begin the search for answers, acknowledging that
the search itself is as important as the answers, is by looking at several
restoration projects that suggest boundaries. These projects provide a
basis for addressing the conceptual questions about restoration practice
that occupy this and the next two chapters. The journey begins with the
Kissimmee River restoration project near the headwaters of the Florida
Everglades, arguably the largest and most complicated restoration
project undertaken to date. Such a project offers a sense of what is pos-
sible when large budgets and scientific weight are thrown behind a
64 Chapter 2
project. The Morava River restoration projects in the Slovak Republic

illustrate how difficult it can be to decide on appropriate goals for
restoration in a thoroughly cultural landscape. In this case, ecological
integrity of riverine meadows was being threatened by diminished human
activity, not the other way around. Finally, I visit the Robert Starbird
Dorney Garden, a memorial garden in southern Canada that touches the
borders of contemporary restoration practice. These three cases do not
represent the panoply of restoration projects, but they do illustrate some
of the main tensions and issues. They are ones I am familiar with, so
that they allow me to write in the first person. They illuminate the uni-
verse in which restorationists operate. A brief history of restoration,
which follows, shows how this universe came into being.
Meandering Ambitions: The Kissimmee River (Florida) Restoration
During the 1997 SER conference in Fort Lauderdale I engineered a

daylong escape to the Kissimmee River. The Kissimmee River is a located
at the top (north) end of the Everglades drainage. Its fame is now secured
by a huge restoration initiative, possibly the first restoration mega-
project, estimated to cost upwards of several billion dollars.3 A large team
of scientists and government officials will continue to work over the next
decade to restore the natural conditions of approximately 45 miles of
river channel and over 25,000 acres of associated wetlands. The river was
channeled in the 1960s from the headwaters south of Orlando to Lake
Okeechobee, creating a series of impoundments and a simplification of
what was once a biophysically diverse, braided river channel. Almost
35,000 acres of wetland ecosystems were lost or significantly altered.4
The greatest lesson learned from this reengineering of the river is that the
financial and ecological costs of restoration are far greater than those of
prevention, a sobering fact. Farsighted, ecologically aware decision
making in the early 1960s could have averted enormous expenditures on
restoration less than three decades later. The analogy with contemporary
health care is obvious: the costs of prevention are almost always less than
the costs of intervention (i.e., restoration of health).
The channeled river in its austere simplicity—a 300-foot-wide, 35-
foot-deep canal—is inversely related to the complicated structures and
functions of the Kissimmee River in its meandering state. The U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, which took a lead in the original channelization and

is now involved, ironically, in the restoration, provides a litany of eco-
logical and cultural effects:
Loss of naturally fluctuating water levels
Loss of large areas of wetlands
Deterioration of water quality in Lake Okeechobee and the Kissimmee Basin
Changes in land use resulting in increased drainage
Loss of natural river meanders
Lower groundwater levels and reduced groundwater quality
Potential need for increased flood protection
Potential reduction in frost protection
Potential increase in mosquito populations
Reduced recreational navigational opportunities5
Such compromising influences are common in channelization projects.

The continent is streaked with the marks of engineering projects aimed
at controlling the irregular and unpredictable flows of rivers. The
Kissimmee case is distinctive, however, because the river itself is unique
in North America and the intervention so complete. In times past
seasonal floodwaters would inundate much of the 1–2 mile-wide flood-
plain, remaining in pools in certain places during dry years or continu-
ously covering the plain in wetter years. Only the peripheral areas would
undergo regular seasonal drying. During peak flood conditions the river
looked more like a long, narrow lake.
Rapid post–World War II development in the region, coupled with a
severe hurricane in 1947 and higher-than-normal water levels from 1947
to 1949, motivated public calls for a flood-reduction program. The State
of Florida called on the federal government for assistance, and shortly
after that the Army Corps of Engineers was commissioned to plan and
design a comprehensive water-control scheme that transformed the river
into a series of impoundments connected by canals. The work was fin-
ished in 1971, and it was in that same year that public concern was raised
about environmental and recreational effects of the massive diversion
project. Arriving at an agreeable restoration program for the Kissimmee
basin took longer than the design phase for the construction of the
diversion. Citizens, regulators, and scientists walked through a maze of
mathematically modeled options and feasibility studies, shaped no
doubt by shifting political and economic realities, to produce an agree-
able compromise.
66 Chapter 2
The field trip I took was led by Lou Toth, a senior scientist with the
South Florida Water Management District and leader of the 1984
Kissimmee River Demonstration Project. The 1984 experiment was
undertaken to show the feasibility and implications of diverting water
from the canal back into the former river meanders. The results are being
used in the larger-scale restoration, which began in 1998 and will take
more than a decade to complete. Heavy equipment is needed to backfill
sections of canal, reconstruct former river channels eliminated by the
canal, and dismantle water-control structures. The idea is intuitively
obvious, but the hydraulic, hydrological, and ecological dynamics on the
Kissimmee are large and complicated, and the effort involved in remak-
ing the prediversion conditions boggles even a vivid imagination.
We departed as a small flotilla just upstream from the S65B water-
control structure and soon entered a serpentine channel that joined other
serpentine channels in a complicated network of wetlands. The inex-
orable, sluggish southward movement of water suffuses thousands of
acres of hummocky floodplain, alligators, and a riot of other aquatic,
riverine, and wetland species. We met a number of recreational fishers
in well-outfitted motorboats who plied these waters regularly and under-
stood the human opportunities created in ecological diversity. Water and
life had returned in abundance to hundreds of small meandering chan-
nels. I observed half a dozen species of herons, sometimes three species
crowding the same tree. The richness of color, sound, and smell in the
back channels made the canal that much less inviting, although I suspect
my view would be different had I owned property in the floodplain. As
our weary field-trip crew drove back to Fort Lauderdale in the late after-
noon, I wondered whether local people had actually preferred the Army
Corps aesthetic, whether the concrete rectilinearity reminded them of
progress? Will the diversion be recorded in history books as a folly, a
mistake? If so, how can we square this object lesson in the ecological
and economic cost of restoration against rampant development in
Florida? Such object lessons are tough to communicate and even tougher
to assimilate by others. Impounding rivers and building dams is seldom,
at least in the long run, a healthy practice.6
As the work proceeds, it is an opportunity to observe how well a
restoration megaproject will succeed. Chances are good. A scientific
advisory panel recommended a multi-stage process to thoroughly evalu-

ate the restoration over the lifetime of construction, from 1998 to 2011
and beyond: by establishing historical reference conditions; studying
unaffected analogous systems; using prediversion data and appeal to
theoretical approaches; establishing current baseline conditions; assess-
ing construction impacts; applying broad-spectrum, postconstruction
assessment; and finally, employing adaptive management to ensure long-
term success.
For a project of this magnitude the need for clear goals is crucial
not only for achieving some measure of ecological integrity, but also for
ensuring efficiency in the restoration. The overriding goal is to return the
channeled river back to a former condition, but the question is, what
historical condition? Clifford Dahm and colleagues write:
When considering the outcome of restoration efforts, it is instructive to consider
not merely the pre-channelization “historical” condition of the Kissimmee River
and its flood plain but conditions prior to European settlement. As much as pos-
sible, the restored system should encompass those attributes of presettlement con-
ditions that would contribute significantly to recovery of ecosystem function and
plant and animal communities.7
There are clearly technical limits on what it is possible to restore. No

reasonable effort will completely erase the effects of channelization. Eco-
nomics have, and will, mitigate certain options that might yield a more
effective restoration, or at least one that would proceed toward specified
goals more quickly. The challenge faced by the Kissimmee restorationists
was arriving at ecological criteria that could be measured against his-
torical conditions as faithfully as possible, and this meant concentrating
at least as much on reestablishing processes as it did on ensuring that
prior structures were in place. Is historical fidelity accounted for? Yes,
of course it is, but staggering financial implications impose boundaries
around historical fidelity. In the end, any steps—in this case large, expen-
sive steps—toward improving ecological integrity, and presumably re-
creational opportunities, are better than what is in place now. Moreover,
prescriptions for or limits on recreational use are difficult to achieve. I
was surprised to learn that no zones of environmental protection are
being created that would provide differential limits on access and
activity. At present, the restored area is open to motorized watercraft,
68 Chapter 2
hunting, fishing, and, in some cases, cattle grazing. No plans exist at the
moment for nonmotorized recreation. I was also surprised to learn that
no areas are being set aside as long-term scientific preserves to study
the effects of restoration. A restoration project is always a study in real-
politik; the discussion and negotiation among dozens of recreational,
farming, and residential groups have produced a workable compromise.
Presumably, some effort, as long as it is carefully thought out, is usually
better than no effort at all. The difficulty with very large projects is main-
taining momentum as key individuals move on, governments change, and
budgets shrink or expand.
Water that flows to us or past us has its own history. What we see or
feel or smell or hear has already been somewhere and brings us clues.
The Kissimmee River restoration project tells us more than we think if
we inquire into its legacy. It tells us, for instance, that in the early twenty-
first century we are willing to invest half a billion dollars (or more)
remedying a problem created, in some cases, by the same individuals
and agencies that are involved in the restoration. We know that people
rate immediate perceived values—flood control and certain types of
recreation—as lower in importance than maintaining predisturbance
ecological processes. Despite some significant technical challenges, res-
toration planners and scientists were able to backstop their designs with
a number of small, proven projects. A large project needs smaller, proven
projects to proceed. Most poignant, to my mind, is the realization that
prevention makes eminently more sense than restoration. It is good to
know we can restore complicated wetland and riverine ecosystems
as well as we can, but the compressed time frame of the Kissimmee
restoration—the fact that the impoundments were barely dry before
people began demanding their removal—tempers any belief that restora-
tion is salvation. Restoration works exactly in accordance with the care
of our actions and the fidelity of our relationships with ecosystems.
Beyond the Ecological Curtain: The Morava River Restoration, Slovak

Republic
In June 1997 Nik Lopoukhine, then chair of the board of the Society for
Ecological Restoration, and I were invited to offer a course on North
American perspectives on ecological restoration for a group of scientists

and environmentalists in Bratislava, Slovak Republic. Funding for the
course came through the Global Environment Facility Biodiversity Pro-
tection Project, which was in effect World Bank money steered through
a quasi-governmental agency, in this case the Ministry of Environment
for the Slovak Republic. Funding was intended to stabilize environmen-
tal management practices in countries undergoing rapid political, social,
and economic change. Nik and I had heard that the two organizers,
Zuzana Guziova and Peter Straka, had managed to accomplish much in
the Slovak Republic since the division of the former Czechoslovakia in
1993, and following the famous “velvet revolution” in 1989, which
resulted in the secession of Czechoslovakia from the former Soviet
Union.
Midway through the five-day course we embarked on a field trip to
the westernmost regions of the Slovak Republic to view several in-
terconnected restoration projects being undertaken by the DAPHNE
Foundation, a nongovernmental organization supported by the Global
Environment Facility. These projects were to serve as case studies for the
remainder of the course. While there had been an expectation that Nik
and I would serve as expert reviewers for these projects, what we found
instead, as is often the case when foreign specialists are brought in to
advise on local projects, was an extraordinary level of professionalism,
technical proficiency, ingenuity, and creativity. The Morava River flood-
plain projects are an example of how ecological restoration can serve
ecological and social goals despite enormous socioeconomic upheavals.
The projects described below are less ambitious technically than the
Kissimmee River restoration, but the human dimensions make them fas-
cinating cases. The biodiversity that is being restored and protected arose
precisely because of human agricultural activity. Thus, this restoration
focuses, as in many parts of the world where people have lived for a long
time in a close agricultural relationship with land and water, on a cul-
tural landscape. Some of the assumptions about what is valuable in
restoration from a North American perspective must be turned upside
down in places such as the western Slovak Republic.
The Morava River forms the border between the Slovak Republic and,
in its lower reaches, Austria. In the floodplains of the river, especially in
70 Chapter 2
the many meanders, are biologically rich wet meadows that have been
subject both to periodic flooding and to agricultural practices, primarily
mowing for livestock feed. These cultural practices have been decisive in
maintaining the ecological character of the region for the past thousand
years or so. Much more recently, for almost forty years, the floodplains
were locked inside the Iron Curtain, the heavily militarized zone that
prevented unauthorized movement of peoples in and out of the Slovak
Republic. This is the same Iron Curtain that blocked movement of
people, goods, and ideas throughout the post–World War II period in
Central and Eastern Europe. There were two main consequences of the
military occupation of the region, one that had positive and the other
negative implications for ecological integrity. Certainly a major and
unexpected benefit was the isolation of the sites along the river from
intensive development. There is little question that postwar, industrial
forms of agriculture would have caused a net loss of species and ecosys-
tems. Now, fortuitously, the Morava River floodplain is the largest and
best preserved complex of wet meadows in Central Europe.8 The second
implication, negative from an ecological point of view, was an exten-
sive channelization project along the Iron Curtain to ensure a better-
demarcated border and less intrusive flooding. The channelization was
successful, resulting in the drying up of many meadow sites along the
river and an overall lowering of groundwater level. One of the sites we
examined, part of the Abrod nature reserve, an extraordinarily diverse
protected area located almost two kilometers from the river, was showing
severe effects from the drop in water levels. The challenges for restora-
tionists are difficult: How to elevate the water levels to a point sufficient
to support wet meadows throughout the former wet-meadow complex?
How can sustainable agricultural practices be nurtured to provide the
cultural process that maintained the meadows?
Restorationists along the Morava River are attempting to remove the
effects of channelization by compelling water to flow in the abandoned
meanders of the old river channel. Funding for this project is a fraction
of that available to the Kissimmee River proponents, which makes inten-
sive ecological, engineering studies and public consultation infeasible.
Instead, the impetus is very much trial and error. Hand labor and limited
heavy equipment diverted water from the main channel into the old
meanders, requiring shoreline modifications, bank stabilization, and

dredging. It is a beginning, at least, to what will over time be an impor-
tant restoration project.
Meadows are widely distributed along the lower Morava River, which
in wetter areas are subject to regular inundation and higher water levels.
These meadows are influenced primarily by flooding and water levels,
and are maintained as meadows through twice-yearly mowing for
domestic animal feed. The origin of this practice dates back hundreds of
years. Without mowing, the meadows are subject to rapid successional
processes that result first in shrub encroachment and ultimately in wet,
forested ecosystems.
The main proponents of the restoration, Jan Seffer and Viera Stanova,
cofounders of DAPHNE, knew well the technical characteristics of
the various sites and the challenges faced in restoration of traditional
ecological and cultural processes. After all, these wet meadows were
in abundance primarily through a quirk in national development and
agricultural practices. The meadows were cultural artifacts, ecosystems
that were given their character by long-standing cultural activities. One
option would have been simply to ensure preservation of the region from
intensive development and allow the meadow complexes to succeed with
lower water levels and in the absence of mowing. This option, however,
means lowering the overall biodiversity of the Slovak Republic. Counter
to North American sensibilities, restoration in this case means the pre-
servation and possibly enhancement of a cultural activity. The questions
here are thorny: How do we decide which species should be favored? Is
biodiversity the best measure of restorative success? Would cultural prac-
tices matter if the biodiversity that resulted was in fact less than what
one would expect in the absence of those practices? Ecological restora-
tion, with its North American bias toward so-called wilderness, has few
conceptual enzymes to digest such a problem. The sacrosanct concept
of biodiversity will be ground down under such conditions, and will
become, I believe, one of the main issues with which restorationists will
wrestle in the next decade.
The decision to restore the region to ecological conditions that flour-
ished prior to World War II invokes issues of technological change. Agri-
cultural practices have changed dramatically over the past half century
72 Chapter 2
from predominantly hand mowing and draft-animal cartage to tractor-

powered mechanical cutting, loading, and transport. Transformation in
the agricultural sector in the next few decades may produce very differ-
ent circumstances. For instance, volatile national and international
agricultural markets may produce a decline in requirements for animal
feed, and this in turn would result in a loss of support for meadow-based
crops, especially those harvested with low-intensity methods. While it
had not been studied, anecdotal observations by biologists suggested
that tractor-drawn mowers produced a different ecological effect
on the meadows. Ground-nesting birds, for example, are less likely to
survive the pass of a mechanical mower than hand scything. Issues
such as these create difficulties for restorationists who are trying to
create long-term sustainable conditions for the flourishing of diminish-
ing ecosystems. In a volatile, technologically driven national economy, is
it possible to maintain an earlier form of harvesting technology, one that
is ecologically beneficial? If such a practice could be made durable, either
because it satisfies local economic conditions over the longer term or
because it can be a public demonstration area that honors both ecolog-
ical processes and cultural practices, maintenance of the practice is rea-
sonable. However, given instabilities in the Slovak Republic and the rapid
change of agricultural technology and agricultural commodity markets,
it is more reasonable to contemplate techniques for mimicking rather
than reproducing former mowing practices. Research would be needed
to ascertain the kinds of cropping intervals—and other techniques of
management, including fire and grazing—that would protect biological
diversity.
The Morava River restorations challenge typical North American
notions of ecological restoration. Success in a cultural landscape depends
on protecting ecological diversity, but at least as important is under-
standing and protecting cultural processes. Another layer is added to the
value system of conventional ecological restoration: the historical con-
dition may incorporate rather than exclude human participation. Both
the well-funded, large-scale Kissimmee River restoration project and the
smaller, incremental approach taken by the Morava River restorationists
have strengths. Both are appropriate in terms of their local regulatory
and socioeconomic setting. Both are achieving their goals. It seems there
is no ideal type, which makes boundary setting more than a little

challenging.
Gardening or Restoration? The Robert Starbird Dorney Ecology

Garden, Ontario, Canada
Immediately following the sudden death in 1987 of Robert Dorney, one

of Canada’s most prominent environmental academics and my Ph.D.
cosupervisor, a ragtag group of family, students, faculty, technicians, and
community volunteers in Waterloo, Ontario, decided to offer tribute by
creating a garden. Dorney had pioneered ecological gardening, land-
scaping, and restoration in Canada,9 and so we proposed to build a small
ecosystem on the campus of the University of Waterloo. For over twenty
years Dorney’s office in the Isaiah Bowman Building at the university had
overlooked mown grass and exotic Scotch pine (Pinus sylvestris) trees,
a challenge for any ecologist with an interest in the protection of native
species. After years of personal success with building miniature native
ecosystems across Canada, he regarded the grove of pine trees as a per-
sonal failure.10 After his death, we decided to set the record straight.
To the horror of many environmental groups on campus, we cut down
over a dozen Scotch pine trees immediately adjacent to the Bowman
building and rototilled the mown grass. Hundreds of hours of volunteer
time went into the design of the garden, the collection of seeds and
plants, soil preparation, construction of physical elements, raising en-
dowment money, planting, watering, and weeding. We created a range
of ecosystems: a shortgrass and tallgrass prairie, a dry woodland, and a
wet woodland, all floral representatives of Waterloo County, a region
that straddles the divide between the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence forest
zone and the more southerly and diverse Carolinean forest zone. We
designed seating places for quiet contemplation and walking paths
for careful observation of the 200 or so species of plants. The Robert
Starbird Dorney Ecology Garden is a living memorial, including a com-
missioned meter-high ceramic sculpture and several of Dorney’s favorite
native plants.
The Dorney Garden is a deliberate design, a social construction, an
artificial ecosystem—we do not know for sure what stood much earlier
74 Chapter 2
on that piece of ground. However, it is a project that privileges unpre-

dictable ecological processes. Our intention was to encourage caprice
and honor wild things. In a space of just over 3,000 square feet there is
remarkable diversity. The garden is home to a number of rare and threat-
ened plants. Its wild appearance is a potent antidote to the manicured
park landscape that makes up much of the landscape of the University
of Waterloo. The contradictions between artifice and wildness challenge
us to wonder whether such a project really is a restoration. A distinction
between process and product helps bridge the divide between social and
natural. The product, the garden, comprises material chosen and placed
by individuals: someone set each rock and plant in position. The pro-
cesses of the garden, both social and ecological, have a successional
and self-regulating quality. Once set in motion, the original patterning
of the garden has become a buried artifact.
This distinction is less obvious from the standpoint of social inter-
action. The garden was a volunteer project. It brought together the
members of a community united by the memory of Robert Dorney. The
political economy of its operation was an important factor affecting its
outcome. Early decisions to promote open governance with decision-
making powers vested in those who participated in the planning and
physical labor reduced hierarchical control. Talent and confidence levels
were diverse. Skilled natural gardeners and botanists were involved with
the team, and so were people for whom this was a first experience
with creating an ecosystem or garden. The bond that allowed profes-
sional botanists to work evenly alongside second-year philosophy
students was created by the engagement of mind and body. The project
cut across traditional professional affiliations and status. Each person
stretched in their own way to figure out the placement of a plant or
how wide to make a path. Consultation was pandemic, although there
were certainly the requisite meltdowns as with any volunteer project.
Perhaps most important in determining the success of the project was
the presence of a moral center for the garden, the belief that this con-
stituted a sensitive inscription of human knowledge on nature, and that
it manifested the ideals of Robert Dorney, a man who inspired many
people to think and rethink their understanding of ecological knowledge
and practice.11
I visited the garden recently after several years’ absence. It still serves
as a focal point for people in and around the Bowman building. But I
noticed that the paths were looking unkempt, the benches were bleached
and blistered by a decade in the sun, and the grounds had been invaded
by a strain of goldenrod, unruly sumacs, and bird-sown wild grape. I
asked Greg Michalenko, a professor in the Department of Environment
and Resource Studies, an avid gardener and one of the founding par-
ticipants in the Dorney Garden project, about the state of the garden.
He cited a long list of difficulties, including insufficient monies to hire a
regular caretaker, lack of coordination of volunteer help, and an ideo-
logical clash over the extent of management appropriate in the garden.
He viewed the garden as a functioning ecosystem, but one obviously way
too small to support self-sustaining grassland and forested ecosystems.
Intensive management is required to ensure biodiversity and representa-
tion of the intentions of the designers, especially the goal of preserving
a suitable memorial to Robert Dorney. A stalemate over how best to
manage the goldenrod (Solidago spp.), a plant that turned out to be espe-
cially weedy in the garden, has led to a decline in support for the project
as a whole.12 I had thought the dedication to the garden so fierce at one
time that nothing would threaten its long-term survival. Now, a decade
later, many of the original proponents have scattered, and the institu-
tional supports necessary to ensure a clear mandate for management and
durability have come up short. The garden could reach the point where
it offends the sensibilities of campus landscapers or those who walk past
it each day. It may be replaced by another form of garden, or could revert
to mown grass.
The lessons learned here are difficult and are often repeated in any
kind of long-term restoration project. The more obvious issue with
the Dorney Garden is whether it is in fact a restoration. The small
size of the project and the degree of contrivance would tend to suggest
not. However, it does reflect historical ecosystems, the assemblages
of plants are intended to be reasonably self-sustaining (at least low
maintenance when possible), and it honors the spirit of restoration
through the life of Robert Dorney. The Dorney Garden is a good example
of a restoration near the outer boundary of ecological restoration. It
challenges the meaning of restoration: Do we want a liberal definition
76 Chapter 2
or one that is exclusive? What is the importance of arriving at a clear

definition?
These three cases help us draw boundaries around contemporary restora-

tion practice. I chose them to exhibit a variety of challenges in defining
restoration. We know that ecological restoration is about repairing iden-
tifiable damage to ecosystems, although the terms repairing and damage
are problematic. Historical conditions, both ecological and cultural, are
important to understand despite the difficulty of taking all the relevant
conditions into account or even recovering all of the important informa-
tion. The scale of restoration varies greatly, from the Kissimmee megapro-
ject to the volunteer Dorney Garden. Some projects are top down and
driven scientifically, while others are bottom up and conducted by amateur
volunteers. Cultural values and practices do matter, which is evident in all
three projects. These values and practices determine what should be
restored—the fixation of wilderness in North America is replaced by atten-
tion to cultural landscapes in Europe, to take one comparison.
Any complete description of ecological restoration must of necessity
include a host of factors, in effect a large matrix of possibilities. The tech-
niques and challenges of restoring a coastal salt marsh are different from
those involved with a coastal freshwater marsh project. There are as many
restoration protocols as there are ecotypes, although there are some
general rules, concepts, and approaches.13 Soils vary widely, even on
relatively small sites, and a wide variety of specific techniques may be
required to create successful growing conditions. The type and irascibil-
ity of weedy species will influence how much effort is required and
whether herbicides or weeding or both are necessary. Some projects are
focused on reintroduction of a specific species, while others attend to
restoring a whole ecosystem. The old adage among ecologists is apt: “An
ecosystem is not only more complex than we know, but more complex
than we can know.”
The Robert Starbird Dorney Ecology Garden may not be an example
of ecological restoration. Some would argue that it is a “natural garden,”
an example of natural landscaping, or perhaps something closer to land-
scape architecture. It is, many would suggest, too contrived to be a
restoration faithful to regional historical conditions. It makes too many
concessions to people, both as a memorial to an individual and as a

highly used walk-through and recreational spot on a busy university
campus. The garden raises two critical issues in defining restoration.
First, when is a purported ecological restoration project not an ecologi-
cal restoration project? Second, what use is there in guarding the perime-
ter of ecological restoration? Why do boundaries need to be maintained?
Another way of looking at this matter is to decide whether one accepts
an inclusive or exclusive definition of restoration. The argument, briefly
stated, for being inclusive—that is, to accept virtually anything, includ-
ing mitigation projects, replacements, de novo ecosystem creations,
formal naturalized gardens—is to ensure that the greatest amount of cre-
ativity and broad public attention are given to restoration. Against this
are arguments that call for tighter boundaries and definitions, ones that
make it relatively easy to discriminate among projects. This is an advan-
tage if one wants to ensure strict professional standards and if there are
concerns about ecological restoration drifting into meaninglessness or
being co-opted by socially fashionable landscape trends. These argu-
ments are very real for restorationists, and will grow more so as the prac-
tice of restoration develops and expands. Looking backward to the
development of restoration highlights the meandering course of its devel-
opment, the strands of practice and thinking that influence our contem-
porary understanding, and a better sense of boundaries.
No general account of restoration would be complete without some
attention to history. I take history seriously not only because it charts
the drifts and tendencies of the field but also by virtue of its central place
in the very constitution of restoration. The idea of restoring something
is to return it to a prior condition, however specified. Any robust restora-
tion project must consider changes over time, which embeds historical
meaning deep within practical matters. History helps us understand that
restoration is itself a dynamic practice that is changing as I write these
words. What it will mean in fifty years is almost certainly going to be
different from its sense today. Defining it, now and in the future, requires
an understanding of various tendencies that have become apparent
through practice. I further define restoration in chapter 3; historical
issues are addressed in chapter 4. The following diversion into the history
of restoration practice paves the way for both chapters.
78 Chapter 2
Normal History
Many restorationists, at least those from North America, trace restora-

tion back to the experiments conducted by Aldo Leopold and colleagues
at the University of Wisconsin’s Arboretum in Madison in the 1930s.
Native prairies were in short supply after several decades of zealous agri-
cultural clearing. In dedicating the Arboretum in 1934, at the height of
the Great Depression, Leopold spoke:
This Arboretum may be regarded as a place where, in the course of time, we will
build up an exhibit of what was, as well as an exhibit of what ought to be. It is
with this dim vision of its future destiny that we have dedicated the greater part
of the Arboretum to a reconstruction of original Wisconsin, rather than to a
“collection” of imported trees.14
Restoration began in earnest in 1935 at the direction of Norman

Fassett, a botanist at the Arboretum, and Theodore Sperry, a new recruit
to the project. Sperry’s influence continued through his nearly sixty-year
association with the Arboretum restorations; these achievements have
been recognized through various honors bestowed on him by the Society
for Ecological Restoration.15 Work at the Arboretum was given a boost
by the regrettable ecological and economic commingling of the Dust
Bowl of the early 1930s. Several years of back-to-back drought caused
millions of acres of topsoil to blow away from arid lands, leaving many
areas infertile and dehydrating the dreams of so many thousands of set-
tlers.16 The general turndown of the North American economy of the time
forced a reconsideration of farming techniques and a search for answers
to the obvious failures in the region. Monies were allocated by the Roo-
sevelt administration in 1935 to assist in reclaiming damaged lands for
agriculture, and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was formed
both to provide labor to the cause and to alleviate unemployment. Thus,
a CCC camp was established at the Arboretum to service the projects
underway. Restoration projects are always hungry for labor.
A combination of circumstances produced success at the Arboretum.
Skilled and influential scientists were involved from the first instant in
sorting out how to convert abandoned farmland back to earlier ecolog-
ical conditions. Perhaps this was not the intention of the Washington
donors, who were more interested in improving economic conditions
than in regaining ecological potential. However, the University of Wis-

consin Arboretum provided an opportunity for experimentation and has
remained a center for research on restoration to the present day. The
science of ecology, which favored a whole-systems view of land health,
was coalescing and rising in popularity in scientific and land-
management circles. As a public institution and one that had, as part of
a Land Grant university, a mission to educate a wider public, the Arbore-
tum was able to spread the word effectively to aspiring restorationists.
There was, finally, a boldness and novelty in the early prairie restora-
tions. Prairies are a subtle landscape, typically underwhelming for the
casual observer. They were busted, turned over, and replanted by settlers
apparently without much remorse. Despite their subtlety, shortgrass and
tallgrass prairie reward the person who stops to look at the floral explo-
sions, the buzz of insects, and the undulating patterns of movement in
the wind. It took a dedicated and careful eye to see the potential for
large-scale restoration in the prairies.
Restoration has flowed along many channels since the 1930s in the
United States. Restoration elders, whether scientists, landscape archi-
tects, range managers, reclamationists, or gifted amateurs, point us to a
time when the term restoration, let alone ecological restoration, was
heard infrequently and had no widespread public recognition. Bill
Niering, founding editor of the scientific journal Restoration Ecology,
traces his restorative work back to the 1950s. The founding moment for
most contemporary restorationists is 1988, when the Society for Eco-
logical Restoration was chartered as a nonprofit society to enhance the
interests and goals of restorationists. Initially a U.S.-based organization
that operated annual conferences with an enthusiastic core of volunteers
and few resources, the organization has blossomed into an international
body with members in more than thirty countries. The formation of SER
signaled that restoration was an idea whose time had come. William
Jordan III, a staff member at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
Arboretum and restoration proponent, began publishing Restoration and
Management Notes in 1983 as a service to those interested in the field.
Early issues were a cut-and-paste operation, a newsletter more than a
journal. By the late 1980s, Jordan’s publication became a practitioner
journal with a solid and growing subscriber base. His efforts were
80 Chapter 2
strengthened by the publication of several books aimed at both public

and scientific audiences. John Cairns, Jr., and Tony Bradshaw, two large
figures in the scientific development of restoration, published books in
1980 that represented, respectively, American and British perspectives.
John Berger’s Restoring the Earth, originally published in 1979, drew on
widespread public concern and action in the 1970s regarding environ-
mental issues, to produce a popular description of restoration possibili-
ties. Jordan, along with Michael Gilpin and John Aber, convened a
symposium and later produced a widely received and comprehensive
portrait of restoration for a scientific and practitioner audience. A variety
of more specialized scientific summaries have been written more recently,
as well as books that address philosophical, social, and lyrical dimen-
sions of ecological restoration.17
The success of the ecological restoration movement has depended cru-
cially on scientific accomplishment, the intuitive appeal of restoration,
and a public sensitivity to environmental issues. The 1960s and 1970s
marked a coming of age internationally for environmental issues, organ-
izations, and legislation. What restoration offered conceptually was an
intuitive and hopeful prospect of solving many of the worst problems
brought to light at the time: toxic-waste contamination, species loss,
habitat loss, and a decline in urban and suburban quality of life. Restora-
tion, then, became not only a promising practice but a helpful metaphor,
one that appealed especially well to a growing technological mindset. At
worst, restoration was viewed as an apologia for industrial excess and a
justification for further activity; after all, if we could clean up the mess
or repair the problem, why not maintain business-as-usual? Much of the
earlier and less self-congratulatory writing on restoration, as well as the
debates that took place at early SER conferences beginning in 1989,
focused on how ecological restoration could manifest social and scien-
tific ideals.
The founding, in 1993, of the journal Restoration Ecology marked an
important developmental step for a young movement. This official SER
publication has provided a venue for reporting on scientific experiments
and results, as well as providing an increasingly broad forum for dis-
cussion about the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of restoration.
This theoretical impulse is what defines, in part, the maturation of the

practice. Joan Ehrenfeld has produced a historical typology of restora-
tion consisting of a four-field development. Restoration, she argues, has
roots in conservation biology, geography/landscape ecology, wetland
management, and rehabilitation of resource-extracted lands. Within
each of these four contributing fields, a clear progression is evident. For
example, over the last two decades in conservation biology attention has
shifted from protection of endangered species to endangered communi-
ties. When she applied this four-field typology to three years of published
articles in Restoration Ecology, Ehrenfeld discovered that contemporary
scientific practice reflects these historical sources and remains heteroge-
neous. This affects the way practitioners think about goal setting,
arguably one of the more important features of a successful restoration
project and certainly one of the more contentious elements in the devel-
opment of restoration theory. As Ehrenfeld writes, “The specification of
goals for restoration projects is frequently described as the most impor-
tant component of a project, because it sets expectations, drives the
detailed plans for actions, and determines the kind and extent of
post-project monitoring.”18 Instead of promoting a set of universal goals
for restoration, she proposes three major themes—the restoration of
species, the restoration of whole ecosystems or landscapes, and the
restoration of ecosystem services—each of which requires a different
approach. It is not feasible to overgeneralize and promote a single
approach to restoration.
To make matters more complicated, Ehrenfeld describes the varied
goals for restoration ecology, not necessarily ecological restoration. It is
important to distinguish between these two terms, which are often con-
flated in the literature. I refer to restoration ecology as the ensemble of
practices that contribute to the science of ecological restoration.19
Ecological restoration is the total set of ideas and practices (social, sci-
entific, economic, political, and so on) involved in the restoration of
ecosystems.20 This apparent linguistic confusion masks a more serious
issue. There is a risk with growing professionalization of placing the
science of restoration ecology above the practice of restoration. The rich
texture, success, and public acceptance of restoration have much to do
82 Chapter 2
with volunteer participation, small-scale uncontrolled experiments, and

changing aesthetic values. As much as these points might be debated,
restoration is more than restoration ecology, and the success of restora-
tion efforts over the long run will require recognition of their hetero-
geneity. Put simply, restoration ecology is a necessary but not sufficient
condition for good restoration. And since many of us, including myself,
become defensive when the dominion of science is called into question,
let me hasten to add that good science, including strong theoretical
development, is vital for the successful development of ecological
restoration. However, the field of restoration will be diminished
if restoration ecology increasingly displaces ecological restoration—that
is, if science becomes the exclusive center of restoration activity.
The history of the field shows a plural practice, one reflecting the
best of scientific perspicuity and creative tinkering. This is precisely
the tension that has created so many problems in defining ecological
restoration.
Contingency and Ideals
Historical interpretation is much more than a sequencing of events and

ideas. The contingency of restoration is exposed when a comparative
historical account is invoked, for example, between two national
approaches to practice or between like-minded individuals with differ-
ent professional inclinations. No unified perspective is sensible. The cul-
tural ideals that shape our relations to places exert multiple meanings on
restoration; restoring a former brownfield looks different to an ecologist
and a landscape architect. So, too, restoration is practiced differently
from region to region and country to country. This makes any coherent
account of restoration very difficult, but such complexity is preferable to
oversimplification, a quality that has characterized some historical
writing about restoration.
There are a number of reasons to assume the University of Wisconsin
Arboretum was the birthplace of ecological restoration. It makes a good
and obvious story. There are remarkable individuals, such as Aldo
Leopold, Henry Greene, John Curtis, and Ted Sperry, to lionize. The first
home of the Society for Ecological Restoration21 and the founding of the
journal of restoration, Restoration and Management Notes, were here.

And prairies did attract much restorative attention. Stephanie Mills
makes good use of these elements in her account of the development of
restoration.22 Working from a few brief historical essays,23 she also calls
attention to earlier influences—for example, Edith Roberts’s restoration
of native plants in Dutchess County, New York, in 1920, and Frederick
Law Olmsted’s fascination with native flora and naturalistic garden
design in the late nineteenth century.
Oddly, relatively little information is available about the earliest roots
of restoration, the connections with reclamation and beautification pro-
grams, gardening and parks movements, changing canons of aesthetic
taste and environmental value, and the ways restoration, such as it was,
varied from one place to another. Does this represent a shortage of his-
torians of restoration?24 Personal experience suggests that valuable infor-
mation waits beneath the surface. At the outset of my brief career as an
environmental impact assessment specialist working for a small consul-
tancy in southern Ontario in the late 1970s, I remember coming across
a reference to a farmer near the shore of Lake Erie. Early in the twenti-
eth century, this farmer had filled a manure spreader with cattail tubers
and distributed them on fields he had reflooded. His logic was that the
previous landscape, a wetland, would yield more value from hunters’ fees
than from standard cropping. Does this fit the mold of restoration? Was
he alone in his efforts, or were there other similar ventures around that
time? What came before, and did his efforts connect with what followed,
joining a rivulet that would become a main channel of history flowing
past the restorations in Madison in the 1930s?
In his comparative investigation of restoration in the United States and
Italy, Marcus Hall argues that the short shrift given to restoration history
“arises more from the lack of understanding of early restoration, than
from the lack of early attempts to restore.”25 Hall succumbed initially to
the same historical pressures as other restorationists:
In fact, I had once imagined that restoration “originated” when some important
figure like Aldo Leopold simply combined the insights of his predecessors to
create this field. But now I’m certain that such notions oversimplify the devel-
opment and diffusion of ideas and the contexts in which they were created.
I believe, instead, that one can trace restorative techniques and restorative
84 Chapter 2
principles far back in time, and that to understand their development it is nec-
essary to search the wider history of conservation for the events, episodes, and
insights that have led to current ideas of restoration.26
Many other sources for ecological restoration will no doubt emerge as

we search for them. Finding them will mean shoving aside our inclina-
tion to focus on culturally definitive events. I heard William Jordan once
describe the Arboretum at Madison as the “Kitty Hawk” of restoration,
referring to the location of the first sustained powered flight by Orville
and Wilbur Wright in North Carolina in 1903. As deserving of celebra-
tion as such events are, glorification obscures earlier, now forgotten,
experiments that led to these defining moments. The richness of histor-
ical development is compressed into a single, artificial beginning. There
are at least four problems with this approach. First, though perhaps this
is less true for events such as the Wright brothers’ flight in 1903, there
may be preceding events that constitute equally crucial or even more sig-
nificant marks in the development of a practice. Second, the normative
boundaries around a practice tend to be solidified by reference to a par-
ticular event or series of events, potentially leading to a skewed descrip-
tion of the practice. This is especially important for us in examining what
restoration means. Third, the history of a practice may have occurred
over a wider geographic area than is commonly acknowledged. For
example, the history of ecological restoration comprises many activities
that have taken place outside North America and thus outside the view
refracted through the Madison experience. Finally, and perhaps most
important, is the counsel of contemporary historians to avoid “Whig”
history, or history that presumes the present leads straight to the past.
There is little doubt that what restoration meant at the turn of the twen-
tieth century is not what it means at the turn of the twenty-first century.
Meanings shift, and the imposition of our view of things on the past as
if there is one continuous stream of understanding is naive and poten-
tially dangerous. We can trace the etymology of terms and examine the
general practice of converting damaged lands to a former ideal condi-
tion. We should not, however, presume there is a solid core of restora-
tion knowledge and practices moving through time, slowly changing and
improving. Restoration derives its meaning through the people who
think of themselves as restorationists and use this term and related ones
to describe the activities of their time. For all its forerunners, restoration
as we know it is a new endeavor.
The challenge of history, of course, is finding appropriate documenta-
tion to illuminate past activities and perhaps to provide a justification
for present goals. Alas, though some practitioners kept good records that
are well preserved, others were busier doing than writing, and so their
work is largely missing from records. Social and political factors also
shape how an event is later recorded and interpreted. Why, then, do we
still regard the moment in the Wisconsin prairie in the 1930s as the start-
ing point for ecological restoration? This is the kind of question that we
should keep in mind as we explore the history of the field.
Hall peers into the nineteenth century for indications of how people
sought the conversion of damaged into ideal lands. In his words: “The
historian in me questions just how old restoration may be, or rather how
the endeavor of restoration has changed over the decades. The environ-
mentalist in me wonders whether the experience of these early land man-
agers could help us improve our own practice of restoration.”27 He
proposes a typology of restoration based on his comparison of Italian
and American restoration. He suggests that there are three views of
restoration based on differing ways of viewing damaged and ideal land.
Different views will condition what needs to be restored, and how. The
elegance of his typology lies in its capacity to account for cultural dif-
ferences in the way restoration is perceived and practiced. This helps
provide valuable insight into diverse perspectives—for example, the
current focus on cultural landscapes in Europe and wilderness in North
America, or the apparent incompatibility between the restorations prac-
ticed now and in the past in different regions. Of course, I commit the
sin of generalization here, knowing that in the last fifty years in Europe
there has been growing concern with restoring wild places and that in
North America more attention is being given to the significance of cul-
tural practices. Such dichotomies are at best helpful in understanding
complexity.
Hall terms the first of his three types of restoration, prominent in
nineteenth-century Italian land management, “maintaining the garden.”
A highly managed cultural landscape, a garden, is the ideal, and restora-
tion implies improvement to natural degenerative processes. It is not
86 Chapter 2
difficult to stretch the garden image back to the Garden of Eden: one
is striving to recreate the original garden. In this approach, cultural
practices and values operate alongside ecological processes and patterns
in settings such as small-scale farms and animal husbandry. Land is
damaged through neglect and restored by careful artifice. Hall’s second
and third types acknowledge that culture is responsible for degradation,
but they entail different solutions. In “gardening the degraded,” the
second type, the ideal condition is a garden, as in the first type, but per-
ception of the landscape changes to account for human damage. Mining
reclamation is a good example. Another example is the Italian Bonifica
Integrale movement initiated by Mussolini in the 1930s that strove to
reclaim lands damaged through heedless human actions. Here, however,
reclamation had primarily cultural and not ecological aims. The third
type of restoration, prominent in North America, involves “naturalizing
the degraded.” Natural processes are championed as a way of counter-
acting tendencies to improve the landscape to create a garden, or to
degrade it to a wasteland. The ideal landscape is the untouched land-
scape—the Garden of Eden, if you will, which was the pristine wildness
that existed before the corruptions of Adam and Eve.
All three of Hall’s types depend on culturally shaped notions of degen-
erated, degraded, and ideal landscapes. His argument is complex because
it is difficult for contemporary North Americans to imagine how land
can be damaged naturally or how cultural practices can represent an
improvement. The issue is also complicated by changes in restoration
practices over the last two centuries or so: Italians have shifted their
approach to land management from the first to the second type, while
North Americans have moved from the second to the third type. As Hall
explains,
Where Americans and Europeans once felt that humans could only improve
the land, they have come to believe that humans could both improve and
degrade the land. . . . Where many Europeans still see ideal land as a domesti-
cated garden, many Americans have come to believe that ideal land is untouched
and wild.28
Changes of this nature make any simple history of restoration suspect,

and act as a corrective to dogmatic views about the meaning of restora-
tion. Moreover, this panoramic approach presents a moving view of

restoration, a living history with respect to which our own practices need
to be positioned.
A wider history of restoration must include practices outside North
America, which is why Hall’s comparative study reveals a richer history
for restoration and displays a broader typology than some other ap-
proaches have done. How broad is reasonable? Can a restorationist
from Wisconsin make sense of restoration in Scotland and vice versa?
What of work even farther afield, where the national histories and local
cultures have divergent views about the goals of restoration and the
meanings of culture and nature (assuming such terms even make sense
in a different cultural milieu)? Can those restoring salmonid habitat
in the Pacific Northwest of the United States fully comprehend the
problems of tree planting in desertified landscapes? This is the problem
of incommensurability, of the lack of a common measure. Take, for
example, the Morava River restoration projects described earlier in this
chapter—projects that integrate ecological integrity with cultural liveli-
hood. Is protecting a highly managed wet-meadow complex, despite its
regional ecological significance, of much interest to restorationists suf-
fused by notions of wilderness? The end point for the Kissimmee River
restorationists is different from the intentions of those along the Morava
River. The Kissimmee restorationists aim at rewilding the river and asso-
ciated ecological communities, while those along the Morava River are
seeking a fine balance between historical agricultural and ecological prac-
tices. Each group inscribes specific values about the land, land taken
broadly in this setting, giving rise to restoration projects that reveal con-
temporary perspectives on landscapes.
The beauty of comparative perspectives is that they highlight a range
of alternatives. When I meet scientists from other countries—Zev Naveh
from Israel, Carolina Murcia from Colombia, and Richard Hobbs from
Australia—I realize how much is going on and how much there is to
learn; each of these regions has its own distinct history and future of
restoration. Restoration is not an American or North American phe-
nomenon, but an international practice with many separate branches.
Those of us operating from a North American base must be careful not
88 Chapter 2
to try to impose our views too firmly,29 or even to make claims that
restoration is a unitary international phenomenon in case it turns out to
be a poor way of mapping local practice.30
European history alone reveals diverse restoration strategies—strate-
gies mirrored in North America. It turns out that Italians were working
out ways of “imitating nature” as early as 1816 with the work of
hydrologist Franscesco Mengotti. In France, as well, there was a move-
ment by midcentury to rehabilitate eroded slopes and overgrazed
lands (and the term restauration was used). George Perkins Marsh,
arguably one of the most significant early forces in the North American
conservation movement, was ambassador to Italy from 1861 to
1882. Comments on European land-management practices permeate
his writing. The first sentence of his best-known work, Man and
Nature, declares “the possibility and importance of the restoration of
exhausted regions.”31 There is little doubt that North American and
European ideas are fused in the work of Marsh, and it is likely also that
continental techniques and approaches produced much inspiration in the
United States.
One way of cracking open the shell of belief to expose the cultural
contingency of restoration practices is to dig into history. Even North
American restorationists who today espouse reestablishing unpeopled
ecosystems as the preeminent goal of restoration are shaped by a “dual
tradition” consisting of land and resource managers honed by utility,
on the one hand, and by landscape architects and designers shaped by
aesthetics, on the other. Similarly, Italian restorationists find their own
approach to restoration, based on historical, culturally saturated land-
scapes, eminently sensible. North American ecologists and restorationists
have lived through extraordinarily rapid changes to ecosystems with the
spread of development and urbanization in recent decades. As a child in
early 1960s, I remember a farm across the road from my family’s house
north of Toronto being converted to 1,500 homes. Toronto swallowed
my old family home just a decade later. It is not surprising that under
such circumstances, restorationists would call for a return to a prelap-
sarian or at least earlier condition. But North Americans, like Europeans,
have lived so long with transformed flora and fauna that a return to pre-
vious states makes little sense. Neither group—North Americans and
Europeans—can make sense of the other, regarding the other’s approach

with suspicion and at times disapproval.
Restoration, then, can proceed from different notions of damage and
of the contingent ideals practitioners might strive to reach. This is a
crucial insight, for the way we view damage, whether as a result of too
little or too much human activity, will shape which areas we set out to
address and how we address them. For many Americans, damage is
about any kind of human action that interferes with strict notions of eco-
logical integrity. For many Italians, where pastoral and agricultural land-
scapes are the norm, the land is compromised without such practices.
For Italians, the cultural and ecological features produce value.
Complicating the conventional account of restoration further, what we
restore also depends on whether we believe that having people in the
landscape can improve the land, or assume that ecological processes are
most effective in restoration. For Hall, this creates a distinction between
gardening and naturalizing:
If one believes that human activities can best improve land, then one restores in
a process likened to gardening; yet if one believes that natural activities can best
improve land, then one restores in a process that might be called naturalizing—
or perhaps rewilding. A gardener promotes culture on a natural landscape,
whereas a naturalizer promotes nature on a cultural landscape.32
Americans naturalize, whereas Italians garden, which is an approxima-

tion but also the most succinct way of characterizing these two con-
trasting approaches to restoration: “Because restoration is the process of
bringing back ideal land, one can now better appreciate why Italians
might feel that Americans bring back too little culture to their nature,
or why Americans might feel that Italians do not practice true restora-
tion at all.”33
No wonder it is difficult to identify a single view of restoration! And
in comparing North American and European views of restoration
(assuming that U.S. practices are emblematic of North American restora-
tion and that Italian practices reflect European restoration), we have
ignored the Southern Hemisphere, where so much restoration work is
being conducted. As more pages are added to the history of restoration,
different constructs of damage and new ideals drawn from a wide range
of cultures will find a place in our understanding of restoration.
90 Chapter 2
The influences giving each cultural tradition its special character are
complex. Landscape architects and gardeners have played a pivotal role
in shaping ecological restoration in North America. U.S. landscape
designer Frederick Law Olmsted was regarded as radical in his time, and
his work remains highly acclaimed as an example of how nature can be
brought within the reach of urbanites. Despite this acclaim, however,
Olmsted used a remarkable contrivance in all of his projects. New York’s,
Central Park, his best-known work, was literally created from bedrock;
all the rivers, ponds, and wooded areas were engineered. Most would
argue that this was not restoration. Olmsted’s vision of naturalized land-
scapes helped create a minority tradition in landscape design, however,
that has produced an array of compelling projects, many of which
present either naturalized or designer landscapes making use of native
vegetation. Parks, in general, have provided a rich inventory of images
for people inclined toward restoration. Few could walk through Van-
couver’s Stanley Park without being impressed by the wild features of
the place, which include some prepark forests, as much as by its mani-
cured sections. Ian McHarg’s Design with Nature, published in 1967,
influenced an entire generation of environmentally minded landscape
architects and environmental designers.34 The integration of ecological
concepts into landscape design programs has propagated broader
concern for ecological integrity and continuity. It is no surprise that so
many landscape architects are members of the Society for Ecological
Restoration.
Gardeners from all traditions in North America have contributed to a
growing awareness of natural process and form by bringing nature into
the heart of domesticated space and forcing recognition that only so
much in any garden can be fully controlled. Many gardeners are ama-
teurs, and their innocence and lack of formality often result in remark-
ably independent experiments and approaches. In a group of restoration
volunteers, like the hard-core volunteers chronicled by William Stevens
in his account of the North Branch Prairie restoration in Chicago, one
usually finds serious gardeners. These are the gardeners who do their
own seed propagation, study scientific names for plants, and keep
detailed records of their endeavors.35 This was certainly the case for the
Dorney Garden, where many of the volunteers had primary experience
as gardeners; they were used to working with soil and plants and were
accustomed to hard physical labor. The movement toward naturalized
gardening has begun to have an impact on contemporary restoration
efforts. Style is a crucial component of gardening, including everything
from Southwest xeriscaping to Northeast rural tangle. Aesthetic judg-
ment also looms large in all gardening efforts, no matter how pure the
intentions to recreate a miniature ecosystem; one is always trimming,
pruning, installing borders, moving plants, and so on. What of highly
evolved gardening forms, such as Japanese gardening, in which the objec-
tive is to create a microcosm, to enfold the complex textures and senses
of nature into a single space—do these bear any relation to restoration?
If we extend a line between gardening and restoration, somewhere along
the line, the border separating the two is going to become a matter of
convention and judgment.
The various points along the line are constituted of different values, prac-
tices, and histories. Thus, restorationists, reclamationists, ecologists,
landscape designers, and gardeners have different ideas in mind for how
nature should look and function. Each has a different way of approach-
ing problems, of seeing what needs to be done, and of justifying answers.
Yet each also has elements that are bound to the concerns of restora-
tionists; they are turning to a prior condition for guidance and are
focused to a greater or lesser extent on ecological integrity. The challenge
is not, in my view, to describe which type of restoration is purer; rather,
it is to be clear about the kinds of assumptions that generate the per-
ceived needs and goals of any specific restoration project. We would be
guilty of hubris if we were to suggest otherwise—to insist that we have
somehow got everything right and know for certain the enduring
meaning of ecological restoration.
Grasping the meaning and extent of ecological restoration is at the
same time easy and elusive. There is an intuitive appeal to restoration
that rests on the desire to return to a better, prior condition. Beneath
this shimmering surface, however, lies a knotted legacy. The science of
restoration ecology has evolved over decades from a variety of perspec-
tives, including conservation biology, applied ecology, range manage-
ment, wetland rehabilitation, reclamation, and other allied pursuits.
92 Chapter 2
Ecological restoration is more than this, though, incorporating

community-based initiatives, urban regeneration, natural gardening,
landscape design, and social justice perspectives. Definitions of restora-
tion should encompass all these approaches, which is why so much ink
has been spilled and so many arguments have erupted over the core and
limits of ecological restoration. The challenge of defining restoration is
to come to grips with its border-crossing character, the way it frustrates
the conventional separation of nature and culture, upsets the way we
think about human involvement in precious places, and goes to the heart
of the modern, or as some would have it, postmodern, condition. By
inhabiting the boundaries of contemporary cultural belief, restoration
invites criticism of our technological society. Several boundaries have
impelled my thinking about the meaning of ecological restoration: the
boundary layer between possibility and legacy at the SER conference;
along the border between the Everglades and Fort Lauderdale that I saw
on the flight home; between the reality of restoration along the Kissim-
mee River and the contrivance of the Wilderness Lodge at Disney World;
and between the heartfelt efforts of restorationists at the SER conference
and the enormity of restorative challenge suggested by the glittering
yachts along the Intracoastal Waterway.
3
What Is Ecological Restoration?
The essential quality of restoration is . . . that it is an attempt to overcome

artificially the factors that we consider will restrict ecosystem development.
This gives us a powerful opportunity to test out in practice our understanding
of ecosystem development and functioning. The actual restoration operations
will often be dominated by engineering or financial considerations, but their
underlying logic must be ecological.
—A. D. Bradshaw, “Restoration: An Acid Test for Ecology”
A stable terminology would undoubtedly be useful, but no one currently seems

prepared to agree on one. We suggest that endless quibbling over what to call
our work in the field of restoration ecology is a time-wasting diversion from the
real work at hand.
—R. J. Hobbs and D. A. Norton, “Towards a Conceptual Framework for
Restoration Ecology”
What distinguishes a restoration project from something else, say, a recla-

mation project? What is a minimum definition of restoration? What are
the core concepts? Should we care about how restoration is defined?
Hobbs and Norton are right: there has been seemingly “endless quib-
bling” over what restoration means. Terminology varies widely from one
region to another. Some people interchange restoration ecology and eco-
logical restoration as though they mean the same thing; others are careful
to distinguish between them. Is environmental restoration the same as
ecological restoration? Restorationists in North America are generally
comfortable with the goal of returning landscapes to their indigenous
condition, which means restoring to a time before human degradation.
In chapter 2 I argued that such a notion is less palatable for most
European restorationists, who work with landscapes that have been
peopled for millenniums, indeed as is the case in most parts of the world
94 Chapter 3
(including the Americas). In fact, the notion of indigenous does not make
much sense in most regions of the world. Some regard ecosystem health
as the proper goal of ecological restoration, while others champion eco-
logical integrity. How different are these concepts, and do they result in
different kinds of restoration?
Despite agreeing with Hobbs and Norton that “endless quibbling” has
taken place, I think they are wrong to downplay the seriousness of the
terminological confusion. Confusion over proper description and defini-
tion reflects an inadequate understanding of concepts, which after all is
the kind of clarity promoted in their widely cited article. It is as though
a botanist could claim to understand taxonomy and not really have
a grasp of systematic nomenclature. Others besides Hobbs and Norton
have commented cynically that the messy debates over definitions are
merely semantic squabbles. At one level this is true. The work of restora-
tion is sufficiently important that it should not be worn down by endless
technical debates. But I do not think many realized in the late 1980s how
difficult defining restoration was going to be. Only now are some of the
theoretical issues being aired. Dismissing conceptual debate ignores
the power of language in shaping belief and practice. Words take their
meaning from a context of use and dry up if they are separated from the
people who use them. This suggests that we should learn to be careful
with them.
In expressing distrust of social and environmental movements because
they often veer away from the things they set out to value, Wendell Berry,
an American essayist, argues, “The worst danger may be that a move-
ment will lose its language either to its own confusion about meaning
and practice, or to preemption by its enemies.”1 His inspiration was
finding out, to his horror, that the term organic farming, which he took
to be both a social and an environmental practice, could be assimilated
to an industrial monoculture and thus co-opted. This is also the case with
ecological restoration: there is every possibility that restoration will be
construed in ways that defy the intentions of its proponents. Just as
restoration projects require monitoring to ensure that original intentions
are being maintained, restorationists might also monitor restoration con-
cepts to keep ideas faithful to intention. Ignoring the power of language
also passes over crucial differences in the way restoration is perceived.
What Is Ecological Restoration? 95
An acceptable definition is a precondition for deciding what constitutes

good restoration. Without the ability to distinguish a good project from
a bad one, better projects from worse ones, or even restoration projects
from those that are not, the ecological restoration movement—science,
professional practice, community volunteer initiatives, and every other
dimension—risks losing its strength of purpose.
In this chapter I examine variant meanings for restoration with the
aim of identifying central concepts that are widely applicable. My con-
clusion is that two ecological concepts emerge: ecological integrity
and historical fidelity. When the complicated mix of restoration practice
and theory is sorted out, what is left is a concern for the quality of the
ecosystems resulting from restoration (integrity) and for the extent to
which they reflect the history of the place (fidelity). Concern for histori-
cal conditions is one of the main attributes of restoration separating it
from related practices such as reclamation and rehabilitation. I touch on
historical fidelity in this chapter by mentioning historical range of vari-
ability, a concept of growing importance to restorationists and environ-
mental managers. Along with the idea of reference conditions, it receives
more detailed treatment in chapter 4. Beyond ecological considerations
are cultural factors that shape the character of restoration. In chapter 6
I propose a third keystone concept, focal practice, to ensure that good
restoration encompasses social participation and highlights the ecologi-
cal and cultural value added in the act of restoration. Finally, in chapter
7, I propose the addition of wild design. Restoration is fundamentally
about design, and the challenge ahead is to enlarge our capacity for good
ecological design.
Terminological clarity seems important for several reasons. First,
words shape worlds, and attentiveness is necessary to comprehend how
we use language to describe theory and practice. Feminist theorists have
taught us this, and it is important to be vigilant about how language is
used. For example, if we were entirely prescriptive about restoration
resting on predisturbance conditions, essentially invoking a strong view
of wilderness, many agroecological projects around the world would fall
outside the bounds of restoration. Second, in highlighting the variety of
definitions of restoration and the controversies surrounding their use, it
is easier to show just how malleable the field is. Much is up for grabs.
96 Chapter 3
Third, I favor inclusive definitions, those that allow as many kinds of

projects as possible to thrive. This is a precarious position. If anything
goes, there is the danger that restoration will be co-opted by those who
see only commercial value in the restoration of ecosystems. Finally, defin-
ing good restoration depends, in my view, on expanding our outlook to
include social, cultural, aesthetic, economic, political, and moral values.
The emphasis in this chapter, then, is on coming up with a definition that
is explicit about the cultural significance of restoration, although expli-
cation of this must wait for later chapters.
This journey into concepts begins with the way restoration is defined
conventionally, and with how this relates to our general sense of eco-
logical restoration. Ecological restoration is related to many similar prac-
tices that are also competing for attention in the burgeoning field
of environmental management. I suggest a taxonomy of restoration in
which various practices are related. Next, I turn to a revealing exercise
conducted in 1994 at a Society for Ecological Restoration conference.
Several cases were assessed critically to ascertain core restoration con-
cepts. Many formal definitions of restoration have come and gone, and
a review of some of these definitions gets to the heart of contemporary
restoration. I concentrate on official SER definitions produced in 1996
and 2002. From these emerge ideas that seem basic to restoration: the
distinction between process and product, assisted recovery, management,
historical range of variability, reference conditions, and ecological
integrity. Finally, in the interest of simplicity, these concepts are reduced
to ecological integrity and historical fidelity.
Words and Taxonomy
Ecological restoration is a relatively new practice, and thus it is not sur-

prising that dictionaries have been slow to catch up with a definition that
meets our needs. However, the word restoration has a substantial history.
The Oxford English Dictionary suggests six distinct meanings, the fourth
of which is “the action or process of restoring something to an unim-
paired or perfect condition.”2 This refers most directly to the restoration
of a building, work of art, nearly extinct animal, dental structure, or any-
thing to which a return to a former condition is appropriate.3 The search
deepens when we switch to a variant although archaic spelling, restau-

ration. Derived from the French restauration, which also gave rise to the
English word restaurant, use reaches back to the fourteenth century with
decidedly theological connotations. The second of four definitions comes
closest to reflecting a contemporary perspective, despite its common use
beginning in the late fourteenth century: “the restoration of something
material to its proper condition.” These various definitions confirm the
nagging sense that the meaning of restoration depends on changing social
conventions. It is certainly a plastic word, employed widely and under
varying conditions.4
Of course, restoration is a noun, and the verb restore also has a variety
of meanings, allowing more scope than the noun. For instance, the
sixth of nine definitions listed in the Oxford English Dictionary
suggests much more than a return to original conditions: “to bring
back (a person or thing) to a previous, original, or normal condition.”
This definition better fits the idea that ecological restoration is not
necessarily about taking ecosystems back to any kind of original condi-
tion, even if this were possible. The idea of “normal condition” is poten-
tially compatible with such ideas as ecological integrity and ecosystem
health.
Let’s suppose that in a conceptual world there are species of restora-
tion that inhabit the genus ecological restoration (figure 3.1). This genus
is found in the family ecosystem management, together with myriad
other genera such as conservation biology, reclamation, and mitigation.
The family is held together taxonomically by the knowledge that all prac-
tices within it are environmentally salutary—that is, they are considered,
at least by their practitioners, to be beneficial. Many of the disputes in
this conceptual taxonomic world center on whether the practices are in
fact ecologically and culturally beneficial. Of course, sensibilities about
what is good change over time, resulting in a continuously shifting clas-
sification. Besides, this taxonomy is regionally variable, not universal,
which means that a practice defined as belonging to the family by one
group of people may fall outside it according to another. The arrange-
ment of genera varies widely, too. Some would argue, for example, that
conservation biology is an umbrella practice that incorporates a host
of other practices. Taxonomists of this stripe, mostly conservation
98 Chapter 3
Ecosystem
management
Family
Genus
Conservation biology Ecological restoration Reclamation Mitigation Other genera...?
Restoration ecology Community-based Agroecosystem Professional projects Other species...? Species

Rehabilitation?
(experimental) projects restoration?
Figure 3.1
Taxonomic relationships for ecological restoration.
biologists themselves, suggest it deserves to be a separate, inclusive

family. Accordingly, ecological restoration would be a subset genus
within this family. There are ecological restorationists, too, who argue
for the centrality and superordinate position of restoration as a practice
with large cultural ambitions. Such arrogation compels the arrangement
of environmental practices in a single family. Thus, separate practices no
matter how defined can be perceived as separate genera, and, as neces-
sary, subgeneric designations can be created. The debates, endless as all
taxonomic discussions inevitably are, will take place at the generic level.
Is restoration a large taxon that incorporates all allied practices such as
reclamation, revegetation, and mitigation? Or is ecological restoration
best kept pure in scope, allowing these other allied practices their own
genera?
The basic structure of the genus ecological restoration suggests a spe-
cific practice to which one attaches a historically motivated goal. This
implies that something lost is to be regained through directed activity,
or, reiterating one of the broad dictionary definitions cited earlier,
means “to bring back (a . . . thing [ecosystem]) to a previous, original,
or normal condition.” Ecological restoration and environmental
restoration are sometimes considered synonyms, and the terms are occa-
sionally interchanged in the literature.5 There are arguments in favor of
each, although I am not aware of a published debate on the subject. Eco-
logical restoration is preferable to my mind because it emphasizes that

the work is systemic and rooted in a thoroughgoing understanding of
ecological processes and patterns. Besides, ecological restoration has
become the term of record, as in the name of the Society for Ecological
Restoration.
Does restoration ecology deserve its own separate genus? Recall from
chapter 2 that restoration ecology is a branch of applied ecology. Eco-
logical restoration is the ensemble of practices that combine to create
what restoration is in the broadest sense: a worldwide movement of
people assisting the recovery of ecological (and also cultural) integrity.
Restoration ecology is subordinate to ecological restoration. William
Jordan insists that ecological restoration is a movement and a mode of
living as much as it is a scientific pursuit. It is this heterogeneity that
makes the SER’s conferences so stimulating; activists, scientists, govern-
ment officials, philosophers, consultants, and community volunteers all
turn up. Ecological restoration is not professionalized, although many
professionals lay claim to it.6
So far I have proposed a genus for ecological restoration that incor-
porates at least the scientific practice and theory of restoration ecology.
What else is to be found within it, and what should be excluded? This
invokes the boundary-setting problem touched on in chapter 2. Ecologi-
cal restoration occupies a middle zone in which conventional values and
beliefs about environmental management are challenged. Should other
“re-” words and activities—reclamation, remediation, rehabilitation,
revegetation, and so on—be subsumed under ecological restoration, or
are they sufficiently well established for each to warrant its own genus
within a broader taxon? A tighter definition of restoration is required to
make such discrimination possible, a task we will turn to later in this
chapter. First let’s examine the other terms.
Reclamation is closely allied with restoration. To reclaim something
means to rescue it from an undesirable state. Generally reclamation aims
at converting land damaged through resource extraction or poor man-
agement to productive use. Much depends on how one interprets “pro-
ductive use.” Reclamation came into the environmental lexicon in the
late 1800s to describe the process of making land fit for cultivation. The
Bureau of Reclamation in the United States began operation in 1902 to
100 Chapter 3
create arable land primarily in regions with a limited water supply.

Installing monumental and lesser dams, canals, and diversions, the
Bureau turns marginal land—at least from the perspective of agricul-
ture—into productive acreage. The term acquired an expanded meaning
in the mid-twentieth century to refer, in some cases, to what could be
called restoration: the conversion of damaged land into a semblance of
its former condition. Gaping holes left behind by open-pit-mining oper-
ations were prime candidates for reclamation. Goals ranged widely, from
engineering accomplishments such as bank stabilization, to the creation
of timber and agricultural lands, to the provision of recreational oppor-
tunities. In some cases, attempts focused on wildlife and vegetation
enhancement. Witness the slope reclamation project at the Cardmal
River Coal’s (CRC) mine outside Jasper National Park. This project has
been wildly successful in creating forage for Rocky Mountain sheep,
although the ecological merits of such a scheme are debatable from other
perspectives.
Closely linked with reclamation is the idea of remediation, or the
process of remedying ecological insults. This is important work that
shades into restoration. However, typically the lack of focus on histori-
cal conditions and recovery of ecological integrity makes the differences
between restoration and remediation easy to spot.
Rehabilitation is almost synonymous with restoration. To rehabilitate
means to build again or bring back to a previous condition, or as E. B.
Allen, J. S. Brown, and M. F. Allen propose, it involves creating “an
alternative ecosystem following a disturbance, different from the origi-
nal and having utilitarian rather than conservation values.”7 In ordinary
usage, rehabilitation is a more flexible term. It can mean restoration
according to strict ecological goals, or the establishment of an accept-
able ecological state where prudential and aesthetic conditions prevail.
There is perhaps less historical rectitude with rehabilitation than with
restoration.
Revegetation is a common term with many connotations. Basically
it signifies the establishment of vegetative cover in an area denuded
or rendered incapable of regenerating naturally. This process involves
planting and seeding, and there is no particular attachment to the use of
native species. Natural revegetation refers to the practice of allowing
ecological processes to establish a vegetative cover without human

intervention. This may or may not involve the growth of native species;
usually, with disturbed ground, weedy introduced species are the main
pioneers.
There are many overlapping, restoration-related practices in this large
family, some of which are only beginning to find familiar use. Reinhabi-
tation is the term preferred by Stephanie Mills, author of In Service of
the Wild, because it urges people to find meaningful, respectful lives in
ecosystems and not always ones that recreate the exact historical condi-
tions of a place. Dwelling, literally and figuratively, she argues, is crucial
to the long-term integrity of ecosystems. The idea of recovery is used in
the SER definition to describe the process of bringing something back.
Regeneration is a promising term: the process it describes is more active,
implying a return to an earlier condition at the same time as generating
something new.
Back to taxonomy: Should the practices just described, and others like
them, be subsumed under ecological restoration? The key criterion
appears to be ecological integrity. If a practice promises to increase the
ecological integrity of an area that has been compromised, and this
notion of integrity is informed by historical considerations, it belongs
within the genus. If it does not meet these requirements, as is common
with reclamation projects that focus on gaining productive capacity
without any real concern for either ecological integrity or historical
fidelity, it needs a separate genus, perhaps within the same family. Hence,
a practice like rehabilitation probably belongs to ecological restoration,
but practices such as reclamation, remediation, and revegetation do not.
Hybridization is always at work, as with revegetation projects that use
natural plantings and end up resembling restoration projects, and so on.
Flexibility in this taxonomic system is necessary, especially because
ecological restoration is still trying to develop a clear sense of itself.
The Duck Test
A taxonomic approach suggests that ecological restoration should be

viewed as a genus within a large family of environmental practices.
Within this genus are found a host of related practices bound together
102 Chapter 3
by commitments to historical fidelity and ecological integrity. What kind

of definition can be crafted from this background? Let’s go back in time
to 1994, when the Society for Ecological Restoration was taking shape,
when politics and policies were in flux, and when the search for an
official definition of restoration had foundered again. The debate
swirling around definitions illustrates just how difficult it can be to arrive
at a consensus on the description of a practice. It was the sixth annual
SER conference in East Lansing, Michigan.
The weather in central Michigan in August can be oppressive, a kind
of insufferable heat and humidity. A stalwart group of thirty or so par-
ticipants was sitting inside at a symposium with the audience-shrinking
title “Definitions, Definitions, Definitions!” Such an event would typi-
cally be avoided like the plague in favor of conference sessions that
involved at least slides or, better yet, field trips. But this was 1994, only
six years after the formation of SER. Behind the scenes the board of
directors was facing financial challenges, leadership disputes, and the
problem that no less than three official definitions of restoration had
been adopted in just six years. This unlikely session proved a catalyst
for definitional and political change, in part because former and
future SER leaders decided unexpectedly to converge.8
The session was intended to raise philosophical issues about how
restoration is defined. Instead, we found ourselves in the midst of a sim-
mering political debate. There was pressure on us to find some resolu-
tion to the definition issue. Dean Apostol, long-time member of SER,
suggested we depart from the agenda and use the “duck test” to help
achieve consensus. We took a much-needed break, during which Apostol
formulated a series of five brief case studies. These were called “ducks”
after the traditional adage that if something looks like a duck, quacks
like a duck, and walks like a duck, it must be a duck. Hence, if we could
agree on whether a particular case was a restoration project, and why,
this would help in identifying core elements. The strategy held promise.
Or so we thought.
Apostol led with the most robust duck: the Curtis Prairie. As we have
seen, U.S. restorationists look on the prairie restorations of the 1930s at
the University of Wisconsin Arboretum as the starting point of contem-
porary restoration; they regard the Curtis Prairie, named after the ven-
erable Wisconsin-based botanist John Curtis, as the gold standard. It was

here that many of the early experiments, including seed collecting, and
treatment, cultivation, and prescribed fire, were conducted by Ted Sperry,
John Curtis, and others.9 At our symposium, debate erupted immediately
over this purportedly robust restoration. Are we evaluating a product or
a process, and how long did it take before the Curtis Prairie was recog-
nized as an effective restoration? Some expressed the view that the goal
of restoration is to remove human intervention so that natural processes
could take hold. The Curtis Prairie is an example of a project that
requires regular management to maintain desired characteristics: to
avoid scrubby succession and weedy invasion, to ensure species diversity
and richness. Surprised and somewhat exasperated, Apostol brought
forth his second duck.
This one involved the introduction of prescribed fire to a formerly
wild, forested landscape in order to push it back within a natural range
of variation. In the early twentieth century, the introduction of fire sup-
pression resulted over a period of decades in dramatic changes in the
landscape—a common phenomenon in many regions of North America,
including Jasper National Park (see chapter 1). With a change in prac-
tices through deliberate and carefully managed fire, would this approach
count as restoration? An immediate question arose: Is it designated a
restoration project by virtue of the practices involved, or is restoration
implicit in the results obtained? Must we wait until a pattern of burning
is established before calling the project a restoration? Does the larger,
landscape scale make a difference, or is this kind of restoration func-
tionally similar to prescribed fire on a small prairie remnant? How do
we respectfully incorporate Aboriginal fire-management practices back
into the landscape after decades of suppression? Mike Oxford, later a
board member for the Society, drew sharp criticism for his use of the
word enhanced, which it turned out meant something different in
England than in the United States. Enhancement has bad connotations
for many North American restorationists because it implies, as Andy
Clewell put it, “ecosystems on steroids.” What Oxford had in mind was
a way of emphasizing that we might be after more than merely restor-
ing the status quo. The conversation was exposed as being decidedly
North American. Can a definition of restoration be universal?
104 Chapter 3
The third duck involved the same wild forest patterns, but this time
the forests were converted to farmland. The farm was retired following
a few dozen years of use. It fit well with some remnant tallgrass prairies
in the region, an ecosystem under considerable threat. The retired
farmland will support such a prairie restoration even though records
indicate it had been under forest cover prior to cultivation. Is this a duck?
Sharp debate began immediately, mostly around the contention that in
order to restore something it must have been there, right there, at some
time in the past. Two defensive strategies were offered. First, if we go
back far enough in time, when climatic conditions and regional ecologi-
cal processes and structures were quite different, justification could
be found for a wide range of possible alternatives. Second, what goals
are appropriate to such a restoration? Nik Lopoukhine argued that a
reasonable decision could be made on the basis of enhancing biodi-
versity; tallgrass prairies are threatened ecosystems and must be given
every opportunity to flourish. Laura Jackson thought a compromise pos-
sible: “More realistically they would turn it into a savannah—choose an
intermediate [alternative]—one that represents what the boundaries
look like in that area, so it’s ‘duckish.’ It is an issue of scale: at the site
level it’s probably creation, but within a landscape it could be restora-
tion if it’s consistent with some sort of historic or prehistoric array of
vegetation.”
This particular duck raised some fundamental issues about what
restoration is achieving or is supposed to achieve. The group was divided
over the matter of human agency. Is a really good restoration one that
we complete and then just drop out of, eradicating our presence as much
as possible? Or is the highest calling for restorationists direct and
continuing involvement, becoming part of the system or a member of the
biotic community? Jennifer Cypher proposed that each restoration
has within it three interconnected dimensions: intent, process, and
product. Clarity about intentions—goals, in other words—must be
achieved prior to the start of any restoration, which involves a wide
array of potential ecological and cultural considerations. A reasonable
process is necessary both to ensure appropriate involvement in restora-
tion and to ensure that a project remain within normative boundaries
of restoration (i.e., reasonable boundaries are placed around how much

management is involved in securing the restoration over a longer
term). Finally, the most commonly perceived and, in many ways, the
traditional core of restoration is product: what actually results from
restorative effort. Cypher’s point was simply that all three dimensions
must be considered.
The fourth duck involved some sort of vegetation mosaic altered
through grazing, cutting, and agriculture. It is brought back closer to an
earlier configuration but this time within a new economic system in
which attention is given to small-scale harvesting of acorns, grain, mush-
rooms, flowers and trees, honey, and so on. Restoration in this case
means reinventing a set of ecological relationships as well as a new
economy. Apostol figured this would be an especially contentious duck,
but almost everyone around the table agreed that with careful design,
such a project could in fact be considered a model of innovative restora-
tion. Restoration would become a way of deepening cultural relation-
ships with the land instead of expanding institutional maintenance
programs.
The fifth and final duck was based on what was actually going on in
Washington and Oregon, an important case for Apostol: “We start off
with the same wild forest mosaic, altered through patch clear-cutting,
through road building, etc. Quite a bit of original forest remains, roughly
15 to 30 percent. We’re having problems in the landscape, so we’re
choosing to invest in restoration: ten to twenty thousand acres. We
choose to put logs back in the stream to improve the salmon habitat,
choose to take out 50 percent of the roads to reduce erosion, choose to
thin plantations to improve structural diversity. . . . Is this a duck?”
Opinion varied widely. Some of those still hanging on in the late-
afternoon conversation suggested it would be intelligent action, but not
restoration. Another approach was to say that restoration extends over
a continuum and that a project like the one described would have high
“duck content.” Perhaps rehabilitation would be a more appropriate
term for such work. This term implies that clearly defined damag-
ing practices are being altered to achieve specific ecological goals. As
a process it may well be restorative, but the end product is not a
106 Chapter 3
restoration in the sense that the amount of effort described is insufficient

to generate anything close to a restored system.
Throughout that steamy afternoon in Michigan, the issue of vegeta-
tive succession arose time and time again, and at the very end Jim Harris,
from England, asked how the group would react to a deliberate inter-
vention in a grassland that had been managed pastorally for almost
1,000 years but is now threatened with successional processes. What
course of action would North American restorationists counsel? Leaving
it to contemporary processes would mean the end of the grassland. Inter-
vention, either through reestablishment of previous human practices or
through the development of management regimes that would mimic the
former succession-arresting activities, would be required in perpetuity to
ensure the vitality of such a remnant area. The answer may be found in
a cultural explanation: in England, where human activity has been more
pronounced for a longer time10 and such activities are regarded as crucial
to national identity, restorationists would likely opt for an intervention-
ist strategy. There is greater likelihood in North America that restora-
tionists would opt for a hands-off approach, although such comparisons
are difficult to make with any precision. It seems that the qualities of a
landscape and the cultural dispositions of restorationists influence what
happens on the ground. However restoration is defined, if anything like
international agreement is important, it must incorporate such variation
in approach.
There is a remarkable amount of conceptual drift in the way restora-
tion is understood: everything from land banking to revegetation to
exotic-species control can be crammed into what appears an oversized
genus. At the same time, there is an eerie silence on the internal contra-
dictions implied by such wide use.11 Restoration means different things
to different people, a circumstance that makes it difficult to describe not
only what restoration is, but also more importantly, what it should be.
At a very general level restoration is easy to recognize, which is why the
most general metaphor-based definitions work at least passably well, but
when the limits are pushed and specification is necessary, our clearest
thoughts are fogged by complication. The discussions in Michigan were
intended to clear the fog. When they did not, we were surprised and
humbled.
A Legacy of Definitions
Dennis Martinez, founder and director of the Indigenous Peoples’

Restoration Network, and I were asked in November 1995 by the board
of directors of SER to cochair the Science and Policy Working Group. It
would be an overstatement to say that the board members were in the
middle of the “definitions wars,” but those stalwarts had gone through
official Society definitions at the rate of almost one every two years.
Fatigue was evident. Another definition, one that was supposed to be
foolproof, had just proved unworkable. For almost a year, Martinez and
I polled the board and membership of the Society on a variety of options
for an acceptable definition. We debated drafts at the Rutgers conference
in 1996, and finally, in October 1996, the board voted approval of the
new, official definition (more on this later).
The original definition, adopted in 1990, was reasonably long lived
and also the most controversial: “Ecological restoration is the process of
intentionally altering a site to establish a defined, indigenous, historic
ecosystem. The goal of this process is to emulate the structure, function,
diversity and dynamics of the specified ecosystem.”12 This definition, and
similar ones proposed in its wake, indicates lack of agreement on the
most basic issues of what restoration is, and what restorationists are
attempting to accomplish. For example, some argue that the standards
of an earlier era should not be taken too literally, that a fixation on accu-
racy in this regard brushes over the issue of why one slice of time is
preferable to another. Others suggest that the standards of earlier periods
are simply impractical in regions where ecological evidence of past con-
ditions is mostly erased. The use of the word indigenous tends to mask
the extensive and long-running engagements that First Nations peoples
have had with most of the ecosystems Euro-Americans tend to regard as
having once been pristine. European restorationists puzzle over what
indigenous means in their context: who or what counts as indigenous in
a landscape transformed by peoples who trace their practices back more
than a millennium?
Other SER definitions followed. All of them, to a greater or lesser
extent, reflected a balance of scientific principles and social awareness.
Of course, the Society for Ecological Restoration holds no monopoly on
108 Chapter 3
definitions of restoration. One of the most widely cited definitions issued

from a report of the U.S. National Research Council (NRC):
Restoration is defined as the return of an ecosystem to a close approximation of
its condition prior to disturbance. In restoration, ecological damage to the
resource is repaired. Both the structure and the functions of the ecosystem are
recreated. Merely recreating the form without the functions, or the functions in
an artificial configuration bearing little resemblance to a natural resource, does
not constitute restoration. The goal is to emulate a natural, functioning, self-
regulating system that is integrated with the ecological landscape in which it
occurs. Often, natural resource restoration requires one of the following
processes: reconstruction of antecedent physical hydrologic and morphologic
conditions; chemical cleanup or adjustment of the environment; and biological
manipulation, including revegetation and the reintroduction of absent or cur-
rently nonviable native species.13
This definition is noteworthy for its detail and attention to the balance
of functional repair and structural accuracy. However, it provides no
indication of a wider cultural context for restoration practice. Bradshaw
and Chadwick’s earlier definition is similar: “Restoration is used as
a blanket term to describe all those activities which seek to upgrade
damaged land or to re-create land that has been destroyed and to bring
it back into beneficial use, in a form in which the biological potential is
restored.”14 Definitions that fit this general theme of technical proficiency
abound in the literature.
Some restoration scientists, notably John Cairns, a long-time cham-
pion of restoration and chair of the NRC committee that produced
the 1992 definition, and Daniel Janzen, an ecologist renowned for
his restoration work in the dry land tropical forests of Costa Rica,
blend scientific and social consideration. Cairns proposes “ecosocietal
restoration, which is the process of reexamining human society’s
relationship with natural systems so that repair and destruction can
be balanced and, perhaps, restoration practices ultimately exceed
destructive practices.”15
Janzen’s proposal for ecological and biocultural restoration in tropi-
cal ecosystems perpetuates a separation between the human and the
natural, but it acknowledges a more significant symbiosis than mere eco-
nomic sustainability of agroecosystems.16 Martinez pushes the integra-
tion of the human and the natural one step further in his description of
the Sinkyone Intertribal Park project in Northern California. The region

had been inhabited for millenniums by Native peoples who developed
along with the ecosystems. The challenge in restoring this region is ensur-
ing ecological health and sustainable economic activities (e.g., low-
impact logging), and renewing cultural practices. If successful, the project
will result in a reinhabitation of the landscape, including cultural and
economic practices that run counter to the intuitions of many restora-
tionists. The Sinkyone project offers a model for restoration on a larger
scale, one that internalizes cultural, political, economic, aesthetic, his-
torical, and ethical practices once thought of as external to and at odds
with the main work of ecological restoration.17
There are those who, having read this account of definitions, must still
wonder whether the debate over an appropriate definition of restoration
has important consequences for what counts as restoration practice. One
clear function of definitions is demarcating what is included and what is
excluded. A definition too narrow risks marginalizing restoration as too
expensive and exacting within broader ecological management practices.
Too broad, and the practice of restoration becomes confused with
a host of potentially irrelevant initiatives. Thus, the challenge is to find
an acceptable definition that manifests both ecological realities and an
awareness of culturally contingent meanings.
This is what Martinez and I gleaned from our conversations with
restorationists when we developed an official SER definition in 1996. We
wanted to ensure sufficient scope to acknowledge an expanded context,
yet still provide standards that would make it possible to distinguish
something that is restoration from something that is not. In the end, we
could not fit the definition into a single sentence. Here is what we came
up with:
Ecological restoration is the process of assisting the recovery and management
of ecological integrity. Ecological integrity includes a critical range of variability
in biodiversity, ecological processes and structures, regional and historical
context, and sustainable cultural practices.18
This definition, while clunky, has proved reasonably durable because

it embraces a wide variety of practices while specifying core elements. It
was sufficiently broad to incorporate a suite of restoration initiatives
110 Chapter 3
from around the world, from the restoration of cultural landscapes to

agroecological restoration, while remaining faithful to the call to history
that remains central to any restorative activity. It faltered in the end
on the idea of ecological integrity, which seemed an unnecessary abstrac-
tion. In 2002, Keith Winterhalder, a retired professor of ecology at
Laurentian University in Canada and a major force in the monumental
restoration of the nickel mine–scarred landscape around Sudbury,
Ontario, led a group of international restorationists through a review
of SER definitions and policies.19 We reworked the definition again,
producing a fine and reflective description of restoration: “Ecological
restoration is the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem
that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed.”20 A rich accompany-
ing text fills in some of the gaps, and indicates the importance of diverse
practices. This new definition is just right, in my view: it is sufficiently
open to allow many varieties of restoration to flourish, yet gives a
serious nod to historical conditions and assisted recovery. Let’s take a
look at some of the core concepts bound up with these definitions (1996
and 2002).
Process and Product
We can view restoration either as product or as process. A focus on

product implies an interest in what results from the act of restoration, a
recovered salt marsh for example. In one sense this is exactly what should
be valued. A restoration project is effective if it achieves specific objec-
tives and results in a functioning, intact ecosystem.21 This is only part of
the picture, however. If we take a simple view of ecological time, an
ecosystem stretches along a continuum from a defined, relevant past to
the present, and then extends beyond our immediate reach into the
future. At any given instant, that ecosystem exists as a unique ensemble
of structures and patterns. Viewing it as a continuous function compris-
ing each and every instant, the act of restoration is an intervention
that may be of remarkably brief duration (e.g., fencing a site to remove
a particular disturbance), or an activity in perpetuity, depending on
the amount of management required. Whatever the exact conditions,
restoration is always a process of transition, a continuous coming
into being of an ecosystem. To think of restoration as a product

alone is to miss the significance of all the conditions and activities
along the way. Another way of approaching this is to understand that
restoration is never finished in a strict sense. We can decide to call a
restoration project complete when certain objectives have been met, a
particular time line is achieved, or natural processes seem to be func-
tioning well without further human intervention. But these are arbitrary
decisions.
A process-oriented view of restoration is natural for ecologists, who
are used to thinking of ecosystems as dynamic entities. The matter is
muddied when it comes time to evaluate restoration projects. What
are we grading: the process, the product, or both? A reliance on
performance standards tends to focus attention on restoration-as-
product. Is the hydrological regime reinstated? Is the full complement
of plant communities thriving? Are weedy invasive species under control?
There are several problems in thinking too much about product and
not enough about process. First, there is a tendency to overlook the sig-
nificance of the process itself. For instance, did the project empower local
community members? What was learned scientifically from the project?
Were new practitioners trained? Such considerations have tended to
hover at the margins of traditional evaluation techniques. Second, a focus
on product obscures the potential long-term management of the project.
Some projects will require restorative interventions forever, a conse-
quence of coevolving with people. Hence, some restorations are never
complete. Third, our patience is sorely tried in a consumer society where
final products of any kind matter more than the background conditions
of production necessary to bring them about. If it were otherwise, we
would be much more concerned about sources of production, unfair
labor practices, and environmental devastation of the “majority world”
countries. The product, or commodity, whether in the form of a Twinkies
or a salt marsh, is what makes most sense to us in the early twenty-first
century. The commodification of ecosystems is likely to take place, and
become codified or institutionalized, at least in advanced industrial
societies with the advent of mitigation practices, ecological theme parks,
and corporate restorations (more on this in chapter 5). This mindset will
lead to a focus on efficiency of production of restored ecosystems,
112 Chapter 3
because the conditions necessary to bring them about will not be par-
ticularly important to us.
Assisted Recovery
Restorationists are merely agents in the process of recovery. It would be

arrogant to imagine that we are capable of dictating the outcome of eco-
logical processes; at best, we participate in these processes. We remove
dams, install stream structures, clean up excess nutrient inflows, remove
weedy species, introduce extirpated organisms, and so on. Recovery
refers to the biogeochemical processes that allow an ecosystem to return
to conditions that prevailed prior to disturbance. Recovery is something
that can happen without direct human agency. A grassland that is used
as a horse pasture will recover once the horses are removed. Of course,
much depends on the level of herbivory and the extent of establishment
of exotic species. Without the return of other ecological processes—for
example, the frequent low-intensity fires that are a characteristic pro-
cess in many grassland ecosystems—successional processes will slowly
convert the grassland to scrubland and forest. All of this can occur
without human intervention. Restoration, then, is fundamentally about
assisted recovery, and this works in two primary ways. First, restora-
tionists work to accelerate natural processes, creating conditions in an
instant that might take years, decades, or centuries to occur without
intervention. Second, recovery processes are directed toward specific
ends determined by the restorationist. These ends, or goals, are based on
a host of factors, principally ecological but also economic, social, cul-
tural, political, and moral.
An important theoretical question is where the lower line is drawn
between restoration and recovery: What is the minimal amount of inter-
vention required? Suppose a forest were removed to make way for a
housing development, except that the development never proceeded and
the land was given over to unassisted succession. After thirty years, a
shrub successional cover had replaced the early pioneer herbaceous layer.
After 100 years the land had begun to resemble what had been present
before the clearing activities. Presumably, left long enough (200 years or
more, depending on the location and type of ecosystem), the land would
recover to resemble the approximate functions and structures of a former

era. Under certain conditions, such recovery would bring the ecosystem
back to its purported original condition, although in many other cases,
successional paths would not necessarily lead back quickly or at all to
what might have been there as a result of thousands of years of slow
succession and minimal disturbance.22 Cases such as this are everywhere:
abandoned lots and farms, changing land uses, decommissioning of facil-
ities. One of the most dramatic and well-documented changes in land-
tenure and land-use patterns occurred in the Northeastern United States,
producing what Bill McKibben, a popular American environmental
writer, terms an “explosion of green”:
Less than two centuries later [following intensive logging and agriculture],
despite great increases in the state’s population, 90 percent of New Hampshire
is covered by forest. Vermont was 35 percent woods in 1850 and is 80 percent
today, and even Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island have seen wood-
lands rebound to the point where they cover nearly three fifths of southern New
England. This process, which began as farmers abandoned the cold and rocky
pastures of the East for the fertile fields of the Midwest, has not yet run its course.
. . . By the 1960s and 1970s, the pattern of forest, fields, and pastures was similar
to that prior to 1800, its appearance much like it must have been prior to the
American Revolution.23
This autogenic reforestation—that is, restoration that takes place

without direct human intervention—was unintentional, and represents
not much more than secondary succession in reasonably resilient forested
ecosystems. No one sat down to design targets for forest cover or enacted
legislation. It happened as a result of the specific ecological conditions
(rich soils, temperate climate), economic transitions, the mobility of
agriculturists, and the spread of rural nonfarm estates. It is also very
much dependent on the ecological conditions of Eastern North
American forests, which have allowed for such a recovery. The view
looks different, for example, in the Midwest, where exotic plants able to
thrive on degraded soils have carpeted abandoned prairies.
Not all is well in the Eastern, forested Arcadia, and much of
McKibben’s article describes the current assault on the recovered forests.
Industrial logging has picked up at a breathtaking pace, resulting in
large-scale fragmentation of the Eastern states. Despite deliberate refor-
estation efforts, not much thought is being given to the overall pattern
114 Chapter 3
of land use or ecological considerations on a landscape scale. McKibben

describes the work of citizens and members of the Wildlands project
who are mapping both ecological features and the forces of fragmenta-
tion to show opportunities for restoration. Their goal is to return the
land to conditions resembling wilderness, defined here as the conditions
that existed prior to intensive industrial use of the land. There is
one problem that McKibben does not pursue: habitat and species diver-
sity. The fact that unassisted reforestation has taken place over the
past century does not guarantee the return of the same or similar species
and habitat types. We should certainly celebrate the unassisted recovery
of the Eastern forests, but we should not necessarily assume that this
constitutes an act of restoration. More should be attributed to the work
of restorationists that McKibben describes as “the new defenders,”
people who are consciously trying to return the land to earlier, healthier
conditions.
Recovery is a better term than restoration to describe what has hap-
pened in the Eastern forests of North America. Recovery assumes that
autonomous processes produce an integral ecosystem. Recovery does not
assume that the recovered land is necessarily restored in the sense of
historical fidelity. In some limited cases, the term unassisted restoration
is appropriate when the autonomous recovery processes have produced
something indistinguishable from what had been present prior to the dis-
turbance. At the point where recovery approaches restoration, sharp
distinctions are nearly impossible. This is why the safest convention, ter-
minologically, is to assume that restoration must involve human inten-
tion or agency. In cases where ecological processes have worked
unassisted, recovery is an appropriate blanket term.
Several years ago in a lecture in which I presented some concerns about
the growing technological character of ecological restoration, a group of
students from Germany took me to task over the very idea of restora-
tion. They argued that restoration is simply another arrogation of nature,
and that our accelerated technological culture is dissatisfied with waiting
the length of time—in many cases more than a single lifetime—for auto-
genic restoration. I agree in some respects: we are impatient and some-
times undertake restoration projects as much because they satisfy our
own interests as they do ecological interests (see chapter 5). However,
the presupposition of the German students that natural recovery

processes will return an ecosystem to predisturbance norms is question-
able. It may hold true in limited circumstances, but ecosystems choked
by exotic species, contaminated by persistent toxins, or blocked succes-
sionally have difficulty returning to earlier norms on their own. Inter-
vention is necessary if the goal is to reach back to ecosystems that have
become rare because of human actions. For example, the spirelike white
pines (Pinus strobus) were logged extensively on the Bruce Peninsula
(Ontario, Canada) in the nineteenth century, first to supply ship masts
to the British Navy and later by merchant seafarers and farmers eager
for cleared land, and they have never recovered. The ecological condi-
tions for regeneration are no longer present, and other species have taken
over. Where white pines once defined the peninsula, few are found today.
Only restoration efforts—careful replanting and forest management—
will bring them back.
I am wary of medical analogies for restoration, but one way of looking
at this is as parallel to the relationship between health-care provider and
patient. In a case of severe illness, where life is critically threatened,
medical intervention allows the body’s recovery processes a chance to
work. Without the intervention the person would die. In less severe cases,
the natural recovery processes are able to work more effectively and
autonomously with minimal intervention. In some cases, for instance
with a mild virus, the body’s own recovery processes are sufficient to
regain health without external intervention, although patterns are
changed to accommodate the recovery processes (i.e., increased sleep,
change in diet). Restorationists, like health-care providers, must respect
the capacity of recovery processes and work sensitively with them to
restore integrity. To believe that ecological recovery processes on their
own will always work is like believing that human health can be guar-
anteed without intervention. This is naive.
In assisting recovery, restorationists cannot avoid leaving their mark
on an ecosystem. Successful restoration depends on setting clear goals
that can be tracked and evaluated. These goals are typically ecological,
but underlying motivations and explicit interests almost guarantee that
a restoration project will reflect some of the values of the restorationist.
There are two ways of looking at this, one that maintains that the job
116 Chapter 3
of restoration should be to suppress the imprint of the restorationist as

much as possible, and the other being that the role of the restorationist
should be acknowledged and even celebrated. Much depends on basic
views about the relationship between people and ecosystems. If one
regards human agency as separate from and incompatible with ecologi-
cal integrity, restoration must be about minimizing personal involvement
in the restorative process. I prefer to see restoration as a way of bring-
ing people into a more engaged relationship with nature, the kind that
is possible when hands dig in dirt, transplant trees, pull weeds, and water
newly seeded slopes.
Management
The idea that restored ecosystems require follow-up management—in

some cases ongoing management to meet specific objectives—is difficult
for many to accept. Management was a controversial component of the
1996 SER definition that was removed in 2002. Removing the word does
not remove the problem: many restoration projects require ongoing
intervention for long-term success. According to conventional beliefs,
restoration is about assisted recovery only, meaning that the task of the
restorationist is to intervene as little as possible and for as short a dura-
tion as feasible. Once the immediate work of creating the conditions nec-
essary for recovery are completed, the restorationist steps aside and
allows ecological processes to assume the lead. Unfortunately, in many
cases, this model fails in reality. Restoration is frequently about the pro-
tection of relict sites, rare flora and fauna, and ecosystems at risk. In such
cases, it is often necessary to arrest successional processes in order to
maintain desired objectives (e.g., protection of a rare species). Consider
the work of Sperry and others at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
Arboretum beginning in the 1930s. The bold experiments with grassland
restoration depended crucially on regular prescribed fires to prevent suc-
cession to shrubland. The relative rarity of grasslands made restoration
of these ecosystems a priority and ongoing management of the ecosys-
tems essential for long-term protection. Such decisions are analogous
to learning that eating animals depends on killing them. Perhaps this
analogy is too stark, but there are certainly cases where restoration
requires excruciating moral choices.
Take the decision by managers in Banff National Park to restore bull
trout to Moraine Lake. Few lakes are better known in Canada. For years,
an image of the lake graced the back of Canada’s $10 bill. Fed by gla-
ciers and close to a highway, it has both breathtaking views and acces-
sibility to recommend it. What few know is the extent to which aquatic
ecosystems in Banff have been altered by the introduction of exotic fish
species, notably brook trout and splake (a hybridized trout) for enhanced
angling. Moraine Lake’s complement of vertebrate and invertebrate
species is utterly different now than it was a few decades ago, and the
bull trout, native to the lake, lost out to more competitive, fisher-friendly
species. Restoring bull trout to the lake means more than simply rein-
troducing these fish. They would be unable to compete against more
aggressive, exotic trout. The restoration plan proposed by park officials
involved sustained net fishing to remove as many of the exotic trout as
possible, and then poisoning the remaining individuals to make way for
the bull-trout reintroduction. One can imagine the uproar: Animal rights
group decry the plan as cruel. Local environmentalists divide over the
issue, confused as to whether their values should support killing in the
interest of restoration. Anglers wonder why one challenging game fish
needs to be replaced by a less interesting one, even if it is native. Craig
Ritchie, editor of Real Fishing magazine, commented, “You’re removing
trout and putting in trout. You end up with the same thing—trout in a
lake.”24 This is not true. Yes, one species of trout replaces another, but
the entire aquatic ecosystem in Moraine Lake changes in response to the
characteristics of predator species. Restoration can, and often does,
involve painful management decisions.
Some will claim that such tragic choices in the restoration of ecosys-
tems and follow-up management are wrong in the same way that killing
animals for food is wrong. This is certainly one of the prime reasons why
we ought to be concerned about the propriety of restoration. Whether
one refuses to eat animals, there is little question that animal rights move-
ments have sensitized people to the need for showing respect to animals
and minimizing harm to them. Similarly, those who have qualms about
118 Chapter 3
decisive, harmful actions, whether killing off exotic fish in a lake, elim-
inating a population of ungulates whose sheer numbers contribute to
overgrazing, or conducting intensive prescribed fires, urge caution in
the restoration community. No matter how much we might want to
absent ourselves from continued involvement in the life of an ecosystem,
there are occasions where doing so would reflect the greatest disregard
for ecological integrity. We learn from our actions only if we are
attentive to their consequences, and in the case of restoration, long-term
monitoring of a site is vital. Once the immediate task of restoration
is complete—that is, once the explicit goals have been met according to
a predetermined schedule—a long-term suite of monitoring protocols
ought to be introduced to ascertain the extent to which the original goals
are maintained.
I prefer to think of management in restoration as a negotiated process
between restorationists and ecological processes. If one presumes man-
agement to imply control, this will result in restorations that fail because
of overdetermination and artificiality. At the other end of the spectrum,
those who hold that ecological processes are endlessly adaptable and do
not require management are simply avoiding a hard lesson: some human
intrusions are irrecoverable without further human artifice, so that
human agency is sometimes a good thing. Between these two extremes
is a participatory—some might call it coevolutionary—process wherein
restorationists are working in conjunction with ecological processes with
skill, intelligence, and appropriate modesty. In choosing to include the
idea of management in the 1996 SER definition, we took the risk of
offending the sensibilities of those who believe that restoration is simply
about giving nature a little nudge. Restoration is, for better or worse,
more complicated, and acknowledging ongoing human responsibility is
vital in building an ethical notion of restoration.
Historical Range of Variability
Paradoxically, restoration is an awkward term for what we do under the

banner of ecological restoration. One of the dictionary definitions exam-
ined earlier referred to bringing something back “to a previous, original,
or normal condition.” Such a meaning works well for paintings, old
buildings, or the Sistine Chapel, because the ultimate goal is present

under layers of grime or soil. The object may be damaged, the exact con-
ditions of its creation unknown, but seldom is the goal in question. The
matter is more complicated for ecological restorationists. The subjects of
ecological restoration are ecosystems, and these are in constant motion.
Depending on how abstract one wishes to get, an ecosystem is changing
in accordance with scripted predictability in terms of processes such
as vegetation succession and also in response to stochastic processes
such as wind, flooding, fire, human activity, species invasions, and a
host of complicated interactions that so far have defied understanding.
These processes, at least in their manifold interactions, are likely to
remain mysteries.
Developing systems have no true point of origin or specific moment
of creation. Thus, restoring an ecosystem involves an arbitrary choice
of historical conditions, to the extent that history is of interest in
the restoration process. Trickier still is the fact that stochastic processes
make the precise trajectory of an ecosystem unpredictable. Even if
we could erase the past disturbances that give rise to a restoration
project, there is no assurance that we would know how the undisturbed
ecosystem would play out over time. The difficulty in determining
appropriate reference conditions, whether a fixed historical point
in time or a suite of specific ecological conditions, is one of the central
challenges in ecological restoration. Two concepts have become useful
in our efforts to deal with these issues. Historical range of variability
refers to a reasonable long-term boundary on change; we can determine
this and use it to situate specific restoration objectives. Closely related is
the idea of reference conditions, which are historical inferences drawn
from records or remnant ecosystems. These concepts are the focus of
chapter 4.
Sustainable Cultural Practices
Arguably the most radical aspect of the 1996 SER definition was the
embedding of the phrase “sustainable cultural practices” in the defini-
tion of ecological integrity. Implicit in the Western technological and sci-
entific worldview, now dominant and spreading quickly, is a rift between
120 Chapter 3
nature and culture. Whether this emerged from Judeo-Christian religious

teachings as some have argued, or from an innate capacity for commu-
nicative consciousness as Murray Bookchin has argued, the facts point
to a sharp separation between humanity, which incorporates all the intel-
ligence, activities, and products of people, and nature, which is often
defined negatively as everything else.25 This divide runs through almost
everything we do and represent. Our institutions reflect it in the ways
we wall ourselves off from natural processes, or compartmentalize nature
through indoor plants, nature programming on television, and other
simulations and references. The separation between nature and culture
is so much a part of how we see the world that the greatest challenge
is an imaginative one, to conjure the world without such a duality—or
alternatively, to fundamentally change the relationship between people
and nature.
The boundary between nature and culture, wild and domestic, has
been increasingly challenged. Adherents of deep ecology, social ecology,
and ecofeminism, not to mention anthropologists who assail such rigid
dualisms, have opened the way for a broader social questioning of what
nature means. The conceptual positions have become complicated and
difficult to resolve: Is it best to acknowledge, as anthropocentrists do,
that all value making extends from us by definition and our obligation
therefore is to act as enlightened stewards? Or do we adopt an ecocen-
tric position, wherein value extends across all existence?
Ecological restoration is difficult to fit into any conventional category.
A special communion forms when people literally dig into the earth to
reverse a tide of degradation, atone for past actions, seek a new way of
relating to things other than human, or enjoy the pleasure of good
company and good work. Such intervention flies in the face of deep
ecology, for instance, because it could be seen as arrogant. Traditional
preservationists are unnerved by the possibility that restoration does
sometimes justify development. Industrialists blink at the high cost of
restoration and fear increasing demands for reparation. There are eco-
centric and anthropocentric restorationists, but no one position at this
point is more compelling. One can be an enlightened anthropocentrist,
meaning that restoration is about making the most of distinctly human
capacities. Restoration can also be biocentric in the sense of erasing the
boundaries between culture and nature by adopting, as much as possi-

ble, value systems that privilege nonhumans. Ecological restoration has
perhaps stirred more debate among environmental philosophers than any
other single issue.
People of all political persuasions support restoration. They do so
because of widespread agreement on the salutary products of these
efforts. The process of restoration, however, tends to change minds
about the role of people in ecosystems. It is not sufficient to think of
restoration as simply a scientific or technical practice. Restoration
has inherent democratic potential that requires nourishment from local
participatory practice (chapter 6).26 For good restoration to flourish—
good in the sense of ecological and cultural integrity—any definition
must be expanded to incorporate sustainable cultural practices. Every-
one who has been involved in a restoration project can tell a story of
cultural integration, whether it be the group of university and high school
students building and placing revetments along a stream in Pullman,
Washington, on a Saturday morning, or the recovery of lost knowledge
of the land that comes from restoring the Mattole River watershed in
Northern California.27 The stories that began as rivulets now flow as a
wide river. Dennis Martinez asks; “What do we want to restore? We
want to restore life. We want to restore the living and sacred relation-
ship between the people and the earth. We want to restore our spirits as
we restore the land. We want to restore our culture, our songs, our myths
and stories, and the Indian names for creeks and springs. We want to
restore ourselves.”28
There are concerns, to be sure, about adding the concept of sustain-
able cultural practice to the core of ecological restoration. How do we
distinguish between cultural practices that honor participation, modesty,
and humility and those that aim to emblazon human pride, greed, and
arrogance on nature? How do we ensure that a fixation on human values
does not swamp the wisdom of ecologists? There are no easy answers.
The surest way is through examining the lessons that flow from prac-
tice. This is what Freeman House, in his book Totem Salmon, tries to
do with respect to the restoration of the Mattole River watershed, and
it is what the more personal account by Stephanie Mills of her life on
the northern peninsula of Michigan, In Service of the Wild, offers. We
122 Chapter 3
can glean a few general lessons, although these cannot be converted

to formulas. Participation is crucial in restoration, if only to ensure the
long-term survival of a project. Humility is necessary to ward off
the tendency to believe that restoration is merely a technical challenge
and follows prescribed rules. Reflection ensures that we think before we
act, and also that what we know and live by stands up to constant
inquiry. I borrow Tony Bradshaw’s idea that restoration is an “acid test”
for ecology, although my use of this idea is more general. To enhance
our knowledge of ecology is to understand the mutual dependency of
ecological and cultural integrity, and this is the acid test of ecological
restoration.
Ecological Integrity
The concept of ecological integrity anchored SER’s 1996 definition of

restoration and has become a central concept in many contemporary
conservation policies. It was jettisoned, however, in the 2002 definition
because it constituted an abstraction that in itself required definition.
This is a valid complaint, but I remain drawn to the intuitive and
metaphorical appeal of ecological integrity. At the very root of integrity
is the notion of wholeness, which in the context of conservation and
restoration suggests that the goal ought to be the creation of whole,
intact systems. James Kay, a systems theorist at the University of
Waterloo, proposes that integrity is an all-encompassing term for the
various features—resiliency, elasticity, stress response, and so on—that
allow an ecosystem to adjust to environmental change: “Integrity should
be seen as an umbrella concept that integrates these many different
characteristics of an ecosystem, which, when taken together, describe an
ecosystem’s ability to maintain its organization.”29 Ecological integrity is
closely related to biological integrity, defined by the U.S. ecologists Paul
Angermeier and James Karr as “native species populations in their
historic variety and numbers naturally interacting in naturally structured
biotic communities.”30
There have been two main approaches to defining restoration, both
amplifying the idea of ecological integrity. The first emphasizes
interpretive descriptions of what restoration should be. The writings of
William Jordan III, Stephanie Mills, and Freeman House provide typical
lyrical accounts of this nature. The second approach consists of analytic
descriptions, mostly in the form of models that describe practice and
build theory. The French restoration ecologist James Aronson and his
colleagues have proposed measurable indices of ecological and environ-
mental factors (including human activities) in the form of vital ecosys-
tem attributes and vital landscape attributes.31 These attributes can be
used to assess the degree of degradation of ecosystems, providing a way
of measuring the degree to which restoration projects reach their
objectives on an ecosystem and landscape scale. The development of a
clear list of relevant indicators is a crucial way of advancing restoration
science, and when combined with interpretive accounts, this system
promises to be a useful tool.32 Nonetheless, these are relatively early
attempts at providing transferable, general ecological principles for
restoration. R. J. Hobbs and D. A. Norton lament: “What is clear is that
restoration ecology has largely progressed on an ad hoc, site- and situa-
tion-specific basis, with little development of general theory or principles
that would allow the transfer of methodologies from one situation to
another.”33 It will take time to develop such a framework, and no
framework is likely to be universally valid for all types of ecosystems,
locales, and circumstances. What we might best hope for are a series of
ecotype- or region-specific frameworks that provide effective advice for
on-the-ground restorationists.
What of the notion of ecological health, which is clearly a close con-
tender with ecological integrity for the most pleasing target for whole
ecosystems? In the 1990s the idea of ecosystem health caught on as a
way of defining appropriate goals for ecological management. In some
respects, ecosystem health is a more intuitive metaphor, for it focuses
attention on notions of human health. On a purely metaphorical level,
health carries much weight. It connotes a condition for ecosystems (and
humans) that we understand to be positive. However, as a deterministic
concept it fails. Definitions of human health are notoriously difficult to
articulate; they often end up producing a cluster of evaluative terms that
provide guidance but little quantitative specificity. Likewise, there is so
much variation in ecosystems that criteria for ascertaining health are
either too broad to be practically useful, or too specific to capture a full
124 Chapter 3
range of meaning. Not only do ecosystems change, but so also do our

notions of what counts as healthy. Where, for example, will our views
be positioned decades from now about weedy and exotic species? Will
we be so overwhelmed by invasions on native flora and fauna that we
will declare all-out war on such species, increasing the stringency of this
one measure of ecosystem health? Or will we concede defeat to weeds
and other flora and fauna, adopting a sophisticated control strategy that
largely accepts them? The point is that our criteria for ecosystem health
will change over time, and any rigid attempt to define them is doomed
to failure. Angermeier and Karr make the distinction between integrity
and health this way: “Integrity implies an unimpaired condition or the
quality or state of being complete or undivided; it implies corres-
pondence with some original condition. . . . Health, on the other hand,
implies a flourishing condition, well-being, vitality, or prosperity.”34 An
ecosystem may be healthy without necessarily having what Angermeier
and Karr would think of as “original” integrity—that is, the features of
the predisturbance state. One could weigh in on either side of the debate
as regards ecological restoration, but integrity incorporates the idea of
recovering previous conditions. If we are to arbitrate between two com-
pelling metaphorical descriptions of ecological restoration, I choose
integrity over health.
The Evolution of Words and Worlds
This tour through definitions of ecological restoration highlights the

difficulty of defining this and similar terms. Ecological restoration is
a process as much as a product, aimed at assisting the recovery of
whole ecosystems. Restorationists work in concert with ecological
processes. Definitions change to reflect changing circumstances and
beliefs: evolution, after all, acts on words as well as worlds. But my
intuition is that no matter how the definition changes, two principles
will remain central to restoration: ecological integrity and historical
fidelity. If ecological restorationists want to identify the core concepts of
their field, surely these two ideas, above all, must be cited. (In chapters
6 and 7, however, I explore two additional core concepts: focal practice
and design).
Once the core concepts of a practice have been identified, it becomes

possible to establish concrete standards and goals. What is the perfect
restoration project, the gold standard, the one against which all others
are measured? This is a misleading question. It suggests a product-
oriented view of restoration, which is only one part of describing a
project. Martinez shouted out a comment from the floor at the philo-
sophy session at SER’s 2000 conference in Liverpool: “Has anyone ever
seen a completed restoration project? Would someone please show me?”
He is good at asking devilishly obvious questions. Certainly specific goals
can be achieved and monitoring requirements met, but in the life of that
ecosystem, in the lives of all the organisms who make their home in that
place, humans included, the restoration is seamless. A simple test, which
I term the fidelity test, helps make this point.35
Imagine an intact but isolated, temperate mixed-forest ecosystem
contiguous to one that has been disturbed significantly through log-
ging, other intrusive human activities, invasions of weedy species, and
so on. Suffice it to say that most regard the first forest as integral
and the second as needing restoration. A talented interdisciplinary
team of scientists, naturalists, and volunteers spends many hours
studying the intact woodland as a reference site. They develop a set of
specific objectives for restoration for the other woodland site, involving
weed removal, restricted herbicide use, physical alteration of certain
site and structural features, planting, and selective harvesting. The
plan is implemented completely and a rigorous follow-up maintenance
and management program is put in place to ensure adherence to
objectives. Time passes, say 200 years. A crack team of future
restoration scientists, armed with the best analytic equipment, experi-
ence, and knowledge, is dispatched to the two sites. Despite their
extensive preparations, they are not given any information about the
history of the two ecosystems. An exhaustive investigation is conducted
into forest structure, soil conditions, nutrient cycling, species richness,
spatial characteristics, and other characteristics that shape an ecosystem.
The team holds a meeting and then delivers a verdict. If more than a
simple majority of members picks either the wrong woodland as the
restored one or cannot decide which is which, the restoration is consid-
ered a perfect success.
126 Chapter 3
Or is it? This test stretches the limits of plausibility—age structure

alone might be a dead giveaway. A practical problem plagues the test,
too. Should the comparison be based on the reference ecosystem at the
time of disturbance or in the future when the test is completed? These
ecosystems are in a continual process of change. If the disturbance time
is chosen, how is it possible to gather sufficient data to properly inform
the scientists of the future? Moreover, is there any reason restoration
ought to be tested purely by fidelity to a reference ecosystem? Shouldn’t
the goals established by the restorationists, which will include specific
ecological objectives but perhaps also cultural ones, be the primary basis
for measurement? Ultimately, the perfectibility of restoration depends
either on duplication, which is uninspiring and unattainable, or on a cul-
turally contingent view of nature. What counts as good restoration is
shaped by a combination of two aspects of ecological integrity and his-
torical fidelity: a measurable component based on a priori criteria; and
an evaluative component that conditions what is worth considering in
the first place. Both of these measures, however, are ultimately linked to
changing value systems. It is inevitable that what we regard as impor-
tant to measure will shift over time.
Consider ecological integrity and historical fidelity as resting on
two connected, sliding scales. At one end are projects, fictitious and
unattainable, that have remarkable integrity (according to predetermined
measures) and exact fidelity to historical conditions. At the other extreme
are projects wherein integrity is stretched to the limit of plausibility,
and historical fidelity is merely a faint trace (figure 3.2). Somewhere
along the two lines—no doubt a shifting location to reflect the evolu-
tionary processes described above—is the divide that separates restora-
tion projects from those that do not meet minimal criteria. All projects
to the right of the dividing line are restoration projects, some of which
meet the twin criteria of ecological integrity and historical fidelity
more closely than others. Notice how I say more closely, not better. So
many factors can influence what determines a good restoration project,
and these vary from region to region and project to project. A success-
ful restoration project in a complicated agroecosystem, such as the river-
ine meadows in the Slovak Republic (see chapter 2), will depend on
different measures of success than the Kissimmee River restoration in
Ecological integrity
Historical fidelity
Minimum Maximum
(no integrity and fidelity) (greatest integrity and fidelity)
Minimal condition for restoration
Figure 3.2
A restoration project is defined by its location along two scales, ecological
integrity and historical fidelity. The dashed line shows the minimal conditon
required for identification of a legitimate restoration project; beyond this line a
project would be described as something else—for example, as a reclamation
project.
Florida. Both are good projects and would stack up well under slightly
different criteria.
Integrity is a familiar term, but fidelity is a novel word in an ecologi-
cal context. To be faithful to something means to be loyal and trust-
worthy, and also to be true and accurate. The second meaning applies
well to the challenge of ecological restoration. Historical fidelity means
loyalty to predisturbance conditions, which may or may not involve
exact reproduction—remember that there are social, economic, cultural,
political, aesthetic, and moral goals from the present to factor in as well.
What I like about the idea of fidelity is that it encourages us to be true
to whatever goals we have set for ourselves and for ecosystems, which
may involve backing off from the standard of perfect historical fidelity.
The absence or unreliability of historical data, lack of availability of
appropriate personnel and seed/plant stock, and shortfalls of cash, in
addition to other factors, limit what is attainable for any particular site.
Once aware of such limitations, we do the best we can by trying to be
true to our judgments. Our judgments are never fully given over to eco-
logical realities; they are set within a complicated matrix of changing
128 Chapter 3
values. We act as proxies for ecosystems, doing what we think is best

given a wide array of possible approaches. There is no way of escaping
such human contrivance.
The term fidelity was key to an earlier attempt to describe good
restoration. In my 1997 Conservation Biology article, I argue that fidelity
comprises three subsidiary principles: structural/compositional replica-
tion, functional success, and durability.36 Structural/compositional repli-
cation most closely manifests the goal of fidelity. A restored ecosystem
must strongly resemble the structure and composition of an appropriate
reference ecosystem. Functional success is inextricably tied to composi-
tional and structural replication; neither is possible over time without
the other. The ecosystem must align ecologically with the system it is
designed to reproduce. Biogeochemical processes must operate normally
according to the expectations of the specific ecosystem (e.g., flushing
rates, ion exchanges, decomposition). Functional success usually depends
on management. Durability is a key criterion for evaluating and deter-
mining the success of a restoration. For a restoration to be successful—
that is, to achieve the overall goal of fidelity—it must hold up over a
significant period of time, significant being defined relative to the type of
ecosystem. Resilience is considered an important criterion of a success-
ful restoration project. Many would subsume this quality under dura-
bility, but I would suggest that an ecosystem can be resilient and still not
be durable. For example, external site pressures such as wholesale inva-
sion by weedy species may overpower even the most resilient ecosystem
without management. The need to strike a balance between longevity
and expediency when setting performance criteria often creates difficul-
ties for regulatory institutions beyond what they are typically equipped
to handle.
My earlier model of ecological fidelity still works, but it is not as pow-
erful or clear as a combined model of ecological integrity and historical
fidelity. We still face the challenge of effectively incorporating cultural
values and practices in a model of ecological restoration. It remains to
be seen whether this can be done well with only the two core principles
of ecological integrity and historical fidelity. These issues are taken up
again in chapter 6.
Perhaps it is a little late to ask this rather obvious if vexing question: Is

restoration the term and concept we want? I have found it awkward
when explaining ecological restoration to those new to the practice to
occasionally have to concede that restoration is a misleading and ulti-
mately confusing term. Most people gravitate to definitions that fit art
or architectural restoration—that is, a return to a prior or original state.
We know that such a static notion does not fit the intentions of ecolog-
ical restorationists. Moreover, unless one is willing to adopt a very strict
definition—a tack that the Society for Ecological Restoration has
avoided—the conventional notions of restoration do not fit ongoing
practice well. Given the choice, I would not promote the term restora-
tion in describing the broad array of projects underway. There are better
terms: reparation, which looks backward, or regeneration, which looks
forward.
This opens two options. One is to accept restoration as an umbrella
term for a wide variety of practices, not an infinitely wide set but broader
than that encompassed by the austere, historically precise notion of
restoration. The other approach is to carve out a narrow niche for restora-
tion and develop a more inclusive term for the wider array. Theoretically,
I favor the latter alternative, but the former is more realistic, given the
already-ubiquitous use of restoration. As a pragmatist at heart, I will
work at both levels, advancing this presently untenable theoretical posi-
tion with the hope that it may flourish in the future, and simultaneously
promoting the cause of ecological restoration as presently defined. Again,
we ought to be concerned about the finer points of definition and termi-
nology because they will ultimately affect how restoration is practiced.
Back in the 1980s when the field was beginning to coalesce, William
Jordan and others recognized the problem of terminology. He and John
Aber favored the more flexible (although no less confusing) term syn-
thetic ecology to convey the constructive purpose of restoration as a new
experimental paradigm for ecology. Vestiges of this approach appear
in the subtitle of one of the earliest publications on the concept of
restoration, Restoration Ecology: A Synthetic Approach to Ecological
Research.37 Jordan, Gilpin, and Aber were resisting the conven-
tional notion of restoration, that unswerving dedication to the past as if
130 Chapter 3
ecosystems were obscure paintings and all that was necessary was to
remove years of accumulated grime. A balance is required between a his-
toricism that acknowledges the guiding role history plays in recovering
ecosystems, and a pragmatism that allows a measure of autonomy for
practitioners to work in the present. The best way forward—that is, the
latter path—is to ensure that ecological restoration is defined in a way
that simultaneously honors ecological integrity and historical fidelity,
excludes practices that undermine these core ideals, and enlarges the
prospect of people living respectfully in and around restored places.
4
Historicity and Reference in Ecological
Restoration
Of course, nature, unlike a tapestry, also continues to evolve through time: even
without human-imposed changes, nature does not remain static.
—Peter White and Joan Walker, “Approximating Nature’s Variation”
Find refuge in change.

—Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge
I focus on history in this chapter because it seems the more precarious of

the two apparent underpinnings of restoration, the other being ecological
integrity. We know that ecosystems are in constant motion; so too does
restoration as a practice change over time. This dynamism creates prob-
lems for restorationists: Does restoration depend on historical authentic-
ity, and should it? The demands created by history cause some
practitioners and observers to draw away from restoration, believing that
historical fidelity is unreasonable or too expensive to emulate. Some people
may begin to wonder whether the past really needs to exert pressure on
the present and future. It we allow a role for history, how will our under-
standing of authenticity change over time? To what point in history does
one anchor one’s plans? Is such precision necessary? The vexing problem
of fixing historical conditions, or not, for restoration is well known and
lies at the heart of restoration theory and practice. It is less common to
acknowledge that our beliefs about restoration change, too. My point is
a simple one: restoration can shift in the future in many ways. It can
become more attuned to cultural practices, operate on multiple scales
simultaneously, move away gradually from the straightjacket implied by
rigid historical structures, or be undertaken by private rather than public
interests. But it must not abandon history entirely. If it does, we will be
giving in too much to the capricious nature of contemporary judgment.
132 Chapter 4
In a conversation with two ardent and accomplished graduate students

studying restoration ecology, I asked whether history mattered to them.
They were unequivocal in asserting that the past is an impediment to
executing effective projects. For them, creating a functional stream where
only a polluted one existed previously was of paramount importance,
not the niceties of historical fidelity. Their response rested on their belief
in the importance of restoring ecological integrity, though they admitted
that in a world of more complete information, history would count in
their plans and actions. I thought perhaps that they would see their work
as contradicting restoration, but no such dilemma appeared; for them
their work was ecological restoration. This may be an isolated example,
but I suspect it is not.
Most restorationists assume history matters. However, the central
place of history in ecological restoration needs to be understood, criti-
cized, and defended, not assumed. This chapter, therefore, is about
history, or more properly historicity—that which pertains to historical
fidelity.1 There are three reasons for taking historicity seriously: nostal-
gia and the knowledge this brings of a better past; the capacity to create
continuous stories that inform our understanding of a place, or what I
call narrative continuity; and depth of time (each of these three concepts
will be clarified later). On a more practical level, I also explore the idea
of reference ecosystems—historical or contemporary ecosystems that can
guide the work of restorationists—a troublesome if crucial concept in
restoration in which history is a central figure. The idea of a reference
ecosystem is not new, but it has yet to be thoroughly articulated by
restoration ecologists.2 I extend the meaning of reference ecosystems to
incorporate human as well as ecological presence, or rather to see human
presence as an aspect of ecological presence (this view is elaborated in
chapter 6). Let’s return to Jasper National Park for a glimpse of how
historical information helps (or confounds) restoration.
Photographing the Past
Jeanine Rhemtulla uncovered a collection of photographs in July 1996

that would change the course of her life and also the way we understand
the history of Jasper National Park. Eighty-one years earlier, in the late
Historicity and Reference in Ecological Restoration 133
spring of 1915, Morrison Parsons Bridgland, a Dominion Land Surveyor

in the employ of the Canadian federal government, and his crew of six
men arrived in the upper Athabasca Valley after an arduous rail journey
from Ottawa, the nation’s capital 2,000 miles to the east. Bridgland
was an accomplished mountain climber and earlier an acolyte of A. O.
Wheeler, a senior surveyor and cofounder of the Alpine Club of Canada.
The task in front of Bridgland was to climb as many promontories,
mostly mountain peaks, as possible, and take careful photographs and
measurements that could later be used to chart the first topographic maps
of Jasper. Canadians were international leaders at the time in the use of
photographic techniques for surveying and map production. Conven-
tional survey techniques using transits and short lines of sight were
tedious and slow in the rugged terrain of the Rocky Mountains. Edouard
DeVille was appointed Surveyor General of the Dominion Land Survey
in 1885, and with his appointment came innovative surveying techniques
that included the use of phototopographic surveying. By combining
photographs, precise angular and locational observations, and arduous
geometry to plot the lines of topographic relief, much more land
could be surveyed in less time, leading to the widespread use of photo-
graphic techniques in the first decade of the twentieth century. The
efficiency was so great that costs were reduced in some cases by an order
of magnitude. The result was a wholesale change in techniques for
surveying mountainous and hilly regions in western Canada, and such a
transformation makes a nearly perfect historical study of technologically
induced obsolescence.3
Bridgland honed his techniques, and later wrote a handbook of pho-
tographic surveying.4 During the summer and autumn of 1915, super-
vising two crews, a total of ninety-two survey stations were established
(several of which were at different points on the same mountain and a
few at ground level). From each point they took at least four, and as
many as sixteen, photographs and conventional compass and theodolite
(an optical survey instrument for measuring horizontal and vertical
angles) measurements. A number of the ascents were challenging, espe-
cially with mountaineering techniques of the time, and many were first
ascents. These were done without the aid of the roads, manicured trails,
route or trail descriptions, helicopters, and lightweight outdoor and
134 Chapter 4
camping gear that we take for granted today. The crews carried bulky
wooden box cameras, glass-plate negatives, photographic chemicals, and
a portable darkroom. Bridgland worked while the weather was good,
which was not very often in the summer of 1915, and his days began at
or before dawn and lasted sometimes until late evening. By the time snow
and frigid weather forced him back to Calgary in late October, his expe-
dition had recorded 735 black-and-white photographs on glass-plate
negatives (figure 4.1). Tragedy struck on July 29, 1915, when the other
photographer, A. E. Hyatt, drowned in Beauvert Lake, necessitating a
sad duty for Bridgland that involved interviews with the Royal Cana-
dian Mounted Police, travel to British Columbia to ensure proper
committal and burial of the deceased, recruiting a new photographer,
and then the process of training the new man and completing the survey.5
This was an exceptional season even for Bridgland, who over his
Figure 4.1
Example of cartographic techniques applied to one of the photographs (the
Ramparts in the Tonquin Valley, Jasper National Park). From M. P. Bridgland’s
Photographic Surveying.
lifetime is credited with many first ascents of mountains in the Jasper

and Banff regions of the Canadian Rockies and at least a dozen other
surveys.6 The maps were produced after thousands of hours of painstak-
ing work back at the office, and published in 1917 (figure 4.2).
The Dominion Land Survey was established in 1875 to oversee the
mapping of the vast and fragile union that was Canada. Political and
social cohesion was difficult to achieve over such a large land area in a
time before simultaneous communications. A cross-continental railway
was blasted over Rogers Pass in 1885 and through what are now Banff
and Yoho National Parks, immediately to the south of Jasper, but this
Figure 4.2
Portion of one of six topographic map sheets of north-central Jasper National
Park produced from Bridgland’s 1915 photographic survey. The Athabasca River
figures prominently, and the site of what is now the Palisades Centre is located
at the bottom-left corner of the map.
136 Chapter 4
was just a thick thread in the weaving together of a nation. The Survey
was motivated by nationalism on the one hand, and by a growing
commitment to scientific description of the territorial lands and waters
on the other.7 Mapping helped assert control over a region by removing
some of its mystery and clearing the way for development, and Bridg-
land’s maps were keys in opening economic opportunities and easing
further exploration of Jasper and beyond. In 1915, the Jasper Forest
Reserve—the forerunner to Jasper National Park—was eight years old.
Two competing railway companies, the Canadian Northern and the
Grand Trunk Pacific, had barely finished pushing their way up the
Athabasca Valley and over Yellowhead Pass into British Columbia. A
small rail town, Fitzhugh (later Jasper), became the administrative and
rail center for the region. Based on the success of the grand railway hotels
along the southern rail route, early visitors and promoters of Jasper con-
jured a patrician tourism trade, which was realized to a limited extent
with the construction of Jasper Park Lodge. The Lodge continues
this grand, although by contemporary standards in a national park,
somewhat incongruous tradition. Wealthy tourists, mountaineers, adven-
turers, and migrants made their way through Jasper, but Jasper resisted
the popularity that beset its neighbor to the south, Banff. To this day,
although development pressures are intense by any standards, Jasper
remains in the shadow of Banff (see chapter 1).
By a twist of history, two sets of photographs, bound together in small
folios, made it to Jasper National Park. Jeanine Rhemtulla, an ecologist,
had just begun her graduate studies in 1996. With time and opportunity
on her side, she decided to spend the summer in Jasper looking for a
promising research project. That was the first summer of the Culture,
Ecology and Restoration project, an interdisciplinary research initiative
aimed at providing options for long-range restoration of the montane
ecosystems of the upper Athabasca Valley.8 The Palisades Research
Centre was filled with spirited discussion about restoration theory, park
options, and environmental values. I challenged team members to come
up with a way of answering the question, “What are our goals for
restoration?” The question brought the inevitable historical regression:
Should the ecosystems be returned to the conditions just before the
establishment of the park? Before the fur-trade period (1811–1855)? Or
further back, when climate conditions were similar to those we are now
experiencing? Rhemtulla believed that one way of answering these ques-
tions was to have some solid data about previous ecological conditions,
a matter made difficult by a scarcity of reliable historical data. Her
research interests tended toward an understanding of vegetation dynam-
ics as a whole, and not any one specific process (e.g., fire). Historical
aerial photographs were helpful, although the earliest set dated back only
to 1949. Even a cursory observation revealed considerable change over
the forty-two-year interval. Forests appeared more dense, human activ-
ity had increased, and the river had changed course in places. It would
be a straightforward, if painstaking, task to interpret vegetation types
from the two sets of air photos, digitize them for use with a computer
mapping system, and compare their spatial characteristics. The problem
was that the time difference was only forty-two years, a single heartbeat
in long-term vegetation change. When this became clear, Rhemtulla was
browsing through files at the park office and park warden Rod Wallace
pointed her to the Bridgland photographs. She made photocopies of a
few, and emerged in the daylight to a view of the mountains that barely
resembled the images in her hands (figure 4.3). Where patchy forests
were evident in 1915, dense, close-canopied lodgepole pine forests had
replaced these. The degree of change was remarkable. Her hunch was
that if Bridgland could compute the geometry necessary to produce accu-
rate maps from these photographs, it must be possible to shoot repeat
photographs of the same locations, and generate maps of vegetation now
and as compared to the way it was eighty-one years ago. This would
yield two heartbeats of ecological duration, or almost eighty years. It
turned out not to be nearly so simple, but in that moment was born the
Bridgland Repeat Photography project.
The art and science of repeat photography—comparing contemporary
photographs with historical images taken at exactly the same location—
has developed over the last three decades as a modestly popular method
for examining change in human activities, vegetation, rock formations,
glaciers, water courses, and a host of other landscape features. The classic
study of landscape change was Hastings and Turner’s The Changing
Mile, which focused on grazing and climactic change in Arizona.
Around the world dozens of scientific studies since have used repeat
138
Chapter 4
Figure 4.3
View from Powerhouse Cliff, just north of the town of Jasper, looking across the Athabasca River to Hawk
Mountain. This was one of the first Bridgland photographic stations that Jeanine Rhemtulla encountered.
The left photo, from 1915, is by M. P. Bridgland and the repeat image (right) is from exactly the same
location in 1998 (J. Rhemtulla and E. Higgs).
photographic techniques, including exemplary studies of vegetation

change in the central Great Basin, vegetation and land-use patterns in
Colorado, and ecological changes in the front ranges of the Rockies in
Colorado. Two studies are analogs for our work in Jasper. Mary Meagher
and Douglas Houston have assembled in some case triplets (turn of the
twentieth century, early 1970s, and 1990s) of photographs from Yellow-
stone that show substantial change to this American icon. Many of the
issues they note in Yellowstone are familiar to those working in Jasper.
Robert Webb and colleagues investigated many reaches of the Colorado
River by comparing their views, literally, with the Stanton expedition
photographs of 1890 (Stanton recorded with photographs the potential
railroad routing). Webb reports on a wide variety of ecological changes
(e.g., herbivory, longevity of desert plants, fluvial structures). His study
is interdisciplinary, and he employs quantitative analytic techniques in
some cases.9 This latter point marks a sharp distinction between earlier
and more recent studies. Photographs really do speak volumes, and when
a pair of repeat images is presented side by side, especially when the
changes are as dramatic as they are with our work in Jasper, the mind’s
eye is marked indelibly. For qualitative impact, not much exceeds paired
photographs. However, the challenge is to push beyond impressions such
as “the forests appear much denser in the more recent photograph,” to
an accurate assessment of exactly what has changed and by how much.
The Bridgland collection is different from most other repeat photographic
collections, because the comprehensive and systematic nature of survey
photography allows quantitative analysis. With image-sampling proce-
dures, as Rhemtulla has demonstrated with her research on vegetation
change, it is possible to make a comparison of the relative extent of dif-
ferent vegetation types, and thus to show with some precision how the
vegetation and other ecological and cultural features have changed.10
The Bridgland Repeat Photography project has grown well beyond
Rhemtulla’s initial efforts.11 In the summer of 1998, walking in many
cases the same trails that Bridgland and his crew had trekked in 1915,
we began the complete rephotography of his original survey, all 735 pho-
tographs. We completed the work on September 11, 1999, by climbing
Pyramid Mountain, a peak that in appearance is true to its name and
dominates the skyline west of the town of Jasper. We did most of our
140 Chapter 4
work on foot, like Bridgland, although we did occasionally avail our-

selves of helicopter support. Trail access was generally better than in
Bridgland’s day, and many of the routes are known. Our equipment was
lighter, although we lugged around a cranky, heavy 4 ¥ 5 Linhof large-
format camera and an unwieldy tripod. Luckily we were spared the
romance of glass-plate negatives. Despite these advantages, we still
packed a healthy payload and braced ourselves against volatile, some-
times severe mountain weather and all the quirks and dangers of
wilderness travel. Bridgland, surprisingly, had a couple of advantages.
He arrived in Jasper twenty-five years after one of the largest fire events
on record: back-to-back dry years in 1889 and 1890 that burned more
than half the forests of the upper Athabasca Valley and had similar effects
throughout Alberta and elsewhere in the mountain west. Walking
through brulé, or burned forest, was in many cases easier than the bush-
whacking that greeted us in the 1990s after over a hundred years of very
little fire (a combination of fire suppression and depressed fire ignition).
Also, Bridgland had the aid of a well-trained survey party, significant
logistical support, and horses. It is doubtful that he cooked many of his
own meals! We chanted these qualifications as reassurances to ourselves
along particularly difficult scrambles or during awful weather. Never-
theless, we were incredulous sometimes, awed at others, by what the
Bridgland survey accomplished in a single season. We felt sometimes like
doughy teenagers urged along by a fit and trim elderly uncle.
What we have achieved, and will continue to develop, is a detailed
view of the north-central portion of Jasper National Park as it appeared
in 1915. This was just as the two railways up the Athabasca Valley and
through the Yellowhead Pass were completed, four years following the
expulsion of the Métis families to make room for a new idea of the land,
and eight years following the establishment of the park. It was also
twenty-five years following the most extensive fires on record, roughly a
century following the first ascents of the Athabasca Valley by the fur
traders, and ten millenniums following the retreat of the last glaciation
and the earliest-known wanderings of people in the valley, a span of time
punctuated by complicated, mostly unknown, changes in people, plants,
animals, and climate. The Bridgland photography, not to mention our
repeats nearly a century later, is a small nick on this arrow of time. By
filling the roughly eighty-year gap with aerial photos and models of eco-
logical change, we can document the processes of landscape change. The
photographs are a powerful testament to change, for in one quick glance
they reveal dramatic visual changes—rockslides, forest regeneration,
roads and trails. As one would expect with any interpretive technique,
there are significant limits on what can be gleaned from the photographs.
Underlying processes such as nutrient cycling and soil chemistry, and
fine-grained vegetation shifts, are not detectable with photographs. There
are places we visited, in the alpine regions mostly, where the change is
so subtle that only careful observation reveals the increments. This is a
landscape in motion, as all landscapes are, and the movement amplifies
the intricacy.
This vigorous quality should not be surprising. We know that ecosys-
tems change, that people’s activities combined with ecological processes
create continuously changing patterns. The paradigm in ecology has
shifted in the last twenty years from one in which equilibrium defined
the end point of ecological change to one in which ecosystems are dise-
quilibrium systems with complicated multiple trajectories and multiple
steady states.12 If we presume that everything is in flux, which would be
a radical way of interpreting some of the new theorizing in ecology, then
history may matter very little to restorationists, and in fact restoration
may not be literally necessary or warranted. A major concept of restora-
tion, historical fidelity, would fall away in favor of exclusive concern
with ecological integrity (see chapter 3). Thus, restoration might involve
the removal of immediate and indirect human stressors, making pos-
sible multiple ecological trajectories (including those that may not be
apparent in the historical record), attentiveness to contemporary regional
ecological conditions, and a focus on naturalistic instead of natural
patterns and processes.
These questions about history percolated as Rhemtulla and I retraced
Bridgland’s steps. It was humbling to realize that so much work is
required to understand the past qualities of a place. After all, was 1915
actually a special year? Not really. It did mark a point roughly midway
through the use of phototopographic surveying, a feverish era in the rel-
atively new Dominion of Canada. The images from 1915 do provide a
portrait of a landscape closer perhaps to one extreme of vegetation
142 Chapter 4
patterning, one that was patchy and open. It would be wrong to suggest
that either the 1915 or repeat photographs show the valley as it is or
should be. There is reason to believe that both sets of snapshots occur
within a longer-term range of variability, although it does seem that the
close-canopied conditions that prevail today are unusual in the recent
(<500 year) historical record. The wealth of information available
through the photographs paradoxically provides us with relatively
limited guidance. Nevertheless, as Wally Covington has suggested,
historical imagery may be “the last, best information we have.”13
The more we peer into the past, the more historical complexity we
become aware of. This is especially true when we apply new models to
understanding the land. For instance, if we see Jasper in a cultural light
where people have lived and shaped the qualities of the land, a new kind
of vitality is realized. The extensive hunting by fur traders changed the
population cycles of certain mammal species for decades or more, and
these and other ripples from the nineteenth century are still felt today.
Moving away from the notion of park-as-wilderness to one of park-as-
history establishes the importance of continuity of understanding, of rec-
ognizing that what happened in the past matters to us today. More than
this, not only do the deeds and actions of the past matter, but the ways
people’s past thoughts affected their actions also matter, as do the ways
our contemporary beliefs interpret these shifting views. It borders on an
infinite regress to realize that our perceptions gain us entry to under-
standing only the perceptions of others and the marks they left on the
land. It is folly to believe that we can gain an objective view of the past.
As Marc Hall suggests, “We also realize that identifying former land-
scapes may be just as difficult as identifying historical truth. . . . Restora-
tion may be less a process of recreating past landscapes than of
discovering our biases about ideal landscape.”14 History is so confound-
ing for restorationists because it is at once vital and elusive. Restora-
tionists call out for historical evidence, yet must face the imperfection of
these data and the contingent knowledge that goes along with our under-
standing. Finally, fine-grained historical data such as the Bridgland pho-
tographs and repeat images do not tell us what to do. In fact, they make
the choices considerably more complicated.
Nostalgia
Why are we drawn to history in the first place? What is it about histor-
ical conditions that compels so much attention? Why not abandon the
past in favor of contemporary designs? The most obvious answer would
be that the past is, or was, somehow better. But it is not better in any
simple way, at least for most people. Past landscapes, like old buildings,
derive aspects of their value from nostalgia, continuity, and depth.
Tenuous as the comparison might be, we advocate so hard to restore old
buildings—the Old State House in downtown Boston, for example15—
because such structures signal a different and in some respects better life.
They represent a simple, less hurried time when fidelity to a more organic
way of life was visible. But nostalgia ignores much of the difficulty
of times past, and countervailing historical accounts are necessary for
balance. In any case, the point is that the past shows an alternative, some-
times better, model. Old ecosystems, ones that avoided the ravages of
development and connected with myriad other ecosystems to form a
large and shifting mosaic, a space sufficiently great to support all manner
of endemic flora and fauna, are rare today. Implicit in the act of restora-
tion is the belief that such places are better than what now exists and
worth bringing back. For many, restoration reflects nostalgia in the truest
sense of the word: a bittersweet longing for something lost.
In the early days of the Bridgland Repeat Photography project I set up
a display for a public open house at the University of Alberta. A pair of
before-and-after photographs were mounted on thick matting board
and attached to the display panel with Velcro fasteners. Needing coffee,
I left the display in the hands of a mischievous mechanical engineering
colleague. When I returned a few minutes later, a small crowd of visi-
tors was huddled around the poster and my gesticulating colleague, who
was explaining the fine points of landscape change. He had, however,
reversed the photographs, such that the repeat photograph showing a
thick forest was being promoted as primeval wildland and the patchy
valley as the despoiled landscape. It took no effort to convince people
that the treed landscape was more in keeping with their ideal of a
national park and much more effort for me to undo the teachings of my
144 Chapter 4
colleague. This makes intuitive sense, given the authority the wilderness
model still has in conditioning our understanding of places like Jasper.
The idea of wilderness comes together with a cultural amnesia that over-
looks its significance in colonial conquest. It was, after all, the same high
value placed on wilderness that allowed federal government officials to
expropriate the land of Métis settlers in the Athabasca Valley in 1907.
It will take years to create a different, more nuanced conception of
history showing the extent to which people have entwined their lives with
such landscapes.
The poster-display experience taught me that cultural images, accurate
or otherwise, shape what people are readily able to embrace. It takes
painstaking education to work against this grain. Added to this problem
are the more material decisions faced by park restorationists: What his-
torical evidence serves as the best anchor? In chapter 1 I argued that
there is no easy answer to this question, that restoring to the time
just before the establishment of the park in 1907 is just as defensible
as restoring to the era before the fur trade in 1800, and beyond this
the variations in climate force a reconsideration of appropriate goals.
There is no a priori correct answer. Such decisions have an arbitrary
quality; decisions are always judgments. There is no escaping this sub-
jective dimension of ecological restoration: our knowledge of history and
what we prefer from history is always contingent on contemporary
beliefs.
The contingency of historical belief is a serious matter that deserves
close attention. However, it does not distract from the more basic matter
that ecosystems in the past tended to be less grievously affected by human
activities than they are today. General observations like this need exten-
sive qualification. In Jasper, for example, the time before 1800 was a
time without the widespread hunting and trapping of animals that came
with the fur trade, and before the farming activities of the latter half of
the nineteenth century. Early in the twentieth century came the connec-
tions to industrial life: railways, automobiles, and simultaneous com-
munication. The advent of industrial change varied from region to
region, but most of us of a certain age can look back in one way or
another to an era of greater integrity and simplicity. When I moved to
Edmonton a decade ago and bought a house in what was then near the
south side of the city, some neighbors who had moved into the new
development in the 1960s remembered staring at farm fields. Some
of the old-timers remember when the farmers drained wetlands to add
pasture and logged forests for cropland. I was surprised to learn recently
that my house that was near the southern edge of the city is now con-
sidered to be nearer the city’s core. Even as a newcomer to this place,
I regard the past as a simpler time with less fragmentation and a greater
flow of ecological processes. In ecological terms, the landscape was more
integral fifty or a hundred years ago. In emotional terms I long for this
elegance.
Nostalgia is sometimes written off as fatuous dreaming, as something
that blocks progress. Those of us who came of age in the 1960s or 1970s
learned to be suspicious of progress. We understood that faster and
bigger were not always good, and in fact simplicity and small-scale
elegance were almost always preferable. There is an upswing in this kind
of thinking, as ideas like downshifting emerge that encourage us to
step off the treadmill of maximal production. This kind of response
to nostalgia is akin to the concerns of ecological restoration. Down-
shifting moves us back to a kind of life that was simpler and most
likely happier, at least if social statistics are any indication.16 Ecological
restoration moves us back to ecosystems that were more integral,
which feeds into what E. O. Wilson and others call biophilia.17 We have
affection for natural places and things, for the noncontrived flow of
existence. Thus, nostalgia can have an emotional appeal, but also an
ecological basis. In so many cases, the past offers a wide array of alter-
native models of ecological integrity (some would argue better models).
This ought to be a sufficient answer to the question of why we would
prefer an earlier ecosystem to one manufactured on the basis of current
preferences.
Narrative Continuity
We understand the world generally, and ecosystems specifically, through

experience, and experience comes to us in part from the past. Something
is known to be the case because it has demonstrated these qualities pre-
viously. What we value about ecosystems, even those that have coevolved
146 Chapter 4
with intensive human presence, comes to us from our experience of their

continuity. Respecting this connection to the past is what prevents us
from creating nature solely according to our present interests. Historical
knowledge provides the inspiration. As Marc Hall writes,
Environmental restorationists see a better past alongside a worse present, but
with a hopeful future. By acknowledging that time makes or breaks landscape,
the restorationist uses history both to identify the need for restoration and to
judge its success. Not only is history crucial to understanding restoration, history
is crucial to restorationists.18
Implicit in history is the concept of time. There are many models

for describing time: as a flow, as an arrow shooting from one point
to another, as a spiral or cycle. Time is culturally variable, with rich,
complicated ways of making sense of the movement of events. What is
widespread, and even more so since the adoption of standard measures
of time, is the connection of past with future, the idea that what was
somehow flows into what is and then into what will be. When people
speak of ancestors, ancient wisdom, and tradition, the line is marked
from past to present. But this continuity is not inevitable. John O’Neill,
an environmental philosopher, explains that “present, past and future
are not linked by some single set of values which the present passes from
past to future, but by argument both within generations and between
them.”19 Thus, in part, our interpretation of the past is contingent on
our present values and dispositions. Not only are we accumulating new
knowledge all the time, but our understanding of this knowledge is
changing, too. Our account of a place, a site to be restored, is shifting
based on new experience of the past. How is this story best continued
into the future? What guidance does the past provide?
The future is only imagined in the present, which means that what
happens in the future is shaped by our reflective observations on the past
in concert with our actions in the present. Furthermore, the shape of the
future affects the kind of appraisal we will give of the present. This is
why O’Neill suggests “the way matters turn out matters.” At any present
moment, past and future recede in different directions. In the act of
restoration, which takes place intensively over a few weeks, months, or
years, the past becomes the basis for setting forth our best judgment
about the present, and in this respect will influence how in the future we
will adjudicate our actions (figure 4.4). The past hardens our resolve to
do the very best we can in respecting the movement of the past into the
future.
This brings us to the idea of continuity, which I regard as crucial for
understanding the significance of historicity for restoration. Continuity
implies that we have unbroken knowledge or experience of something
from the past. It takes an account of that experience for it to be signif-
icant, not only for us but for others. We give things significance by telling
stories about them, no matter what forms these take: oral tradition,
scientific papers, or creative testaments. Narrative continuity, then, is the
capacity to retell the story and to use such an account to enhance the
continuity. The challenge is to ensure that the story is sufficiently com-
pelling to warrant attention and action by future generations. Moreover,
such obligations by future generations happen in the presence of a com-
munity, and the integrity of this community over time determines to a
considerable extent the strength of the story. This is an abstract way
of writing that something becomes significant to people in the future
through compelling stories.
Stories nurture places and give weight to restoration. Either the
work is motivated by a crescendo of community support to bring back
Past
Future
Continuously moving present
Time
Figure 4.4
The past and future are shown as two related continuums, with knowledge of
both receding from a continuously moving present.
148 Chapter 4
a trampled place, or the act of restoration brings significance to a pre-

viously unappreciated place. A reach of Swan Creek, good former
salmonid habitat in Victoria (the capital of British Columbia and a city
of more than 300,000), had become not much more than a glorified
ditch. A crew of restorationists, led in fact by the two graduate students
mentioned earlier who pushed history aside, worked with a local devel-
oper who needed to find a solution to storm-water runoff and and gave
the creek a more meandering, perhaps older, channel. They created
potential fish-spawning grounds as well as a small, natural park for the
new houses. It is a compromise to be sure, and it may not even fit an
orthodox definition of restoration, but this project illustrates how some-
thing can develop the qualities of place through restoration. The dozens
of volunteers who worked the site, planting nursery-raised native stock,
pulling weeds, working with heavy equipment operators, and contend-
ing with the myriad constraints imposed by local development regula-
tions, have a new understanding of the place. It will never be the same
again. Stories are being told, and hopefully these stories will raise the
awareness of people about the place to a level where the new home-
owners who move in beside the renewed creek will nurture the place and
the stories, and in a few decades Swan Creek will be filled with meaning
as well as salmon.
Place
Places become so because of experience processed through stories. A

space is made meaningful to us through our experience of it or the
experience of others as relayed to us. A place is a mélange of spatial
attributes—space—combined with emotional, and some argue spiritual,
qualities. A place becomes significant through narrative continuity,
mainly through accounts of its significance and presence in the life of a
community. Some places are decisive in the lives of a community because
they preserve the deeds and memories of those who came before. Parks,
sacred sites, cemeteries, public buildings, churches, and birthplaces are
all good examples of places.
I think of place and landscape as terms that mix, following University
of Aberdeen anthropologist Tim Ingold’s terminology, naturalistic and
culturalistic representation. According to naturalistic explanation, a

place is a set of physically described unique points in space, and a land-
scape is simply an assembly of places. No definition of landscape and
place is purely natural because they exist only as constructs defined to a
certain extent by social convention. I may describe my house as a place
that includes the legal description of property, and this in turns rests on
a precise physical, survey description. What gives my house significance
is not simply the survey or the built qualities of it, rather the meaning
that I bring to it through my actions and the accumulation of experience
and memory, or what some would call the transformation of house to
home. This is culturalistic expression, but alone it is insufficient to give
a full account of the places that take on meaning through scientific obser-
vation, analysis, and understanding. Both forms of expression are needed
to reveal all the dimensions of a place, or what Ingold describes as a
“dwelling perspective.” He suggests that we shift away from a dichoto-
mous relationship between naturalistic and culturalistic description to
one that merges the two. The best expression is found in dwelling, the
interpenetration of observation and emotion, analysis and interpretation,
being in and being of. Place and landscape are revealed through stories
that emphasize continuity: “Telling a story is not like weaving a tapes-
try to cover up the world, it is rather a way of guiding the attention of
listeners or readers into it.”20 Perceiving a place depends on memory;
remembrance of the past is what gives rise to the significance of place,
and such recollection must at least be somewhat personal. This accounts
for why someone might acknowledge that my home is a place in the
sense of having significance for me, and yet not experience that particu-
lar gravity. Places are fluid in size and meaning depending on one’s cir-
cumstances. The same holds for landscape. I refer to the upper Athabasca
River Valley as a landscape, but I have never stopped to give precise phys-
ical bounds to this term. It is more than I can encompass in a single
gesture; it is certainly more than a place. The boundaries change some-
times depending on whether my attention is on the ecological relation-
ships, the run of the river itself, or the desire to understand the valley
from the point of view of someone who might have lived there. Barry
Lopez made a similar distinction when he referred to the difference
between inner and outer landscape, and this still haunts me almost two
150 Chapter 4
decades later.21 There is something in my experience growing up—my

inner landscape—that conditions my view of what I am seeing around
me now.
I went on a pilgrimage of sorts not long ago to the Carmanah Valley
on Vancouver Island. In the bottomlands of the valley are some of the
largest trees on the planet; they are part of a wildly productive coastal,
temperate rainforest in British Columbia. In the 1980s, Carmanah was
the site of international protests over proposed logging of old-growth
forest, and strident efforts by activists from Canada, the United States,
and elsewhere resulted in the creation of the Carmanah Wilderness Park,
which has been increased in size with the addition of the lower reaches
of the Walbran Valley. At the center of the resistance to industrial logging
in Carmanah was Randy Stoltmann, a man widely respected for his com-
mitment to protection of wildlands in British Columbia. When he died
in an avalanche at a young age in 1994 doing what he loved most, back-
country skiing, friends lobbied to commemorate his efforts by renaming
Cathedral Grove, a collection of a dozen or so mind-bogglingly large trees
at Carmanah (Sitka spruce, Picea sitchensis), the Randy Stoltmann
Memorial Grove. There is an interpretive sign there now, explaining what
the British Columbia Park Service has so far been unwilling to do in its
official publications: Carmanah became a protected place, a park, because
of the uncompromising efforts of people like Randy Stoltmann. By
making the grove a memorial, people have constructed a story about that
place; in fact, the story is making a place and it builds on a larger and
longer natural history that needs to be told. With each visit, each moment
of pondering at the foot of the giant Carmanah trees, the story grows
thicker and the place develops greater significance. It is woven together
now of historical strands about the lives of the big trees and the
organisms that grow in and around them and the people who have
worked for and against the place, including the now larger-than-life
exploits of Randy Stoltmann. His memory is obviously graced by the ded-
ication of the grove. I think the grove, too, is graced by this coexistence.
It has taken on the character of a place, which will accord it special pro-
tection, and if need be in the future, the basis for meaningful restoration.
The problem with this view of place is that apparently it assigns value
only to locations that are places, those that have human significance.
There are two ways of following up on this complaint. First, we can rec-
ognize that while some locations may not be places for us, they are likely
significant for others. In our rush to embrace a people-less view of wilder-
ness and places of natural grandeur, we forget that people have in the
past found these locations significant. Even remote regions of Jasper
National Park, areas where few visit, are part of a storied landscape. Old
trails maintained by First Nations and regular movements of animals
bear special witness. Accounts of early mountain climbers, trappers,
adventurers, and wardens imbue an area such as the Tonquin Valley, one
of the most remote and remarkable landscapes in the park, with place-
ness.22 Places form because of human engagement and care.
We surmounted five mountains ringing the Tonquin Valley (Clitheroe,
Thunderbolt, Surprise, Tonquin Hill, and Maccarib) for the Bridgland
Repeat Photography project. We based our twelve-day trip at the warden
patrol cabin, where we read the journals recounting previous activities
in the valleys. We met both outfitters who ran horse trips to the valley
and paused with them for stories of their operations and how they came
into being. We compared historical photographs with what we saw,
observing subtle changes in the vegetation (unlike the dramatic changes
at lower elevations) and terrific recession of snowpack and glaciers.
As we circumnavigated the base of Surprise Peak after an especially
harrowing day of climbing and photography during which pieces of
the mountain seemed to give way under us (a common local saying: “If
you like the handholds in the Canadian Rockies, you can take them with
you!”), busting through thick undergrowth trying to find an animal trail
to follow—anything to follow—there was a piece of weathered, orange
flagging tape. This unmarked location was marked, and seeing that sign
changed my representation of the experience. This was not primeval,
untracked wildness, although given the difficulty of our circumstances it
ought to have been. Who left the flagging tape? Were they lost? Was it
an earlier scientific expedition? This ground was previously walked.
I wondered what stories those people of the flagging tape might tell.
Perhaps my story and theirs would begin to give weight to that location,
that possible place, and perhaps a name would come forth, not the kind
of name that necessarily goes on a map for all time, but one that gives
the landscape vernacular, local meaning.23
152 Chapter 4
Once we understand that place matters, in other words that we have

found within our own lives the qualities that make a place, it is easier
to regard these qualities in other places. This is the second way around
the concern that we end up valuing only places to which we or others
attach personal significance. Thus, if we are attentive we see ecological
processes in daily experience and can transfer this to other experiences.
It makes us more sympathetic to what others are experiencing where they
live.24 Most locations are places, but there are some remote parts of the
planet that are so far removed from traditional habitation, so forbidding
or so significant, that they have not been known. This is not to suggest
that these geographies are insignificant, only that we need to understand
their worth by extension from our understanding of place. Scale matters,
too. I can claim the upper Athabasca Valley as a landscape of places
because I have walked so much of it and seen it from so many perspec-
tives. There are still small pockets, probably an uncountable number, that
I have not walked or glimpsed. It does not take a very large landscape
to occupy an entire lifetime. This is, in the end, where restoration con-
nects to place: restoration is capable of making meaning and bringing
new stories to a place.
The Dorney Garden (chapter 2) at the University of Waterloo became
a place, too. On a largely unnoticed and previously unloved plot of
ground along one side of an unremarkable building grew a garden that
focused the energy of students, professors, and members of the commu-
nity. By restoring what we could of historical qualities and ecological
integrity, the garden was transformed into a place, a piece of ground that
combined the sweat of human care with the energy of natural process.
The strength of the place is built and reinforced by narrative continuity,
the capacity to tell stories about it—heroic stories of its creation and the
life of Bob Dorney, and simple stories of good conversation on one of
the benches surrounded by birdsong in dappled July morning light. My
writing about such experiences adds another strand to the entwined
narrative. I have no idea whether universities will exist in 500 years,
and whether this tiny memorial garden will thrive, but if it does, perhaps
it will become an emblem of what can be done through generosity and
respect, a sacred grove of the kind that thrive in the pockets of old
campuses such as Cambridge, Harvard, and Louvain.
English philosophers John O’Neill and Alan Holland write that “the
value of specific locations is often a consequence of the way that the life
of a community is embodied within it.”25 No doubt this is true. Places
that are compelling are those that engage people directly through par-
ticipation or through the power of contemporary media, although if the
support is through proxy alone such as a magazine travel story, mail
solicitation, Web site, or television documentary, it is unlikely to be
durable. Places are created in modest ways, too. For years I walked
through a cedar dune lowland forest on the lee shore of Lake Huron
near my parents’ home. It was a few hundred acres of formerly marginal
farmland now awaiting housing development. Each visit home I would
take a long walk through the animal trails and old farm paths, follow
the cross-country ski trails marked out by a local volunteer group, or
push through the tangle of cedars to what lay beyond (mostly more
cedar). On one spring afternoon I paused in a wet part of the trail and
looked down to see a species of sundew, a carnivorous and relatively
uncommon plant. For the next ten years I would stop in the same place
and admire the sundew thriving incongruously in the middle of an old
trail. I can remember with perfect clarity the first moment of insight, and
recalling that brings back a flood of memories. For me, and perhaps
for a few others who ramble through the abandoned farms and cedar
lowland, it is a place. Perhaps it just makes it to the status of place
because of my telling the story. It is pretty much ephemeral, yet so many
places that do hold significance do so because they are woven of the
fabric of our lives. Places and landscapes are made from the combina-
tion of observation and emotion, and the capacity of a place to imprint
depends on the care of our senses and the openness of our feeling. It
saddened me immensely to find that market values had finally crept up
high enough to encourage the owner of the land to begin development.
The sundew glade is safe for a few years, but the landscape as a whole
is being lost. Sadder still is the fact that there is not likely enough support
to warrant protection or respectful development. My transience is partly
responsible, and the stories are not yet ripe.
The narrative continuity of a place is formed of both ecological and
cultural histories; the two cannot be easily or appropriately separated,
although often they are. I have referred mostly to culturalistic accounts
154 Chapter 4
of place, which include personal testimonies of our own experience as

well as histories of human activities, but naturalistic explanations matter
also in making meaning about a place. When restorationists arrive in
the Tonquin Valley, as someday they will to address the trampling of
delicate alpine wetlands from too much horse traffic, and the decom-
missioning of the old outfitters’ camps, they must understand how these
places came into being. Perhaps it is even unfair to treat naturalistic and
culturalistic explanations as separate lines, and perhaps one day when
our attitudes about the separation of culture and nature, object and
subject, have progressed to a more unitary viewpoint there will be a
single, strong strand. The history of a place must be told with ecologi-
cal verities in full view alongside the human stories. Telling only human
stories will result in diminishment in the same way that many complain
that scientific observation and analysis by itself represents an impover-
ished outlook on life.
Places have value because of the unique combination of processes that
go into their formation. As O’Neill and Holland observe, “We value an
ancient woodland in virtue of the history of human and natural processes
that together went into making it: it embodies the work of human
generations and the chance colonization of species and has value because
of the processes that made it what it is. No reproduction could have the
same value, because its history is wrong.”26 Continuity is crucial. For
value to form and endure there must be a continuous understanding of
the place, or the possibility of recovery of such continuity, as is the case
when the history of a place is researched and communicated. Even if we
were capable of building an ancient woodland from scratch in short
order, which is not possible of course, it would have less value because
it lacks continuity. We value old growth because of its continuity.
Time Depth
Continuity points to time depth, which is the final condition that makes
historicity crucial for restoration. Depth is the reach of history, the
amount of time, and also the engagements that form between people and
place over that interval. The older an ecosystem is, judging by the length
of time without major human simplification of processes and patterns,
typically the rarer it is. Depth depends on rarity: they are really two sides
of the same coin. However, it is possible for something to be rare without
being historical. Rarity is the condition of scarcity, where something
develops additional value because it is unusual. We place great signifi-
cance on species that are rare either through ecological constraints or as
a result of human activities, the latter being more frequently the case.
The value increases because we know that something is irreplaceable.
This holds for ecosystems, too. Around the world, protected status is
given to rare landscapes by creating parks and preserves. In the last
decade or more, the pace of development of oil and gas, forestry, and
agriculture in the Province of Alberta, Canada, was so great that the
government enacted a program to protect what it called “special places.”
These were notable fragments of the landscape that were growing rare
as a result of encroaching development, notable because of the combi-
nation of ecological and cultural features. Advocates of wild places and
open space fought the government, at times bitterly, because of differ-
ences of opinion about the significance of rarity. At bottom, both sides
agreed that rare places have considerable value.27
The condition of time depth holds most obviously for places such as
old-growth forests. Old growth is valuable because of its long continu-
ity. Thus, depth is a way of scaling continuity. Depth helps us under-
stand when something is especially unusual. The comparison seems to
hold across cultural artifacts and ecosystems. For instance, we accord
high value to buildings that have withstood tests of time, even if these
buildings are relatively modest. This is true in a city such as Edmonton,
which traces most of its urban history back to the late nineteenth century,
thereby making almost everything new by comparative standards.
What passes as valuable historically are buildings that might not attract
similar respect in cities with a greater depth of history. Continuity is
something we value, but it takes great energy, sometimes serendipity, to
ensure this continuity over long spans of time. Rarity depends often
on depth of history, but it can stand alone, too. Something can be
rare in the sense of being utterly unique, meaning that its value flows
independent of history. All ecosystems are different, of course, but some
more than others. Rarity in the sense of uniqueness functions along with
depth.
156 Chapter 4
Historicity in a place depends, therefore, on the combination of

nostalgia, continuity, and depth. This is why Disney’s Wilderness Lodge,
as described in chapter 1, is less valuable than a wild place. It may be
unique but it is easily reproducible, its continuity depends on manufac-
turing narratives, and it is too new to have much of its own history. So
many artifacts of consumer culture—fast food restaurants and franchise
outlets—have little enduring value. The authenticity of consumptive
enterprises such as the Wilderness Lodge is not genuine, and so we might
also expect that the motivations behind their establishment are not
genuine either. They are detached from the history of the place they
occupy and become dissociated, fragmented entities, little more than
spectacles.28 Restoration projects risk the same fate if they fall prey to
an industrialized model of reproduction, complete with volume price
reductions, new economic relationships (franchised restoration proj-
ects?), and style and trend-setting features. Might there be large restora-
tion firms in the future that would produce signature restoration projects
bearing the distinctive traces of a corporate style and logo? This may
seem farfetched, but it is prudent not to underestimate the power of the
new image-driven marketplace. Place is not easily faked.29 The real will
always be apparent if we remain attentive to genuine narratives of place.
In the examples given in this chapter and elsewhere in the book,
restoration practice is valued because of its capacity to show us what
historicity means to us (nostalgia), the stories that bind us to place (con-
tinuity), and the temporal depth of our affiliations. The idea that restora-
tion creates value is an argument advanced by some environmental
philosophers as a way of showing the distinctive contribution that
restoration makes in the larger arena of environmental management.30
There are cases where restoration creates value almost from scratch, in
places where the memories are too faded to give much significance to the
site or where the narratives that exist are dysfunctional. What of urban-
ized areas where a restoration project returns an ecosystem to a place
where it had been absent for decades, perhaps centuries? There are two
answers. First, intensive development and despoliation are merely a
chapter in the larger narrative, and the way we value these intermediate
steps depends on local conditions and prevailing social values. There are
instances where the former industrial activities are incorporated in the
restoration. Briony Penn, a restorationist in British Columbia, describes

how the challenge of representing the past in designing the Woodhorn
Colliery Museum in the North of England helped her understand the
interpenetration of cultural and ecological landscapes. Restoration
invokes memory, and the narratives that give shape to memories are often
what bind people most tenaciously to a project. This is a lesson that
should be offered to every beginning restorationist.31 Hence, restoration
strengthens continuity with former, mostly forgotten conditions. Second,
restoration builds value through the elaboration of narrative. Restora-
tionists create stories through their actions, which accumulate and
prepare the way for a richer interpretation of the place. The place grows
in value precisely because of the restoration.
I have called attention to the importance of historicity for restoration
practices, and have argued that historicity is conveyed to us through
three connected concepts: nostalgia, continuity, and depth. If we allow
the meaning of restoration to determine the shape of its practice, restora-
tion must depend on historical fidelity. After all, to restore means to bring
back something lost through the ravages of time. But caution is neces-
sary. It is too easy to let words determine worlds—that is, to let the def-
inition of something shape practice. It is better, I think, to let the words
respond to practices. It was arresting to hear the restoration students
described at the beginning of this chapter talk about restoration as
though history is unimportant. My first reaction was to rebel by stipu-
lating that restoration is preeminently about history. But this is simply
to fall into the trap of assuming something about restoration rather than
working through it. Restoration practice is shifting and will shift, in
response to evolving professional demands, the ethos of ecological man-
agement, and changing paradigms in ecology. In reviewing why his-
toricity might be important, I have grown resolute in the belief that it is
indispensable for theory and practice, no matter how social winds sculpt
what we currently think ecological restoration is.
I give history more credit than many would, especially knowing how
much complication is added to a restoration project when the past it
taken seriously. We need to worry that introducing historical evidence
will merely frustrate restoration into oblivion. After all, if history shows
us a procession of disturbance conditions, then why restore? Why not
158 Chapter 4
ignore history and restore to whatever set of clearly expressed values one
chooses? Perhaps scientists and humanists use history differently, too.
The former see history as a linear sequence of describable events, while
the latter interpret meaning from stories told. Of course, both are impor-
tant, but the endless complexity introduced by the humanist (or earlier
what I termed, following Ingold, a culturalistic viewpoint) is anathema
to any approach that identifies a problem and then searches for a defen-
sible methodology by which to solve it. At its best, restoration will con-
tinue to serve as a synthesis of humanist and scientific impulses, although
this is a formidable challenge in an era of increasing specialization and
technocratic management. If we can maintain the link between science
and humanity through the study of history, restoration will allow us to
act distinctively on our longings for integrity of the past, ensuring the
stewardship of historical as well as contemporary dimensions of the
world around us.
Reference Conditions
So, historicity does matter, and the foregoing, I suspect, merely confirms
what most restorationists already practice. The tough challenge is in
knowing the approximate extent to which historicity should guide
and inform restoration. What happens in cases where history is largely
absent? Over the last decade or so, restorationists have refined the
concept of reference conditions to help out with historical matters. Ref-
erence conditions are intuitive: evidence from the past, as detailed as pos-
sible, that provides a singular portrait of the past as a goal for the future.
Peter White and Joan Walker suggest that reference “is used to define
restoration goals, determine the restoration potential of sites, and eval-
uate the success of restoration efforts.”32 Reference information comes
in many forms: baseline studies, control plots, interpolation and extrap-
olation of historical data, paleoecological studies, exclosure studies,33
and so on. Reference information operates by providing a counterpoint
to existing site conditions, and through this comparison goals for restora-
tion are developed. Reference information sometimes comes in the form
of reference sites—that is, sites that manifest predisturbance conditions
and yield important clues as to how a restoration project on a disturbed
site might proceed. Restorationists make routine use of reference infor-

mation and sites to compare change and help set direction. Of all the
techniques in use in restoration today, reference is certainly at the core
of theory and practice.
An important approach to reference information has come from long-
term ecological research and monitoring facilities. Several networks have
been established in North America to ensure comprehensive monitoring
despite the lackluster performance of monitoring in general.34 In the
United States the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program
maintains a collaboration among two dozen ecological research sites,
including Hubbard Brook in New Hampshire, which has been
collecting broad-spectrum ecological information since 1963, and the
Harvard Forest, one of the longest-running biological research centers
(since 1907). In Canada, the Ecological Monitoring and Assessment
Network (EMAN) was established to link together various existing
research sites, typically in areas remote from direct human disturbance,
and to establish uniform protocols for long-term monitoring of vital
indicators.
Some of the earliest work at Hubbard Brook, notably the base cation
depletion studies over thirty years ago, attests to the value of long-term
ecological research.35 Such studies created, and later depended on, con-
tinuous information over a substantial interval. The depth of knowledge
they made available would not have been possible with the shorter-term
projects typical of the three- to five-year scientific grant cycles. Another
superb illustration is the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) in northwest-
ern Ontario. In 1968, forty-eight small boreal lakes and their catchments
were removed from timber-harvesting inventories and given over to the
Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans as a research site. Under
the leadership of David Schindler, data on several reference lakes were
collected, and this information served as the basis for scientific projects,
many of them experiments to examine key management policies for
freshwater lakes.36 Schindler did not know when he began his work at
the ELA in 1968 that the physical and chemical monitoring of lakes
would provide clues in understanding the reactions of aquatic ecosys-
tems to a warmer climate. Exhaustive measurements provided reference
conditions. Increasingly warm and dry summers in the 1970s and 1980s
160 Chapter 4
created conditions for large forest fires that burned through some of the
project area. Once-permanent streams became dry, lake levels declined.
Long-term studies of streams and lakes revealed a number of changes
caused by climate that had not previously been recognized.37
In building the conditions for long-term, interdisciplinary ecological
study, replete with long-term data that span more than thirty years in
the case of the ELA and longer for other projects such as the Harvard
Forest and Hubbard Brook projects in New England, we have what I
believe to be the best opportunity to understand ecosystems. Not that
we will ever fully comprehend ecological complexities, but these long-
term studies provide depth and breadth of understanding. Depth has to
do with the dynamic range of ecosystems, what transpires under differ-
ing climate regimes and human influences; breadth of measurement
offers information that may prove useful in unexpected circumstances.
Such longitudinal studies also open the possibility for experimental
manipulation to mimic degradation and restoration. An enormous
amount can be learned through experimental manipulation. Long-term
studies also offer sufficient time depth for nostalgia to form about a land-
scape. Two experiments at ELA are good examples.
By 1970 a raging debate had broken out over what was causing the
life-choking algal blooms in Lakes Erie and Ontario, and the detergent
industries, whose products contained phosphates, were very much
against theories that implicated phosphate-rich detergents. In 1973, early
in the work at ELA, Schindler and colleagues separated the two basins
of hourglass-shaped Lake 226 with a waterproof nylon curtain. Nitro-
gen and carbon were added to both basins at ratios common in sewage.
To one basin, phosphorus was added as well. The basin receiving phos-
phorus produced an enormous bloom of blue-green algae. The basin
receiving only nitrogen and carbon remained in a reference condition.
Results clearly showed that phosphorus was causing the eutrophication
problem. The result was made especially graphic in the aerial photo-
graphs that Schindler snapped from a small fixed-wing plane a few weeks
after the experiment was begun.38
In the early 1970s, acid rain was linked to the disappearance of fish
from lakes and streams in Scandinavia and near smelters at Sudbury,
Ontario. Deducing that the acid-sensitive geology and acidifying emis-
sions from the Northeastern United States were probably causing a wide-
spread problem in Canada, and that no attention was being paid to
organisms other than fish, in 1976 Schindler began to deliberately
decrease the pH of Lake 223, a small lake, to investigate the early effects
of lake acidification. The results were surprising: aquatic invertebrates
and minnows that were key foods for lake trout began to disappear at
pH 6—that is, at a level ten times less acidic than the pH 5 level where
damage to lakes was believed to begin. Results showed that early destruc-
tion of the food chain damaged lake trout populations long before acid
conditions became lethal to the fish. The investigations also revealed that
contrary to the then-common belief that acidified lakes could not recover,
microbial action like sulfate reduction and denitrification in lakes could
allow them to recover once acid additions ceased. The Lake 223 exper-
iment and subsequent studies showed that lakes are not fully resilient,
and strong acidification that results in wholesale changes in species com-
position cannot be turned around easily.39
Long-term, experimental whole-ecosystem studies have much to offer
restoration ecology. Not only are reference conditions much better
understood under such conditions, but the opportunity exists for care-
fully controlled studies of what works best in restoration, including trials
of large-scale restoration and reclamation following industrial activity.
This is an acute issue in northern Alberta in the wake of massive logging
operations for pulp production that began in earnest in the early 1990s,
following extensive government promotion of forestry opportunities in
the 1980s. Forest allocations the size of entire states in the United States
were given over to corporations for harvest and processing of aspen with
new techniques. Extensive cutting began without any real understanding
of the ecological character of the aspen forests, the coniferous forests
(which were also being cut for pulp and sawlogs), wetlands, lakes, rivers,
and streams. This story is being repeated over and over again in many
jurisdictions worldwide.
Government and industrial funding promoted research, and while
many of the investigations were useful scientifically and practically, they
lacked the depth and breadth of long-term, experimental approaches.
Moreover, research costs were high for such piecemeal efforts, at least
an order of magnitude larger than projects such as the ELA. An
162 Chapter 4
alternative strategy in northern Alberta would have involved a focused,

experimental approach to collecting long-term information. And it is
important to collect data that does not necessarily have immediate use.
There is no telling what kind of knowledge will be valuable in the future:
this was the lesson from the ELA. Moreover, longitudinal projects with
experimental components may offer the best prospect in the future for
dealing with the maze of cumulative impact assessment of new develop-
ments. Such programs, however, are always at risk.40 It is not trendy
science, typically lacking the luster of projects that follow large-money,
strategic paths. Funding for science has become increasingly tactical,
strategic, and targeted. The problem with ecosystems is that they are not
trendy, and the science necessary to understand them well needs to be
comprehensive and long running. Moreover, long-term projects set a high
standard for reference information, and are typically well beyond the
reach of most restoration projects. One of the most important and
hopeful contributions that restoration ecology can make is the estab-
lishment and promotion of long-term, experimental projects and the
development of precise notions of reference.
To those who work on projects with a high level of continuity, the idea
of reference ecosystems is so basic it barely admits scrutiny. However,
such projects are relatively rare, and for most restoration scientists and
practitioners, reference information is much harder to acquire. Many
have proposed that the careful ecological interventions made possible by
restoration present a major scientific opportunity for studying how and
why ecosystems and landscape vary in time and space.41 Reference infor-
mation is a key to this scientific endeavor because it provides the evi-
dence on which all measurement and analysis depend. The idea is simple
in theory, complex in practice.
Reference information is emerging as the term of choice. Other rival
terms are used in casual conversation and scientific reports—baseline,
benchmark, yardstick—often without much thought to their underlying
meaning. A baseline is a snapshot of an ecosystem that has specific uses
in making antecedent or subsequent comparison. It is not, however, syn-
onymous with a reference condition. A baseline can be a specific instance
of a reference condition, or part of the information reserves used to deter-
mine an appropriate reference. The Bridgland historical photographs
constitute a baseline: what the vegetation and other landscape features

looked like eighty years ago. These photographs are merely a compo-
nent in the determination of reference conditions. Baseline implies an
arbitrary reference point that runs against the need to account for eco-
logical and evolutionary change. Similarly, the word benchmark is often
used in discussions of ecological restoration. I regard it as interchange-
able in meaning with baseline; it should be avoided except on occasions
when the intention is to describe a discrete state. Reference information
need not be static and in fact more often than not involves process
descriptions that admit moving frames of reference.
Development and deployment of reference information depends on
understanding variation in ecosystems, and that no fixed point in time
can provide all the required information. White and Walker suggest that
“selecting and using reference information requires that we address a
fundamental issue in ecology: understanding the nature, cause, and func-
tion of variation in ecosystems and landscape.”42 Variation occurs across
time and space, and thus understanding relevant scale issues is impor-
tant. Observational scale is measured in terms of grain and extent, grain
being the relevant unit of analysis and extent being the range of
distribution of observations. In temporal terms, grain and extent become
resolution and duration. Selection of appropriate grain size and extent
determines the effectiveness and practicality of a project. Usually a
comfortable medium is required between sampling that is so precise
that larger issues are ignored, or the grain is too large and fine issues are
overlooked. Understanding ecosystems at several levels helps avoid
obvious problems. For instance, one might presume the best way
to obtain reference information is by measuring and comparing the
oldest available nearby site. Such sites, however, may skew the results
with the oldest instead of the most typical (or rarest or diverse, and so
on) ecosystem.
Several terms are used to describe ecological variability. A common
term is natural range of variability, which refers to the variance over a
determinate time, whether this is 100, 1,000, or 10,000 years. Histori-
cal range of variability accounts for human presence and the ecological
effect of cultural practices, and for this reason is preferable to terms that
ignore the long-term admixture of cultural and ecological processes.43
164 Chapter 4
This terminology is consistent with growing interest in historical ecology,

which is, as anthropologist Carole Crumley proposes, an interdiscipline
that “traces the ongoing dialectical relations between human acts and
acts of nature, made manifest in the landscape.”44 Dave Egan and Evelyn
Howell, ecologists and coeditors of The Historical Ecology Handbook,
stipulate the need for close connection between ecological restoration
and historical ecology.
There is no one way of selecting an appropriate range of variability,
and circumstances will vary from site to site and region to region. A
recurring theme: restoration decisions involve judgment. Temporal vari-
ation ranges widely from daily cycles to successional and evolutionary
time intervals. The challenge for the restorationist lies in selecting an
appropriate boundary around such variation, realizing that too narrow
a choice, such as interannual changes, might overlook grander processes,
and too large a time interval will displace fine-grained phenomena. Also,
there is a decay function with historical information: the quality of infor-
mation is typically an inverse function of time. The farther back we travel
in time the less reliable the information. If the forested ecosystems of the
Athabasca Valley have formed in the Holocene, roughly the last 11,000
years following the most recent glacial maximum, this would provide the
greatest practical span of consideration (although the quality of infor-
mation would not be distributed uniformly across this interval). Within
this range are all of the relevant historical conditions to guide restora-
tive efforts in the present. Presumably if the present conditions lie outside
this wide range, restoration would bring the ecosystem back within
bounds. However, there is in practical terms too much possibility when
the range is taken so widely. And climate variation, of course, confounds
the problem, an issue I address later in this chapter.
Spatial variation comprises pattern and extent: what configuration
is found within patches and between similar patches, and the size of
the patches themselves. Context is crucial: “Spatial context includes the
nature of the matrix surrounding sites, the nature of edges and bound-
aries, and the size, distribution, and isolation of the sites themselves.”45
The impressive work on fire ecology and restoration at the Archbold
Research Station in Florida is made more remarkable when one realizes
that ecological processes are being returned not to a wide-open mosaic
but one girded on all sides by development.46 Restoration decisions are

affected by whether the site is connected to other sites that might serve
as a source area or movement complex, whether it is a rare isolate,
whether age-class of vegetation dominants has become uniform or
sharply different from historical conditions, whether predator species are
missing, whether human activities and related processes have changed
significantly, and so on. White and Walker point out that “the size, iso-
lation, and surroundings of sites can have both deterministic and sto-
chastic [involving random behavior] influences on species presence.”47 It
may, and likely does, come down to a lack of understanding of ecosys-
tems, but spatial configuration, while important, does not determine
species presence and movement. There are stochastic effects as well that
shape the character of sites that are virtually impossible to predict. “Plan
for the unexpected” is a good motto for the restorationist.48
Variation, therefore, is the result of macro and micro phenomena such
as climate, natural and cultural disturbance, species biogeography, and
spatial configuration. Understanding the extent of variation is important
in selecting reference sites because the value of a reference site dimin-
ishes with its distance from the site to be restored. In any case, no ref-
erence site can ever be a perfect match; each site has its own history.
Rather than thinking in terms of comparative matches a better model is
one of interpolation, or filling in plausible goals based on conditions in
several sites. Hence, the task of the restorationist becomes one of figur-
ing out how a specific site fits within a larger matrix of sites, and then
interpolating (and occasionally extrapolating) desirable conditions. The
process of interpolation depends on understanding spatial and temporal
variation in concert, and selecting an appropriate range of variability. In
practical terms this means some restorations will be easier than others.
For instance, sites with high rates of variability, disturbance regimes that
are out of scale with present conditions, or ecosystems that manifest dis-
equilibrium conditions and require extensive, specialized management,
will be challenging to restore.
The notion of interpolation inspires White and Walker to promote
restoration as “approximating ecological variation.”49 Thus, the primary
goal of restoration is to reflect the ecological variability over time.
The sources for this come from a combination of historical and
166 Chapter 4
Same place Different place
Same time Contemporary status; Determination of extent of disturbance

assessment of disturbance and potential for restoration
Different time Site-specific reference Analogous reference information
Figure 4.5
Four sources of reference information (adapted from White and Walker,
“Approximating Nature’s Variation”).
contemporary ecosystems, and figure 4.5 shows the relationships among

four sources of reference information combined from historical and con-
temporary data and different distances from the site to be restored. Each
of the four main sources has advantages and disadvantages, and ideally
all four will generate information for the restorationist. Contemporary
investigation of the site to be restored (i.e., same site, same time) pro-
vides the most detailed view of site conditions, effects of disturbance,
changes in disturbance, and so on. Such an understanding is vital in
designing a restoration program. The problem is that disturbance may
have obscured crucial phenomena, and our models may not be adequate
to extrapolate changes in the past and future. Historical site data (same
place, different time) explain patterns of disturbance and successional
processes, information that can be decisive in a successful restoration and
yet are easily overlooked. Too much reliance on data from the same site
may be limiting. Study of a single site may not illustrate the full range
of possibilities, which is why it is important to examine other sites in
their present form and through historical data. Such reference sites are
valuable as long-term comparisons and help in testing the effectiveness
of a restoration project. An obvious problem with reference sites is,

again, the greater the distance in time and space from the site under con-
sideration, the less reliable the information is likely to be. There is no
avoiding this problem, which only highlights the need for interpolation
and casting a wide net in designing a project. In theoretical terms all four
types of information should figure in every restoration project, but the
constraints of time, resources, and ecosystems make this difficult in prac-
tical terms. Simply put and like so many other matters in life, diverse
and systematic information helps with good decisions.
In 1997 several of us talked about restoring the area around Henry
House, a former whistle-stop along the railway in the central part of the
upper Athabasca Valley close to the Palisades Research Centre. The
forest/grassland mosaic was bisected by a railway and highway, airport,
and old roads, and had been subjected to high rates of herbivory by elk.
Figure 4.6 shows significant differences in the patterning and structure
of the grasslands over an eighty-year interval. Several prescribed burns
had taken place to address the perceived problem of forest encroachment
on the grassland. There are a variety of restoration challenges. What
to do? Site-specific restoration applications—weeding, prescribed fire,
girdling trees, ripping roads and trails—depend on knowledge of tem-
poral and spatial variability. The mosaic is changing over time, and
answers emanating from the larger spatial context will influence site-
specific decisions. Thus, decisions being made as regards fire manage-
ment at a landscape level matter to decisions about restoration made at
the site level. Sliding up and down scales is crucial in establishing a solid
understanding of reference conditions.
Approximation is a good way of describing how reference informa-
tion works. No matter how much information is available, it will never
be practically sufficient to yield a complete view of historical conditions
and site characteristics. But this is only one problem among several in
developing and using reference information. Defeat is imminent before
the job begins if one assumes historical exactitude is possible. Historical
fidelity is always tied to the goals established for restoration, and ecosys-
tems do not admit of the same kind of easy historical definition as do,
say, old paintings. Goals will be historical in character, but they may
not necessarily specify return to specific historical conditions. Other
influences—public policy, funding, invasive species, and so on—will play
168 Chapter 4
Figure 4.6
One of the few ground-level comparison sets based on the 1915 Bridgland survey.
The upper photograph shows a more complex grassland community and woody
debris. The 1998 photograph (below) shows evidence of extensive herbivory.
The upper photo from 1915 is by M. P. Bridgland and the repeat image (lower)
is from exactly the same location in 1998 (J. Rhemtulla and E. Higgs).
a role in shaping the goals. It is this uncertainty that opens restorationists

to the criticism that their work will not ever be more than enlightened
tinkering. Like the work of statisticians, that of restorationists will
always rely on approximation. A central theoretical question, then, is
whether restorationists ought to tend toward historical fidelity, or his-
toricity, as a goal, or whether approximation itself is the desired end.
The answer to this will vary from project to project, and will depend
significantly on the values of the restorationist.
At the end of their article on reference information, White and Walker
provide a series of research questions. The questions fit into five cate-
gories: understanding ecological variation at multiple scales; developing
improved models for integrating diverse sources of information; devel-
oping better ways of predicting outcomes for restoration treatments (and
this incorporates the thorny question, “How precise does a restoration
prescription have to be?”); how are site-specific, feasible goals best
determined, especially under conditions of impoverished information?;
and finally, how best to increase the prospect of self-sustaining, resilient
ecosystems.50 This last area of research priority points to a potential area
of disagreement on the matter of human participation. White and Walker
write that restorationists concentrate on the past, but “this focus
obscures a goal that is more important than simply recreating past con-
ditions: the restoration of ecosystems that will be self-sustaining and
resilient.” Resilience is clearly an important feature of thriving ecosys-
tems, although some integral ecosystems have relatively low levels of
resilience, which explains their fragility and rarity.
Where should people fit properly in ecological restoration, assuming
there is good evidence to incorporate cultural practices in a project? If
self-sustainability is the primary goal, this suggests a lack of participa-
tion for people, or at least a secondary role given to human engagement
with ecosystems. This strikes me as worrisome for several reasons. First,
it tends to underrate the significance of coevolved cultural and ecologi-
cal practices in the past, including those by First Nations peoples. Lest
we slip easily into comfortable cultural assumptions that indigenous
peoples walked lightly on the planet only to be followed by rapacious
developers, the matter is almost always more complicated. Indigenous
peoples practiced intensive land management in certain places over
170 Chapter 4
sufficient time that it is difficult to view the historical, and sometimes

even the contemporary, landscape as other than coevolved. Next, we
need to move beyond stereotyping to examine exactly how people have
been involved with ecological processes, and how they themselves are
ecological agents. There are instances, for example, of trappers and agri-
culturalists in the upper Athabasca Valley who left signatures on the
landscape, but not irrevocable, industrial ones. Rather than drawing
conclusions about the qualities of human activity, it is better to conduct
detailed research into the shifting patterns of activity. Activity over time
can be mapped for restoration sites, and these data combined with his-
torical ecological patterns. Together, the puzzle becomes less onerous.
Also, decisions about what is appropriate in the future can then be based
on contemporary judgments tempered by knowledge of ecological and
cultural conditions from the past. Restoration ecologists have tended to
give short shrift to human activity, or when they have incorporated an
understanding of it usually it is in terms of a negative disturbance.51 The
question of self-sustainability is more open when cultural matters are
taken seriously, a subject that is taken up in chapter 6. Are we after
self-sustaining ecosystems independent of people? Or are we after thriv-
ing ecosystems that may depend to varying degrees on respectful human
practices? Rather than erasing human practice, an alternative model is
to think of people as dwelling in a place with modesty and respect, which
is the kind of interpenetration of culture and ecology I elaborate on in
chapter 6. There will always be places, I hope, where people will not go
often or at all, places that are remarkably inaccessible, forbidding, or
sacred. Our contemporary penchant for extreme outdoor activities com-
pounds a practically global sensibility of conquest. One of the largest
challenges for those who care about remarkable places is helping people
understand when enough is enough, and when it is better to back away
from something than trek forward. It is difficult to imagine a practice of
abnegation more hostile to the contemporary spirit.
Taking History Seriously
Several years ago during a late spring surge a small dyke burst and a fan
of water dispersed through an aspen forest in Jasper National Park. The
flow from this unnamed creek that originates in an unnamed lake and
joins Swift Creek just before the two melt into the Athabasca River, is
seldom more than a trickle. I had taken almost no notice of it during
earlier rambles north of the Palisade Research Center (chapter 1). The
previous summer I had walked through the area with an aging Alaskan
husky, Willow, stopping more often than normal to inhale the sur-
roundings, musing how it was that such a pure stand of middle-aged
aspen had sprouted here. Dozens of times I had driven over the culvert
conveying the unnamed creek under the Palisade entry road and never
before studied its passage. On that summer day, Willow and I followed
its course for several hundred meters, far enough to find out that it was
in fact a channeled creek, a ditch really, that had been rerouted, and far
enough for Willow to stumble across a young black bear snacking on
buffaloberry (Shepherdia canadensis). It was almost a year until I walked
back up the creek, unfortunately without Willow, who had died raging
against old age. This time I found my way blocked first by puddles of
what appeared to be standing meltwater, and later by larger and more
determined pools. Walking became tricky, stepping from downed tree to
hummock, splashing water over the top of my boots with increasing
frequency, until I found the breach in the dyke. A steady stream of water
escaped through the opening, hit the relatively flat forest floor, and
radiated out in all directions in a single slow-moving, tree-filled pond.
This aquatic landscape seemed so natural, like the way a foot punished
by a new boot finds comfort in an old one.
The pieces began to fall into place. Edith Gourley, a member of the
local historical society, had mentioned beaver ponds near the Palisades
Center before the new entrance road was built. The new road was
finished in 1979, and while evidence is difficult to come by, it seems likely
this is also when the unnamed creek was channeled. It is difficult to tell
exactly when or how the beavers were displaced, whether it was earlier
work on the railway or road that was the cause or something more
recent. Judging by the size of the aspen trees that have grown up around
the former wetlands, it must have been at least a few decades. I had not
been aware of what a potential force beavers must have been, largely
because I was caught up in the belief that fire was by far the dominant
ecological process affecting the landscape. Beaver populations grow
172 Chapter 4
quickly and in the absence of trapping and hunting, will transform a

landscape with their dams and ponds. It had not occurred to me how
odd it was to find so few of them (I found one large beaver complex
fifteen miles or so down the valley near the mouth of the Snake Indian
River). Obviously what makes railway, pipeline, and road engineers and
maintenance staff happy—predictable conduits for water—is exactly
what beavers eschew.
The day the dyke breached, a new, or rather old, image presented itself:
either a wetland complex or an aspen forest regularly inundated by flood-
waters. This is what used to be here, and it has become a relatively rare
ecosystem in the main Athabasca Valley. The water flowing accidentally
through the forest, following old channels, finding new ones, inspired
the possibility of restoration. What excited me was that such a project
involved water, not fire. The restoration of wildfire to the landscape is a
preeminent restoration goal for Jasper, but it is easy to become tied only
to this ecological process. Sediment and nutrient transport, scouring
and deposition, and all the biogeochemical properties of a wetland
ecosystem are sidelined in the quest for prescribed fire. Also put aside
is the question of herbivory. Elk populations have cycled wildly in the
last century and are now at high levels. The aspen forest is struggling to
regenerate in the absence of fire and under the sustained nibbling of elk.
The reintroduction of a wetland or wet forest system might alter access
and growth patterns for aspen such that the aspen community would
become more diverse.
What would we need to know to undertake such a restoration? Piecing
together the history of the site is challenging. By putting together his-
torical documents—superintendent reports, permits, old photographs—
it would be possible to reconstruct and map the history of disturbance
back at least to the formation of the park in 1907. Before the park, we
know the locations of the Métis farmsteads and the major outposts of
the fur trade. Careful examination of contemporary site conditions
would reveal detailed site characteristics and a different picture of dis-
turbance. Mapping the old channels might be a high priority, together
with the task of discovering likely boundaries of earlier wetlands. These
site studies are invaluable, but they do not provide a complete picture of
what the ecosystem would once have been like. For this, it would be
necessary to examine other wetland complexes, perhaps the one near the
Snake Indian River, to record likely flora, structural features, and the
seasonal hydrology. The analog would not be perfect, but some pieces
would become clear.
This covers three of the four types of analysis called for by White and
Walker. The only one remaining is the historical analysis of a site other
than the one being restored. Given the relative absence of historical
materials and lack of direct analogs, I suspect that such work would be
less vital in this particular restoration project. There are certainly other
wetlands close by, but few that come close to matching the qualities of
what once was on the site.
Examining reference information is a process of articulating the
historical and the contemporary and finding through this the range of
possibilities for restoration. The restoration itself is an approximation
based on these possibilities, and reflects the constraints and opportu-
nities present in a contemporary social, cultural, economic, political,
moral, and aesthetic context. Thus, the potential restoration of a wetland
complex described above, a project that may never be accomplished
because it falls beneath the line of critical concern for park managers,
would remain faithful to historical information, but would most likely
have to make drastic alterations in the outflow to avoid swamping exist-
ing infrastructure. There is a very real possibility that the presence of a
pipeline in the area might prevent restoration entirely, although pipelines
do not last forever. A strong argument for a comprehensive restoration
plan at multiple levels—site, local, regional, landscape—is that pos-
sibilities open up unexpectedly. When the pipeline is decommissioned,
or when the right-of-way is negotiated in the future, the possibility of
restoration might sway the argument in favor of decommissioning or
relocation. By then, of course, the reference information will have
changed slightly with historical bits filling in the cracks of our knowl-
edge, the climate will be a bit hotter and drier, the political mood
different, and the vegetation will continue its inexorable successional
march.
The uncertainty of the future is one of the main challenges for restora-
tionists that no amount of reference data will solve. There are problems
and limitations with reference information—some that seem intractable
174 Chapter 4
and others that will dissolve as better resolution of theory and practice
are realized. Climate change is one serious matter that seems beyond
the immediate purview of reference data to resolve; in fact, the more
data the trickier the problem. Local, regional, and global climate
patterns shift constantly in response to a mind-numbing suite of
interactions, including solar production, upper atmospheric chemistry,
emissions of human-made chemicals (most notably elevated levels of
carbon-containing molecules), and the subtle relations between
albedo (surface reflectance of the earth) and absorption of solar energy
in the form of heat. Historical records show a clear upward trend in the
level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and with this a strongly
correlated rise in surface temperature of the planet. Changes in tem-
perature work in concert with changes in other variables such as
precipitation and wind velocities. It seems that extreme weather events
are becoming more common, and that we should become used to the
unexpected. What is truly remarkable about the changes underway is
their pace. Despite the fact that there have been notably hotter and
colder periods on the planet, this epoch is distinctive in the last
10,000 years and the pace of change exceeds anything on record. Climate
change may not follow linear function, meaning that crucial thresholds
are reached that flip the system into new, quite dramatically different
states, such as the rapid melting of circumpolar ice as albedo levels
reach a critical level. Thus, we may not have the luxury of gradual
cultural and ecological adaptation. More than this, the climatic condi-
tions may exceed the long-term historical range of variability that
might guide our restoration plans. What if it turns out, for instance,
that the Athabasca Valley becomes hotter and drier than it is already,
that spring comes much earlier and snow cover is ephemeral? Fire
frequency would increase, small streams would cease flowing by mid-
summer, wetlands would dry up and begin to succeed into shrub and
forests, grasslands would likely spread, and any streams or rivers fed by
glacial meltwaters would rise above current levels until the glaciers them-
selves have receded back beyond the point of being a source of meltwa-
ter. These are only guesses and only partly educated ones, since they are
based on observational data and not tempered by simulation modeling
or comprehensive historical data. The accuracy, however, does not
change the basic plot: change is coming that may exceed our expected
variability. What to do then?
Three further interconnected problems are aggravating our best
intentions. The first has already been mentioned: the incompleteness
of reference information. Understanding basic information about a site
under consideration for restoration requires exhaustive research, and this
should be matched by reference data from analogous sites. In more cases
than not in my experience such data are difficult to find. Moreover, there
is a clear decay function with historical data, which means that accurate
and complete records from a century ago are less likely to be found than
those from a decade ago. And even recent information, as is certainly
the case for the aspen forest described above, may be absent or hard to
locate. Even if complete information was available and we could gather
all we needed at our fingertips, we would still confront uncertainty, the
second problem.
The future is unknowable, except through various kinds of proba-
bilistic knowledge. We assign probabilities to future events, some of
which are effectively certain and others that are ineffable or stochastic.
There is a decay function much like the one for knowledge of the past.
The further away the future condition, the less easy it is to find reliable
knowledge about it. The range-of-variability approach to reference infor-
mation comes in so handy because it provides boundaries that limit our
choice of future conditions. There are perils, too, not the least being the
potential for justifying almost any kind of action if the chosen range
is too wide. I suspect that we will see considerable refinement in the
range-of-variability approach in the next few years, and perhaps a new
paradigm for taking historical information seriously. After all, range of
variability invokes history, but does so in such a way that history can be
bent to whatever shape suits specific interests. Human-induced global
change shifts the boundaries and not in any fully predictable way. Thus,
not only are we dealing with the problem of how to decide what
the future should be in relation to the past, but the range of possible
futures is potentially broader if climatic conditions are outside the
long-term (Holocene) range of variability. In choosing to restore the
aspen forest to a wetland or wet forest, the boundaries delimiting our
choices are opened up. Our choices are made more difficult because there
176 Chapter 4
are more possibilities than we can easily accommodate, and the

likelihood of simply throwing up our hands and admitting any future
condition increases. In other words, uncertainty leads to the risk of
losing history as a crucial part of restoration. Restoration could become
ahistorical, which to my mind would mean it is not restoration in any
robust way.
The third problem, industrial rates of change, is the parent of climate
change and a host of contemporary environmental problems, including
rapid conversion of ecosystems to intense, often short-term, production,
human population migrations, toxic spills and fallout, and so on. The
litany is familiar and long. Industrial and consumer practices have
created changes in biogeochemical planetary systems, and the rate of
these changes is increasing. In some areas, such as the release of ozone-
thinning chemicals, progress has been made that will arrest the problem
in the long term. However, production of so-called greenhouse gases and
proliferation of persistent toxic compounds continue with no realistic
limits in sight. Landscapes that have maintained perennial cultural
practices and integral ecosystems over long periods of time are being
converted for the short-term profit of intensive cultivation and grazing.
Industrialized countries in the North, all of which are hoping to become
postindustrial through information commerce, have taken steps, some
that are significant, to change debilitating practices. The legacies of colo-
nialism in the South, and economic inequality between North and South,
are resulting in continuing population increases and expanded industrial
production in the South. The agonizing bind is this: for the majority
world—that is, the large numbers of people, mostly in the South, who
live at a fraction of the standard and quality of life of North
Americans—developing the industrial way of life means placing further
stress on planetary systems. The human footprint is already exceeding
what the planet can sustain.52
The pace of human social activity seems to be on the rise, too. In the
North the use of electronic technology has brought about profound and
at times inexplicable changes in our lives. The interlocking technologies
of computation, communications, and entertainment—laptop com-
puters, personal digital assistants, wireless communication devices like
cellular phones and pagers, and digital sound and image technologies—
are forcing significant rearrangements in the way we conduct our lives.

The pace of this change is escalating to the point where people are talking
about new kinds of electronic burnout, information overload, and the
need to downshift their lives.53 On top of these human-enhanced eco-
logical changes and changes in social activity is a constraining pattern,
one formed of relentless consumption and reduction of things that
matter into commodities. The nature of this pattern is the main topic of
chapter 5; it is a crucial topic for understanding the future of ecological
restoration.
Jeanine Rhemtulla and I walked, scrambled, climbed, and flew to ninety-

two historical survey stations in Jasper National Park to see how the
landscape had evolved in the flow of a century. The changes were as
breathtaking as some of the peaks. Constantly changing ecosystems influ-
enced by layer upon layer of human activity had created a landscape of
difference. Our work froze two moments in time, and from this we can
begin the laborious process of interpolating and extrapolating meaning:
What did the landscape resemble in the nineteenth century and before?
What are the clues and signals from 1915? What do the changes from
1915 to the present chart for the future? After gathering this mother lode
of information about the past, I am even more aware of how little we
know about the history of change in Jasper National Park and how little
we can know. At the same time history matters more to me. The land-
scape has taken on depth, and I better understand the significance of
continuity and nostalgia. The photographs are fragments of an unfold-
ing story, one that needs to be told and retold so that our affections
can grow to meet the beauty of the place. History, more properly his-
toricity, is a powerful force that inspires attentiveness, compels discipline,
and projects, sometimes reluctantly, the panorama of possibilities ahead
of us.
5
Denaturing Restoration
Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,
And what perceive; . . .
—William Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey”
The advanced technological way of life is usually seen as rich in styles and oppor-
tunities, pregnant with radical innovations, and open to a promising future. The
problems that beset technological societies are thought to be extrinsic to tech-
nology; they stem, supposedly, from political indecision, social injustice, or envi-
ronmental constraints. I consider this a serious misreading of our situation. I
propose to show that there is a characteristic and constraining pattern to the
entire fabric of our lives. . . . It is concrete in its manifestations, closest to our
existence, and pervasive in its extent. The rise and the rule of this pattern I con-
sider the most consequential event of the modern period.
—Albert Borgmann, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life
So, I think my problem and “our” problem is how to have simultaneously an

account of radical historical contingency for all knowledge claims and knowing
subjects, a critical practice for recognizing our own “semiotic technologies” for
making meanings, and a no-nonsense commitment to faithful accounts of a
“real” world, one that can be partially shared and friendly to earth-wide proj-
ects of finite freedom, adequate material abundance, modest meaning in suffer-
ing, and limited happiness. (original emphases)
—Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism
and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”
Lines across the Path
I am taking what for some will be an unexpected detour in this chapter.

One of the lessons from chapter 4 is that landscape change is about
180 Chapter 5
the intertwining of ecological and cultural processes—not just material

processes, but also our changing mindsets. Hence, if we want to under-
stand the trajectory of restoration, we must grasp the patterns that define
contemporary life. Technology is surely at the heart of these patterns.
This is not an especially intuitive argument. I adhere to a decidedly
unusual definition of technology, that what matters is not so much the
artifacts and machines themselves but the patterns they create in our
lives. The U.S. philosopher Albert Borgmann is my main intellectual
influence in this regard. His theory is that technology constitutes a dis-
tinctive pattern wherein we displace things and activities that matter to
us in favor of commodities. What does this have to do with ecological
restoration?
I am worried that restoration will be converted into a commodity,
as will the ecosystems on which we base our work. There is a slow, in-
exorable drift in society, whether through themed hotels that purport
to mirror wilderness or technologically dependent leisure activities, to
convert everything of value into something that can be bought or sold.
The problem is that there are things that mean more to us than mere
currency: the camaraderie of a Saturday-morning stream cleanup, the
knowledge that a flourishing meadow involved some of your own labor,
or the experience of seeing a new species of bird begin to inhabit a
restored wetland. These are satisfactions that go beyond technological
and economic experience. But they are being pushed aside in favor of
projects and habits of thinking that emphasize efficiency and cash. We
are facing some difficult questions: How do we steer restoration practice
away from becoming mere business? How will we adjust to the use of
transgenic organisms, knowing that the door to this practice was opened
long ago with the use of hybrid cover species? Can we set limits on new
technologies in restoration, or is the pattern underlying technology
always going to slip around the roadblocks we construct? On the other
hand, how can we ensure that restoration practice emerges as an ethical
professional activity that gives meaningful work to skilled practitioners?
Is there a sense in which we can become too proficient at restoration,
thereby discouraging amateur ambitions? Should we aspire to work on
a large scale, or is restoration at best a modest and local practice?
Denaturing Restoration 181
In pointing out this technological drift I am hoping to make two main

points. First, we are near the beginning of a major shift in the way
restoration is understood. The values that have defined hands-on engage-
ment in restoration are slowly being pushed to the side by more com-
modity-driven, technological approaches. Patterns are often subtle,
and we are sometimes slow to realize their implications. This abstract
point is at the heart of this chapter. Second, to understand the implica-
tions of such denaturing, it is important to have in mind the alternatives.
I propose the concept of “focal restoration” as an antidote to techno-
logical restoration, though we will not pursue this idea in detail until
chapter 6.
From my office at the Palisades Research Center in Jasper National Park

I look out on the Colin Range to the east, and less than a mile away if
the raven were to fly it, is a huge, flat limestone slab that grabs my atten-
tion, sometimes for minutes at a time. Walking the distance toward the
base of the range I come to the Athabasca River, which drains into
the McKenzie River and from there flows to the Arctic Ocean. First,
however, I must cross the railway tracks and railway communication
lines, then an abandoned access road to the Center and a railway service
road, a transmountain gas pipeline, a T1 fiber-optic cable, the Yellow-
head highway (one of only three major mountain crossings in southern
Canada), several trails, and a roadside picnic area. These intrusions are
at the heart of the ecologically rich montane ecoregion of Jasper, the
largest of the Rocky Mountain national parks and one of Canada’s most
celebrated wilderness areas. It was the juxtaposition of so-called wilder-
ness and human congestion, a clash between perception and reality, that
led me several years ago to begin research on the ecological history of
human influence in Jasper. I want to know, at present and in decades to
follow, how we can respect this place.
Our understanding of wild nature—wilderness—is changing, just as
wild nature itself is changing. It is no longer constituted of people-less
places, of mountain vistas and remote, inaccessible valleys. These
caricatures are drawn from Euro-American cultural values that have pro-
duced a view of nature-as-wilderness, an Edenic place in the receding
182 Chapter 5
distance. Accordingly, with our growing awareness that such values are
indeed rooted in part in cultural projections, the subject of ecological
management keeps changing form.1 What are we after in a place like
Jasper: Should we allow natural and cultural processes to proceed
without regulation? Should we use management practices to mimic or
amplify natural processes—for example, by means of prescribed fire?
Should we set long-term goals based on negotiations about desirable
landscapes, then design our practices to achieve these ends (see chapter
1)? At least one point is clear: cultural beliefs, winding through a
labyrinth of institutions and shielded increasingly from direct experience,
have an impact on ecological management. What are these beliefs, and
what patterns do they represent? Are these beliefs increasingly condi-
tioned by life in a technological setting? If so, what does it mean for the
power and promise of ecological restoration?
At first I understood the obstacles that blocked my path to the
Athabasca River as literally technological. The power lines and roads
were material artifacts. They were noisy, dangerous intrusions: the
highway that smashed animals and people; the trains that rumbled
through the valley day and night; the pressurized gas pipeline; the elec-
trical lines that blow over in windstorms and cause fires. In the summer
of 1998 all the telephone lines from the Research Center went dead,
including our fragile e-mail link. News travels quickly in a small town
despite the downed phone lines. Apparently, workers near the East Gate
had committed the inevitable by slicing a backhoe blade through the
main communication lines, including a regional fiber-optic link. Bank
machines were down and countless other annoyances from lack of elec-
tronic communication and commerce persisted for eighteen hours. All
this took place on a beautiful summer day, which gave the emergency an
unreal quality. After all, Canadians are used to a harsh climate, and emer-
gencies typically take place under severe weather conditions. Sitting
around the dinner table, our research group reviewed two well-worn
lessons. First, technological systems are complex and fragile; no matter
what precautions we put in place, accidents are bound to happen.2 We
tend to be impressed by the sophistication of technological systems and
forget that they are fallible, too. Second, much of contemporary tech-
nology is hidden from view in the cables and conduits running beneath
our feet. I try to be aware of where my electricity comes from, how

e-mail works, and what the basic principles are behind something like
fiber-optic communication. Even so, my knowledge of the technology
operating a few feet away is inadequate.
We are swimming in a sea of technology. On bad days it seems like
the sea is rising and threatening to inundate islands of tradition: the con-
vivial experience of a relaxed evening meal; the bedtime story; the slow
time at work when it is possible to grab a cup of coffee with a colleague
on the spur of the moment; the ability to fall asleep without having to
regulate the incessant buzz inside one’s head; the luxury of taking a week
or two to reply to a letter or e-mail message, and not because the volume
of mail is overwhelming. If these seem like moments out of time, an
archipelago of sanity, then you and I are living in the same place. As the
water of technology rises—much like the rise in water levels induced
by climate change, another technological artifact—the islands become
smaller and farther apart. Some islands disappear quietly and others
loudly; life moves along by adapting to the changing circumstances. Iron-
ically, communication improves, at least in terms of the number of tele-
phone calls and e-mail messages. More information changes hands, and
the future is a promised land of instant, encyclopedic wealth. The pace
of life increases, there is more stuff, and our vision of life on the islands
is shaped increasingly by the industries of distraction (advertising,
marketing, and entertainment). Tradition is replaced by the consumption
of tradition, the way my childhood home of Thornhill, north of
Toronto, has been transformed. As a child I went shopping with my
parents at the Saturday morning farmer’s market, shopped at the local
butcher, had my first haircut at a family-owned barbershop, and wor-
shipped at the century-old Anglican church. Almost two decades later I
returned to the old village, swallowed whole by Toronto in the 1970s,
expecting to find my childhood haunts gone. Instead, I found the old
village intact, but as a kind of heritage village celebrating the past. Plan-
ning and zoning regulations prevented the destruction of the old village
center, but all around was the endless grid of new subdivisions. The sea
of technology washes tradition away, or sometimes converts tradition
into a musuem. Perhaps we will become cyborgs who learn to breathe
the waters unaware that something else has become our inspiration, just
184 Chapter 5
as we are now largely unaware of the unnatural quality of the air we

breathe.
The technological constitution of contemporary life may at first seem
a strange subject for a book on ecological restoration. My recollections
can be read as nostalgic, but isn’t restoration impelled by bittersweet
longing for something lost, the power of continuity, and the depth of
memory? For years I have been fascinated by technology and have grown
to understand it as a decisive pattern in our lives, not just as a collection
of material things and practices. My awareness began on the shores
of Lake Huron, in Bruce County, in the mid-1980s, trying to explain in
my doctoral dissertation why community autonomy had paradoxically
declined during an era of greater planning, and how we might come
to regenerate the landscape ecologically and socially. This was no small
feat of imagination, given that from a nearby point of land I could see
the gleaming stacks of the Bruce Nuclear Power Development, which
included the largest plant in the world for manufacturing heavy water,
a tritium-enriched moderating fluid. Materialist explanations, my first
anchor, were unsatisfying. For example, traditional “old left” criticisms
borne of the tyranny of capital accumulation were less relevant in the
late twentieth century than they were at the turn of the twentieth century,
a time of workers’ struggles, trade unionism, and rapid industrialization.
Newer analyses—Bookchin’s pathology of domination, Gramsci’s idea of
hegemony, Foucault’s circulatory models of authority, identity politics,
and feminist theory—offered hopeful insights. However, none seemed to
have the reach to grasp the “malaise of modernity,” to borrow Charles
Taylor’s phrase.3 Technology was an observable and at times lamentable
artifact of social process, despite the prescient warnings of cultural critics
such as Jacques Ellul, Martin Heidegger, Lewis Mumford, and Herbert
Marcuse. For the most part, the schools of thought that I reviewed
ignored technology as a preeminent social and political force, focusing
instead on its external effects on our lives. Technology was culturally and
politically inert.
My work in Bruce County led me to philosophers of technology, a small
and professionally isolated cadre of scholars worldwide who have toiled
to show the wider significance of technology, namely, that it is not so
much the machinery that should capture our attention, as in traditional
analyses of technology, or the people exclusively, as we find in the social

sciences, but the commingling of people and technology. It is the rela-
tionship that matters as much as the parties in the relationship. This
observation has astonishing consequences for the way we view technol-
ogy. Langdon Winner, one of the few philosophers of technology to reach
a broader audience, has described contemporary society as “sleepwalk-
ing.”4 Philosophers alive to the significance of technology—Paul Durbin,
Andrew Feenberg, Frederick Ferré, Caroline Whitbeck, Larry Hickman,
Don Ihde, Rachelle Hollander, Carl Mitcham, Andrew Light, and David
Strong, to mention a few—have labored quietly to bring key issues to the
surface. But their work has been too quiet, or perhaps the qualities of
technology too pervasive and concealed, to allow any significant public
conversation, although occasional eruptions such as the Unabomber phe-
nomenon or the portentous musings of Bill Joy generate a brief public
scramble.5
I came across Albert Borgmann’s book Technology and the Character
of Contemporary Life soon after it was published in 1984. My Ph.D.
cosupervisor, Larry Haworth, passed along a review copy of the book
he had just received, thinking it might be helpful to me. It turned out to
be exactly the fuel my thinking required despite the fact that Borgmann
appeared politically conservative (he wants to be known as socially pro-
gressive if culturally conservative).6 Borgmann proposed the device par-
adigm, a theory that suggested technology is the constraining pattern to
our lives. Pervasive patterns are difficult to see, but recognizing technol-
ogy as a pattern would allow careful identification of the underlying
processes. Simply put, all things exist within a bodily and social context,
and it is this communion between self, thing, and environment (and
perhaps also spirit) that generates profound meaning in our lives.
Borgmann calls things such as celebratory meals, reading a bedtime story
to a child, and jogging focal practices. Focus is removed from these prac-
tices when we allow ourselves to be distracted by consumption. The
device paradigm describes the general pattern of commodification,
whereby the context is stripped from a thing, leaving machinery and a
commodity—or mere means and mere ends. Think of the difference
between listening to recorded music and participating in a social evening
of music making. The theory has many extensions, of course, and I
186 Chapter 5
applied it to the decline of community autonomy in Bruce County. I

viewed the institution of planning as a metadevice that reduced the
complex political life of a community to a relentless process and legal
machinations. The organic life of a place was subsumed by a technology
of organization and control. Part of the process of restoration and regen-
eration, I argued in a 1990 article, involved reforming the underlying
pattern of technology.7
Later I wondered whether this pattern of technology could be applied
more directly to ecological restoration. In the early 1990s, thanks in large
measure to the influence of William Jordan and the late Alex Wilson, I
realized that restoration practice could be corroded by the device para-
digm. At the beginning of this book I invoked a popular poem by Robert
Frost to describe a bifurcation in restoration practice. In effect, two paths
describe the future trajectory of ecological restoration, and my point is
to show how the gentler one—the “one less traveled by”—can be found
and conserved. For many, restoration is about the perfection of tech-
nique. This view has led to a tendency toward professionalization of
practice, a trend toward marquee restoration projects that satisfy cor-
porate objectives, and the prospect that overzealous, technically pro-
ficient restoration could distract us from the work of protecting
ecosystems. Others emphasize the importance of building communities
in relation to natural processes and patterns. While these two approaches
are not mutually exclusive, they have begun to form a decisive
fork. Having traveled a dusty, bumpy road, we are faced with a choice:
to the right is a wide road paved with efficiency and along the way are
manicured rest stops and regular services; to the left is a meandering
path lined with unforeseeable focal experiences and shaped by ongoing
processes. Fewer walk this one; it is less efficient and predictable,
but finally more engaging. The means are similar, but the ends quite
different. The former, what I term technological restoration, is connected
to the patterns of technological culture; the latter, focal restoration,
is shaped by engaged relationships between people and ecosystems.
Borgmann inspires this image of the two paths. A theme running
throughout his writing is the need to make a choice between living a
life filled with devices and one that achieves orientation through the
power of focal things. In these terms, the issue is the following:

Will restoration become a practice that turns out ecosystems as pre-
dictable commodities, in perfect order, according to the principles
of technical expertise? Alternatively, will it remain a heterogeneous
ambition, one imbued with community intelligence and scientific
modesty?
My interests in technology and ecological restoration started to fuse
when I stared out the window toward the Athabasca River. The lines of
hidden infrastructure became more than objects and began to symbolize
the technological identity of place. It was around this time that Jennifer
Cypher and I began our work on Disney’s Wilderness Lodge (see chapter
1). Jasper was becoming a theme park of sorts, the ultimate adventure
escape, as long as a good meal and hot tub were available at the end of
a day of sightseeing or sporting. Stories began to circulate about visitors
who hiked the Skyline Trail for three days in the fog and then wanted
their money back. Some of this is not new, but like all patterns they grow
in intensity until they become prominent. I used to tease park staff about
Disney taking over park management, and Cypher and I went as far in
1998 as to present such a scenario at the Society for Ecological Restora-
tion conference. Our plans for “Rocky Mountain Wilderness,” as we
called it, included turning over front-country visitor programs to Disney,
who through imagineering—that is, bringing the distinctive Disney touch
to vernacular experience—would make the experience more satisfying
and fun. Silly as it seems, as we wrote about it I became convinced that
on one level there is every reason to believe that Disney would do a better
job of communicating park messages to a wider public. Our little thought
experiment was jolted by the sale to Disney of rights to the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police imagery, the famous Canadian “Mountie,”
which to many, myself included, constituted the wholesale sell-off of
cultural identity (the rights have been taken back recently). More chill-
ing perhaps is the reception we have subsequently had to the idea of
Rocky Mountain Wilderness. There were guffaws and expressions of
disgust when the concept was first presented in 1998. More recently,
people have tended to nod with irony, as if they expect this to be the fate
of Jasper—if not death by Disney, then takeover by something else.
188 Chapter 5
Commodification
The recognition of restoration as a vital practice is also an admission

that something has gone wrong, that the economic system, public respon-
sibility, cultural values, political controls, or a combination of these and
other factors have laid waste to places we care about. Practicing restora-
tion presupposes being critically aware of the world around us at some
level. Restorationists inhabit all points on the political spectrum. I have
met reformist restorationists who want to change a piece of legislation
so as to ensure that restorative activities are mandated or improved.
Some restorationists work alongside or for large companies, developing
plans for incremental improvements in corporate practice. There are
radical activist restorationists who believe nothing short of a thorough
housecleaning of values and political practices will be sufficient. Gath-
ering this diverse group together in the same room would generate dif-
ferent analyses, to be sure, but everywhere there would be disquiet over
the deep problems that beset contemporary societies. It is difficult, after
all, to ignore global environmental deterioration (despite some positive
steps taken), political instability, systemic poverty, and so on. The solu-
tions proposed would vary considerably, and this is where political ori-
entation becomes prominent. A second issue that most members of the
group would agree on—though it might not at first seem relevant to
restoration—is the increasing pervasiveness of technology.
A good starting point in understanding the pattern of technology is by
observing what David Strong calls the central irony of technology: “It
fails most where it succeeds most, at procuring happiness, at procuring
the good things of life.”8 In the so-called developed world, this pattern
is most pronounced. We pursue material goods, pulled along by the
allure of advertising and the power of new devices. The devices are pow-
erful. Much can be achieved more quickly, for instance, with computing
technology. Broadband communications have opened up encyclopedic
virtual worlds. One technology links to another, the way desktop com-
puters connect with personal digital assistants, or the skills developed
using one piece of sophisticated electronic equipment open the way for
others. The power of devices emanates from the two central promises
of technology: liberation and enrichment. Household appliances are an
excellent example of the promise of liberation from drudgery. A dish-

washer frees us from having to clean dishes manually. What is less
well understood, because we tend to see the advantages before the
implications, is that this supposed freedom from drudgery comes at
the price of money, which entails wage labor, increased use of dishes
and utensils, and the loss of the social connections of the more tradi-
tional practice. The second promise, enrichment, is the obverse of liber-
ation; technology frees us for personal growth and other forms of
enrichment. Hence, by eliminating burdensome chores, the dishwasher
saves time for more desirable activities. The irony, as Strong points out,
is that time is typically freed up for more work and consumption, not
more leisure.
The promise of technology is fueled by the availability of devices.
Availability, according to Borgmann, means the delivery of devices that
are safer, easier to use, instantaneous, and ubiquitous. A typical late-
model automobile reflects these characteristics. It is certainly safer than
most cars of twenty years ago. It is also easier to operate, employing the
latest ergonomic design and user-friendly features. Maintenance and
repair are made as simple and infrequent as possible. This reliability
means that no special skills or routines are needed for normal operation.
Gone are the days of manual chokes, double-clutching, and long warm-
ups. And, of course, cars have become widespread, available virtually
anywhere on demand. This pattern of availability accentuates the
promise of technology by delivering devices that are increasingly ubiq-
uitous and sophisticated.
The pace of such change has increased to such an extent that the
impulse for more technology becomes part of who we are, a natural
feature of living in society. Technology becomes the air we breathe, so
much so that we scarcely notice the extent to which our lives are con-
ditioned by it. We are not only acquiring more devices per se, but also
more procedures and ways of thinking that are technological. We speak
of “downloading” information and “borrowing” time. I have heard
people compare their brains to computer memories, wishing for “more
RAM” (random access memory)! As Ursula Franklin writes, “Technol-
ogy is not the sum of the artifacts, of the wheels and gears, of the rails
and electronic transmitters. Technology is a system. It entails far more
190 Chapter 5
than its individual material components. Technology involves organiza-

tion, procedures, symbols, new words, equations, and, most of all, a
mindset.”9 When we begin to think technologically, handling personal
and social difficulties as if they were components of a broken mecha-
nism, we approach the point of technological saturation. The more per-
vasive something is, paradoxically, the more it is concealed. We tend not
to notice what is all around us. This is amplified further when we realize
that our increasingly technological habits of thinking prevent a clear view
of technology as a pattern.10
Technology fails to deliver on the promise of liberation and happiness
primarily because it distracts us from things that matter. Borgmann
argues that things of enduring significance have “commanding presence,
continuity with the world and centering power.” Things that matter have
focusing qualities—that is, they bring together manifold social and eco-
logical relations. Thus, Borgmann proposes the idea of focal things. Focal
things need focal practices, regular activities that encourage the devel-
opment of the skills necessary for competence and excellence. For years
I have enjoyed the music of spontaneous performance, true folk music.
Friends gather together, and after a pleasant meal the instruments come
out. Everyone has a role in the performance, although the load falls on
those well practiced at jamming. Their skill shines through and pulls the
rest of us along. On a particularly fine Friday evening on Cadboro Bay
in Victoria, British Columbia, following a barbequed wild-salmon meal,
a variety of instruments emerged. Two of the ten people were extremely
talented and led the group through a series of songs and reminiscences.
I am awkward about singing, and resorted to keeping rhythm as best I
could. It was at best minimal participation, not enough to make me feel
engaged with the music. The distinction between participation and
engagement, attending versus belonging, was an epiphany that came to
me that evening. Shortly after that I resolved to pick up an instrument
again, an antidote to tortured piano lessons as a child. Playing means
skill, and skill involves practice. Learning the guitar for me is a lifelong
adventure, one in which I improve incrementally. Engagement grows as
I am able to join with others in performance and in the creativity that
goes with musical expression. I looked carefully for a guitar, one that
played well and sounded rich, but not one beyond my aspirations. Would
that I could afford a handcrafted instrument or could make one myself,

but I rest contented that mine was built using Canadian woods, includ-
ing a beautiful front panel of cedar. The guitar and I are joined together
in performance, developing a bond of sorts that grows and provides
continuity.11 It has taken on blemishes that can be traced to particular
moments and has developed a few quirks. The guitar, then, is a focal
thing for me. It gathers together a wider world of musical existence and
brings me into bodily and social engagement with the world around me.
Focal practice is necessary in the sense of setting aside sufficient time in
my schedule to develop musically, and this in turn helps me reflect on
the rest of my life.
Focal practices teach us the lessons of fidelity and commitment, and
most people have such practices in their lives, whether it is woodwork-
ing, athletic performance, sewing, gardening, or cooking, to choose a
few examples. When life becomes overwhelming for us in a technologi-
cal society, it is mostly because these focal practices are relegated
to the sidelines—I look wistfully at my guitar wondering where the
time for performance went. And if I make the mistake of assuming that
focal things can be nurtured only occasionally, I am corrected in
finding my clumsy fingers unable to make sense of the strings. There
are bad moments and good ones, but through it all, the sense of
worldly engagement makes focal things and practices significant.
They help open focal reality, the world that is disclosed when focal prac-
tices provide orientation instead of the distractions of a technological
world.
What is elegant about the idea of focality is its intuitive appeal. Once
described, anyone can pick out a thing or practice that brings meaning.
Moreover, it depends crucially on things, which are artifacts and
processes that make our experience possible. Thus, the guitar is signifi-
cant to me in the same way that a hand-forged hatchet is to someone
who works on rustic furniture, a food processor to someone who cooks,
a fly rod to someone who fishes, and a pen to someone who writes by
hand.12 Borgmann argues that our fascination with devices displaces and
sometimes destroys our capacity for focal practice. Devices, as distin-
guished from things, are roughly the mass-produced artifacts of our
age. They lack continuity and typically fail to inspire commitment. They
192 Chapter 5
are, ultimately, disposable. This foreshadows his theory of the device

paradigm.
There is a widespread pattern by which focal things are separated from
their social and environmental context and converted to machinery and
commodities. Suppose I make a recording of a musical jam session one
evening, a session that resonates with good, clear memories of engage-
ment. With digital recording technology it is possible to record the event
perhaps with greater clarity than the live performance offered, and then
distribute this music. I listen to the music later, and it summons my con-
nection with the moment of recording. To this extent I am grateful for
it. However, this meaning may be lost on or diminished for others who
listen to the sound tracks for their acoustic quality, for their musical skill,
or as background for conversation. Much of the original context is lost.
The sound itself becomes the commodity, which occurs at a relatively
superficial or unidimensional level. The machinery of reproduction
recedes into the background.
Generally, Borgmann suggests, commodities form the foreground of
our experience. Increasingly we experience the world through contact
with objects or services we procure. Machinery becomes the background
of production. Think of the extent to which a Web browser is the glit-
tery foreground, the commodity, and the machinery, including the inter-
twined networks and communications protocols, are the background.
This separation of foreground and background has many implications.
First, our actions become separated from our consequences. The reces-
sion of machinery in the face of a rising sea of commodities makes the
production of devices less apparent. It is more difficult to know whether
the clothes I buy, the food I eat, or the electricity I use are socially and
ecologically responsible. This is often the case for goods marketed under
the labels of social and ecological responsibility. How am I to know
whether the bananas stickered with an organic label at the grocery store
are in fact organically produced? According to which standards are they
organic? Finally, how am I to evaluate the consequences of eating a trop-
ical fruit that has traveled thousands of miles from production to
consumption? One might argue that the greater availability of informa-
tion makes it easier to research consequences. This is certainly true, but
having the capacity for research and the knowledge gleaned from it are
often two different things.
The separation of foreground and background tends to promote what
Langdon Winner terms reverse adaptation, “the adjustment of human
ends to match the character of available means.”13 Reverse adaptation is
common in advanced technological settings where the sophistication of
techniques alluringly distracts the practitioner from normal goals. It is
evident, for example, in the introduction of microcomputer word proces-
sors, after which writing habits changed in response to the easy move-
ment of blocks of text. The traditional goal of clear writing is
subordinated to the authority of precise word counts, spell checkers, and
autoformatted lists and charts. Thus, the traditional relationship between
goals that are deliberately and carefully set, and the means to achieve
these goals, is inverted. The means overshadow the ends and in some
case obliterate our understanding of ends. This is evident, I think, in the
extraordinarily rapid dispersion of personal computers. How many,
myself included, can definitely say that a computer is the appropriate
means to achieve clearly reflected goals?
Allied with the distinction between foreground and background is the
separation of product and process, a theme that emerged in chapter 3.
Do we locate value in restoration projects in the process of restoration
or in the final product of restoration? Ecosystems are dynamic, compli-
cated living systems and notoriously hard to predict and regulate effec-
tively. The process of restoring an ecosystem is often difficult and time
consuming. Our patience is sorely tried in a consumer society where final
products of any kind matter more than the background conditions of
production necessary to bring them about. If it were otherwise, we would
be much more concerned about sources of production, unfair labor prac-
tices, and environmental devastation in majority-world countries.
The theory of the device paradigm is a powerful way of looking at
contemporary issues. It focuses attention on underlying social patterns
that describe our immersion in technology. It extends well beyond con-
ventional explanations that see technology as merely the sum of artifacts.
Technology is a pattern, and as such can be found just about anywhere.
Borgmann uses the example of insurance to demonstrate this diffusion.
194 Chapter 5
In times past, security depended on networks of societal and family rela-

tions. If the barn burned down, the community provided material and
emotional support. Such support was always fragile and uncertain. The
rise of insurance converted the precariousness of these social arrange-
ments into a financial equivalence. The machinery behind the scenes—
annuity calculations, optimum pricing, sales techniques—remained
hidden from view. In the foreground was the commodity: security in the
form of monthly payments. One can debate whether the final result was
an improvement or not, but what is not in dispute is that there are clearly
gains and losses to be evaluated. What was gained in security was lost
in social fragmentation. It seems that the introduction of each new device
brings wins and losses. The problem is that we seldom notice the losses
until much later. As John Ralston Saul and others point out, the under-
pinnings of civil society have shifted away from collective understand-
ing of value to private systems.14
I think of the device paradigm as a process of commodification, the
conversion of things that matter into commodities. We see the world now
in terms of commodities, whether in the form of marriage counselors to
quell emotional troubles, experts on workplace efficiency, digital televi-
sion sets that deliver realistic images, or university students as customers.
Our primary experience in the world is that of consumption, just as
one now feels awkward visiting a place such as Jasper without spend-
ing money on hotels, meals, souvenirs, or backcountry passes. “To
consume,” writes Borgmann, “is to use up an isolated entity without
preparation, resonance, or consequence.”15 What is typically lost in acts
of consumption, and of course as a pattern there are always exceptions,
is engagement with the depth of the thing behind the commodity. In
listening to recorded music predominantly, I lose the experience of
performance and connection with my guitar. This is only one instance,
however, and the point of focal practices is to provide orientation around
the things that do and do not matter. By making careful choices we can
live in a focal reality most of the time. It is this focal reality that gives
us the perspective to understand and limit the corrosive effects of
commodification.
Ecological restoration is a preeminent focal practice, but only if we
steer practice toward valuing ecosystems in their depth and honoring the
social relations that form in the midst of restoration. This is the theme
of chapter 6. What worries me is that we will choose the main path of
consumption and begin to commodify restoration. The potential exists
for this to be expressed in two ways. First, ecosystems themselves can
become commodities through an overzealous marketplace and steady
infiltration by the cultural imagery of consumption. An extreme example
is the representation of wilderness at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge. Such
facilities push us incrementally closer to a society where the line sepa-
rating reality from virtual reality becomes very thin. The Lodge is not a
restoration project in any strict sense, but it constitutes at present the
end of one possible trajectory for restoration. Second, it is possible for
the practice of restoration to become a commodity, something quite
likely if the push to professionalization is motivated more by financial
gain than by care for place.
A Taut Line: What Kind of Science Do Ecological Restorationists

Require?
The more we study it, the more we understand that the landscape in
Jasper is the result of decades of cultural belief and practice at work:
shifting management philosophies, types and modes of visitation,
national-level parks policy, and larger cultural dispositions toward
nature and wilderness. Nature is continuously processed through the
filter of cultural institutions, and interpreted through the lenses of indi-
viduals and communities. When the ground on which our beliefs about
nature shifts, as it is doing rapidly through the advent of what Borgmann
and others have termed hyperreality, the power of nature to hold moral
and spiritual beliefs weakens. Nature becomes a pliable device.
This power to “half create,” following Wordsworth, suffuses the
modern era and inspires a fundamental ambiguity by which our knowl-
edge of nature and wilderness is formed. We understand two seemingly
inconsistent verities about things: that there is nature out there that lies
beyond our ability to cocreate, and that our forms of perception make
it resemble what we choose. In recent decades, it has become apparent
that wilderness specifically, and nature more generally, are culturally con-
ditioned terms.16 There is a line between an essentialist “what you see is
196 Chapter 5
what you get” epistemology and, at the other end of the continuum, the
position that all of nature is constructed on our experience. Michael
Soulé, a conservation biologist, argues that in moving too far along that
line, away from an essentialist idea of nature toward a constructed one,
we may subject ourselves to the hazard of themed nature.17 This fear,
however, is a strong reaction to an equally unsettling prospect: the objec-
tification of reality. In an extreme form, an objective or essential view of
reality admits no ambiguity, and suggests that nature is reducible to sci-
entific understanding. I am unsettled by claims that nature is entirely a
cultural construct and worry about the possibility that ecosystems will
lose their significance under conditions of hyperreality. My greater fear
is that we will lose hold of knowledge that lies outside of science—for
instance, personal testimony based on experience, and creative knowl-
edge derived from art, music, and poetry. This is an especially important
matter for restorationists, who have until this point thrived by mixing
science with practical knowledge. Moreover, every time an ecosystem is
restored, a particular view of nature blooms brighter. Hence, restora-
tionists are central agents in the definition and redefinition of what is,
and what counts as, nature.
Ecological restoration is a distinctive fusion of scientific impulse and
local knowledge. Being able to restore well presupposes some scientific
knowledge—for example, of genetics, plant taxonomy, soil microbiol-
ogy, and nutrient cycling. But book knowledge goes only so far in making
a project successful. One needs to know practical things, too, such as
how water conditions vary across the site based on experience with
watering new plantings, how to organize volunteers or maneuver
through regulatory tangles, and who has the best seed. Those with
practical inclinations and little scientific training tend to acquire an
inferiority complex. Their knowledge and skills are viewed perhaps as a
necessary but not sufficient condition for effective restoration. Someone
with practical knowledge is seldom regarded as an expert. Why is this?
The entrenchment of science is one of the distinctive features of
the last two centuries. The formulation of a distinctive method, the
development of allied sciences, the amassing of organized and strategic
funding, and the establishment of a recognized professional niche are all
aspects of this phenomenon, although of course what is usually known
as the scientific revolution commenced earlier than this. It is strange for

me to imagine what it was like in universities prior to the 1850s in
North America, when most contemporary departmental divisions did
not exist, doctoral degrees were unavailable, no federal funding bodies
existed, few professional associations were operating, and even fewer
journals were being produced. The American Association for the
Advancement of Science, the premier scientific body in the United States,
was founded in 1848. Today the authority of science is undeniable. Uni-
versities are dominated by the natural and applied sciences. Governments
commission blue-ribbon scientific panels to advise them on crucial policy
issues. Our notion of what it means to be intelligent is caught up in cul-
tural images such as Einstein, white lab coats, and MIT. We are reminded
continually that we live in a knowledge economy for which science is a
prerequisite.
There are many reasons for the authority of science. Scientists can
inspire with dazzling, counterintuitive insights such as superstring theory
and genomic typology. Insights from science have enormous practical
consequences, too, and this is often what inspires the most public and
policy awe. Medical research in particular, especially the heroic,
high-technology, scientific discoveries that go beyond ordinary experi-
ence, compel allegiance. And one can despise the destructive, soul-
destroying development of nuclear weaponry, but it is difficult not to at
least grudgingly admire the scientific insights that made it possible. The
restoration community, no doubt, will have to face the widespread avail-
ability soon of a remarkably powerful genetically engineered organism.
Using it will be alluring and alarming at the same time. The question is,
will we have the moral courage to confront the hard choices that have
to be made?
Strong scientific knowledge is critical to good restoration. So is the
knowledge of experience and tradition. The former prides itself on uni-
versality, the latter on locality. Here we come back to the issue raised at
the beginning of this section: What kind of nature is represented in these
different perspectives? The scientist sees, or believes he or she is seeing,
the world as it really is, stripped of filters of perception. Scientifically,
nature is that which is independent of human taint. What we aim for
accordingly is perfect description of things as they are. This view of
198 Chapter 5
science was too severe and imposing for some. Slowly in the 1970s and
1980s, philosophers, sociologists, historians, and anthropologists began
to ask whether the character of the knower has anything to do with what
is known. Thus was born the contemporary and controversial subject of
science studies, an interdisciplinary endeavor aimed at understanding the
complexity of science in practice. Science studies meshed well with other
developments in universities, notably the shift toward postmodernism
and socially constructed accounts of the world. Radical theorists asserted
that the world is exactly what we make of it, and one person’s view of
it is as relevant as any other’s. This produced a profound relativism in
knowledge, and bastions of conventional knowledge and authority began
to crumble against the onslaught. Why should scientific knowledge of
climate change in the Arctic be qualitatively better than the knowledge
possessed by an Inuit hunter? Specialists in science studies investigated
the production of scientific knowledge and found that that knowledge is
contingent on social beliefs and practices. Scientific knowledge accumu-
lates by social production, on one level an obvious observation and on
another a profoundly upsetting one. If what one observes is conditioned
by who one is, then the enterprise of science is shaped at least in part by
subjectivity. The most extreme views emanating from constructivist and
postmodern theories asserted that there is nothing permanent on which
our knowledge rests. It is entirely a swirling mass of belief. Such radical
positions are theoretically fascinating but hold relatively little weight in
shaping the practice of science. Still, they have stirred deep emotions
among scientists. Most significantly, they have compelled us to ask dif-
ficult questions about the conduct of science as a social practice, about
how knowledge is made, and about the cultural beliefs that flow from
the work of scientists.18
At bottom, science succeeds brilliantly because of prediction. Scientific
knowledge is predictive knowledge based on the logics of induction and
deduction. Shooting a space shuttle beyond the earth’s atmosphere means
knowing with precision the behavior of that vessel and how to get it to
its target. Knowing about the chemistry and physics of the earth’s atmos-
phere helps make space flight possible and also offers predictive models
of atmospheric change with increasing human production of certain
compounds. Science is powerful because it allows us to peer into the
future. Why is this important? It gives us increased control. Through pre-

diction we know within a range of certainty how likely something is and
then what adjustments are needed. In the case of forces as powerful and
variable as weather, we are less adept at controlling the processes per se
and instead adjust our own activities accordingly.
Prediction is important to ecological restoration. All things being
equal, we want to know whether a particular planting is likely to flour-
ish, and if it does, what kind of pattern it will create. Such knowledge
becomes especially important when restoration moves from creative
muddling through to professional practice. A restoration professional
makes decisions on the basis of scientific evidence and experience. During
a visit I made in 1993 to the Tree of Life native plant nursery north of
San Diego, California, experiments were underway with mycorrhizal
inoculations of potted seedlings. Experience indicated that healthy
stock more often than not contained a symbiotic fungal mat in the
soil medium. Shifting from this insight to deliberate inoculation invoked
scientific trials: What amount of inoculant is ideal? What species? What
are the costs-to-productivity ratios? As this treatment becomes wide-
spread in nursery stock, increasing scientific data adds nuance to pre-
dictive measures. A restoration professional charged with a large-scale
planting wants to know the likely success of plantings. A difference of
10 percent viability might make a critical difference to the success of a
planting and would certainly change the financial bottom line. The mark
of a seasoned and respected professional is judgment, which is usually a
combination of experience and knowing when to trust in and abide by
scientific data.
As powerful as science is in ecological restoration, it also tends to
create problems by displacing other kinds of knowledge. Landscape
architects, for example, who are trained to think in several different ways
often alternate between scientific knowledge that accounts for why some
plantings work better than others, and an aesthetic judgment that sug-
gests why one planting will look better than another. We are often too
quick to leap to a distinction between objective and subjective knowl-
edge, where objective knowledge is represented by science and is indu-
bitable. Subjective knowledge, on the other hand, is merely preference
and cannot be evaluated in any reliable way. The predictive power of
200 Chapter 5
science tends to quash other approaches on the basis of universality and

reliability. In a limited but significant way this is appropriate. We are
advantaged by the power of scientific knowledge. However, what we
think of as subjectivity is composed of many kinds of knowledge, each
bearing a slightly different account of the world. For instance, Borgmann
distinguishes between paradigmatic and testimonial knowledge. Para-
digmatic knowledge is the knowledge of pattern whereby what one
learns in one place can be transferred to another. At the simplest level,
this is the kind of knowledge that allows a restorationist to achieve rapid
insights when moving from one site to another. More than this, it is
the knowledge that originates in metaphor and analogy, and these are
powerful ways of representing the world. Testimonial knowledge is the
knowledge of direct conviction, such as one finds in music, art, poetry,
or other forms of creative expression. The meaning is not usually
intended to be literal and often points directly at a particular experience.
It is not based typically on prediction. Testament is very powerful. It is
often what moves us to act on something, the kind of knowledge that
binds our commitment to something. As much as we might want to
believe that sound, scientific data tells the entire story, people are often
moved to do something described by the data because they are affected
by testimonial knowledge.
Another kind of knowledge that has moved to the fore in the last
decade is traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom, commonly
known as TEK or TEKW.19 Rooted in struggles for identity and survival
by traditional peoples—First Nations, Aboriginals, indigenous peoples,
and those adhering to long traditions of land management—TEKW is
one way of recognizing that knowledge other than science matters.
Knowledge of this kind is accumulated over time and often organized
through oral tradition. It is passed from generation to generation, and
those whose lives are attuned to the land will attain the status of elder
or wise person, someone who bears the tradition. TEKW has been impor-
tant in conflicts over resource use and management in regions inhabited
by traditional peoples. For example, in preparing evidence for legal land
claims the G’itxsan people of northern British Columbia mapped tradi-
tional land use based on oral histories and the testaments of elders. This
provided a different view of the land and its use than was promulgated
by industrial interests and government officials in the Province of British

Columbia. Recognizing perhaps that knowledge about a place accumu-
lated slowly and carefully over time amounts eventually to wisdom, and
that wisdom is required to make sustainable decisions, TEKW is swelling
in popularity.
There are two ways an overreliance on science can distort the work
of restorationists. The first, already discussed, is to push other forms of
knowledge to the sidelines. Second, science tends to reify nature, or in
other words to take an abstraction and make it appear real. This has
potentially dangerous implications by distorting how we comprehend
what we are restoring. It gives more weight than it should to our par-
ticular view of things, instead of understanding this view as historically
and culturally contingent. There is little room for humility when we
believe the challenge is simply to put the right pieces into place. This is
why constructivism has been important in broadening our understand-
ing of science. To see things as though the production of knowledge is
unimportant masks social realities. We do look (and hear, smell, taste,
and reflect) on things through social filters. One example is the way we
have tended to systematically exclude people from our understanding of
ecological history.20 Jasper National Park is a wild, imposing, unfriendly
place to people who have grown up with accounts of untamed wilder-
ness. This is my cultural legacy, too, but my experience in Jasper has
given me a different understanding of the place, one that is peopled, com-
plicated, and ever-changing. Cultural contingency matters for restora-
tionists because we need to understand that people make sense of a place
in different ways. Adaptation and creativity are needed to mediate local
and universal perspectives. This is what Donna Haraway intended in
her call for “radical historical contingency for all knowledge claims
and knowing subjects . . . and a no-nonsense commitment to faithful
accounts of a ‘real’ world.”21 Katherine Hayles proposes a different
version of this middle path by advocating positional reflexivity:
Reflexivity, understood as recognizing that one has a position and that every
position enables as well as limits, can make the double move of turning outward
to know more about the world because it also turns inward to look at how one’s
own assumptions are constructed. If constrained constructivism does nothing
more than enhance the humility we feel when we realize that the world is a much
202 Chapter 5
bigger place than we as situated human beings can imagine, in my view it is

worth the price of admission.22
Borgmann points to the significance of nature as being something beyond

which either science or experience can go; reality is other than us, beyond
the explanations of science and poetry.23
The world in between the extremes of essentialism and constructivism
makes more sense. We are presented with an ambiguity that arises from
understanding that the world is simultaneously comprehensible and
unknowable, or to restate the formulation at the beginning of this
section, that there is nature out there that lies beyond our ability to cocre-
ate, and that our forms of perception make it resemble what we choose.
I think of this as creative ambiguity because it encourages observation
and understanding while forcing us to confront the limits of such knowl-
edge. It is a blessing as it reveals to us the extent and thickness of the
cultural layers we impose on top of reality. It offers a new way of seeing
wilderness, for example, one that admits of human practice in its myriad
forms. At the same time, such critical constructivism is tempered by the
presence of wild places that still exist beyond the beaten path in remote,
inaccessible, or forgotten places, and that possess undeniable presence
and continuity. So-called natural processes have a way of poking through
in any case, exposing the hubris to those who believe that nature can be
fully ensnared. For the restorationist this ambiguity is critically impor-
tant. Strong science is needed that helps us predict what will happen.
Too much reliance, however, will foreclose on the vernacular knowledge
of places (chapter 4) and trick us into believing that what we are doing
is either the right way or the only way of accomplishing salutary work
with natural processes. We need to understand the cultural lenses that
focus our view of the world.
Ambiguity can be too creative. One can read the peopled quality
of the Athabasca Valley in Jasper as evidence of the disappearance of
wilderness, and as a license to reconfigure it according to contemporary
desires. After all, so runs the argument, if people have been present all
along, using and transforming the place, why not perpetuate the tradi-
tion? This view makes a crucial mistake in necessarily justifying current
practice on the basis of former activities. It is almost certainly the case
that the context, and often the intensity and scale, of human activities
in the past was different. Equally troubling is the threat to the notion of
ecological integrity. Robust accounts of integrity depend on some hard
realities: historical reference conditions, presence of keystone species,
species diversity and abundance, absence of weedy or exotic species, and
so on. Sophisticated definitions of integrity also allow for long-standing,
typically traditional, cultural practices. In hovering too close to a con-
structivist idea of wilderness we court the loss of ecological integrity
as well as a misreading of historical human activities. Restoration is
unleashed from conventional constraints and a licentious commerce
is permitted with popular notions of nature and wilderness.
The Commodification of Nature
The ambiguity of our epistemic commitments to wilderness and nature

is compounded directly by a more general shift in our allegiance to
reality. Borgmann argues that reality is giving way to hyperreality, a kind
of reality detached from direct experience and context. In losing an
authentic engagement with things, we lose sight also of moral commit-
ments to those things. Images become the currency of morality, but
images lack stability and resonance. Electronic communications and sci-
entific approaches to image management and marketing, fusing adver-
tising and propaganda, have increased the rate of change of cultural
images and produced a uniformity of perception. The potency and per-
vasiveness of such imagery make local, vernacular conditions less attrac-
tive, and compel their replacement with sophisticated commodities.24 The
globalization of imagery collides with local views and creates confusion
over what to believe and when it is appropriate to believe one thing over
another. As Jennifer Cypher and I suggest, the pervasiveness and intent
of image generation constitute a “colonization of the imagination,” or a
reconfiguring of people’s imaginative capacities.25
Nowhere is this system of colonization more advanced than in the
products of the Disney Corporation. For forty years, Disney has pumped
out film and television images that have shaped the imaginations of mil-
lions of viewers around the world. Wild animals are anthropomorphized
and domesticated. The boundaries between wild and tame are redrawn,
and primary experience of wild things is displaced by voyeuristic and
204 Chapter 5
mediated experiences. The works of culture industries such as Disney

accelerate the reception of a constructed nature.
People are flocking to Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, for example, as an
escape to a land far away in time and space. The fact that this large, lux-
urious resort is a simulacrum seems not to disturb most people. And
most people are apparently unperturbed by the presence, in Florida, of
redwood trees, Northwest Coast Native American artifacts, bison, and
Western log construction. A development such as the Lodge builds on
ingrained public ideas about wilderness, which is to be expected. In the
hands of an organization as powerful as Disney, it has the potential to
reshape meaning by imparting its ideological message to the visitor (or
viewer) as though it were part of the natural order of things. The Disney
version of nature becomes a primary referent for experiences in real
nature, not the other way around. How long will it be before we are
searching for those elusive mouse ears carved on the wall of the Grand
Canyon?
In colonizing the imagination, what the Lodge and similar projects are
accomplishing is a friendly takeover of the reality that underlies themed
experience. By turning wilderness into a conceptual product, one that is
adaptable, delimitable, endlessly pliable, and available, Disney is also
creating a new reality in which to experience it. Then, in recursive
fashion, consumption conditions our understanding of reality; nature
outside of the empire becomes subject to the interpretations of the
empire. Of course, Disney’s products are converging with and abet-
ting other simulations. The worry is that this takeover of reality to
produce a world filled with hyperrealities will displace reality as a moral
center. But isn’t hyperreality supposed to produce a world richer in
opportunity and experience? Shouldn’t this be preferable? An abidingly
intractable question is whether authentic nature (i.e., reality that has
commanding presence and telling continuity) possesses attributes vital to
the health of people. Are the rough edges on reality important? In the
absence of limits and boundaries as imposed by reality, nature is opened
to endless manipulation, not only in the style of domination to which
we have become so accustomed in the modern era, but now in a the-
matic sense that creates a theme out of concepts such as ecological
integrity.
For ecological restorationists, questions of historical fidelity and eco-

logical integrity will be reset within a context of artificiality. The goals
chosen may resemble manufactured images instead of carefully negoti-
ated ones rooted in participation and faithful articulation of locale.
Inclined this way, and possessed of sophisticated skills, the restorationist
is able to specify, say, a trade-off between forest cover and openings
more congenial to the touring public. Historical authenticity could drive
restoration goals, but it may be that in a changed landscape of roads and
utility corridors, Disney and niche tourism, corridors for threatened
wildlife species could be placed conveniently along safe, unobtrusive
watchable wildlife areas. From here, the theming of a national park
begins in earnest, satisfying the latest in cultural views about nature and
wilderness.
As Tad Friend points out in an article on Disney’s newest and most
ambitious ($1 billion) attraction, Animal Kingdom, “As I experienced
Disney’s treats, it became clear that in an important sense this park isn’t
about animals at all. It’s about us, about our wishes and needs. For how
we behave toward animals taken from their natural surroundings reveals
us to ourselves.”26 A logic of justification forms against this backdrop:
if we do not think it really matters to the ecosystems, but it does matter
to us, then implement a design based on our desires and values. Yes, eco-
logical integrity still counts, but even this concept becomes a commod-
ity to be rendered more efficient (how many grizzly bears are necessary?).
Restoration becomes part of a thematic endeavor and is pushed along
the multilane production highway of the future and away from the
gentler choice at the fork in the road.
Through an elaborate system of simulation and image management,
corporations such as Disney produce commodities that change the mean-
ings of nature and wilderness. This complicates the task of restoration.
Modern restoration, the style still favored by many practitioners, meants
returning an ecosystem as closely as possible to its predisturbance con-
dition. Postmodern restoration, which appears ascendant, means adapt-
ing to a variety of contingent meanings and thus to ambiguity. There are
blessings and curses in this shift. That we are moving away from believ-
ing in a single approach to restoration is a hopeful sign. What we are
restoring and how we restore it becomes a deeply reflective investigation
206 Chapter 5
into our own values about what can and should be done. It is a curse,
too, in that such openness may give way to an “anything goes” approach.
This view would potentially push aside considerations of ecological
integrity and historical fidelity in favor of practicality and desire. A post-
modern restoration mostly creates a healthy reflexivity for the practi-
tioner, and it also entails wrestling simultaneously with scattered purpose
and technological ambition. This is another way of restating the ambiva-
lence at the core of contemporary restoration practice. Now that restora-
tion has become a diverse activity, ranging from natural urban gardens
to whole river-basin megaprojects, and now that historical fidelity
is relative, what restoration is, exactly, is difficult to discern. When this
uncertainty is compounded by a culture of hyperreality, the danger
that restoration will conform to the pattern of the device paradigm
becomes real. Commitments to authentic engagement with reality, to
things, are unhinged. Ecosystems become devices as the rush begins to
(re)produce commodities in the form of restorations that meet the inter-
ests of those who pay the bills. The commodification of nature and
wilderness, therefore, diverts the project of restoration along a techno-
logical path. The more pervasive technological restoration becomes, the
less easy it is to articulate and justify focal restoration—the path less
traveled. What will restorationists of the future restore: things or devices,
reality or hyperreality?
The Commodification of Practice
There is a further way in which ecological restoration is becoming more

devicelike: via the commodification of practice. To understand fully the
implications of the device paradigm for ecological restoration requires
examination of the commodification of nature, which I did in the previ-
ous section, as well as the commodification of practice. To commodify
a practice means to change the locus of attention from things to devices
and to transform it into an exclusive professional enclave geared to effi-
ciency.27 This is a well-known phenomenon identified under a number of
labels: professionalization, specialization, a decisionistic society (pace
Habermas), a culture of expertise. That we should detect it as a trend in
ecological restoration is hardly surprising.
Part of the reason for restoration’s assimilation surely has to do with

its seeming “win-win” qualities. Reacting against zero-sum thinking in
which all compete for the slices of the same unchanging pie, dispute-
resolution experts and policy and business specialists turned to a new
paradigm in the 1980s and 1990s. If the size or quality of the “pie” could
be changed, then decisions, presumably more creative and usually more
profitable ones, were possible. In the landmark book that kicked off
much of this discussion, Fisher and Ury’s Getting to Yes proposed that
seemingly intractable problems could be resolved by demonstrating,
sometimes with considerable difficulty, that a mutually advantageous
solution was possible.28 Ecological restoration opened a potent new
opportunity for corporate and governmental environmental manage-
ment: ecosystems could be rebuilt or reconfigured, thereby augmenting
and extending increasingly costly commitments to environmental pro-
tection. During an era of environmental loss of innocence, restoration
represents hope for converting past destructive practices; it has tremen-
dous symbolic authority. Government agencies, sometimes in concert
with corporate partners, are providing more support for restoration
projects, in some cases sponsoring enormous endeavors such as the
Kissimmee River initiative.29
Corporations have taken up the cause, supporting restoration through
modified development projects, grants, and awards. Jonathan Perry
reported a surge of interest beginning in the 1970s in mollifying the
effects of corporate development, typically office complexes, and improv-
ing environmental profile. Such projects serve to “naturalize the presence
of the corporation” and lend the appearance of solidity to a (likely) tran-
sitory local commitment, create a history for exurban sprawls seeking
identity, and provide a calming experience to the corporate world.
The uses of restoration in corporate environments serve to justify the
political-economic interests of the firm as much as or more than the
ecological interests of the site.30 Another controversial practice concerns
ecosystem mitigation. In areas of intense development pressure, notably
along the Eastern seaboard of the United States, property developers gaze
longingly at parcels that are protected by local, state, or federal envi-
ronmental statutes. A popular approach is to compensate, or mitigate,
the effects of development on, say, coastal wetland, with purchase,
208 Chapter 5
dedication, and restoration of another property of equal ecological value.

In 1992 I organized a session at the Society for Ecological Restoration
Conference in Waterloo, Ontario, on the ethics of mitigation. I had
hoped to make several detailed case studies available to the panelists that
would spark conversation. To my chagrin, it was difficult to find well-
rounded descriptions of such projects in the literature, and when I called
several well-known practitioners, they were reluctant to offer specifics.
Concerns were expressed about offending clients and revealing propri-
etary knowledge. In the end I resorted to fictional cases.31 This raises
a further concern about the corporatization of restoration practice:
privacy. Proponents of corporate projects have less interest in producing
comprehensive accounts for fear these might either undermine competi-
tive advantage or reveal unflattering information about the project. What
is published in the end are typically project descriptions that are largely
one-sided reports of successes; the unsuccessful projects seldom see print.
We are missing critical accounts of restoration projects, and also those
that are multidimensional, including ecological, technical, scientific,
social, economic, and ethical concerns.
Mitigation is a clear example of the commodification of restoration;
restored ecosystems are converted to tradable units for consumption.
Mitigation also illustrates the commodification of practice. Most restora-
tionists in my experience view mitigation projects as a crass commercial
endeavor that ought to be avoided. Yet mitigation is on the rise and
is producing a cadre of professionals skilled at such arrangements. If
ecosystems can be bought, sold, and traded, does this mean they will
also be subject to economically analogous processes of disposal and recy-
cling? Will professional practice be codified and restricted? Will certain
techniques become proprietary? Will ecosystem designs be franchised?
Such questions seem farfetched today. They point, however, directly at
larger trends in the commodification of experience and the production
of a hyperreal environment. When we cease to find such questions pecu-
liar, that is the point when the commodification of restoration will have
reached a zenith.
The tension between professionalism and volunteerism is a critical
issue for restorationists and not a new one. At the 1992 Society for Eco-
logical Restoration conference, the late Alexander Wilson organized a
seminar on certification. In a packed room some of the architects of SER

battled over whether restoration should remain a variegated practice
with volunteers predominating, or whether restorationists should have
professional ambitions. The argument was raised again in 1995 and con-
tinues to be hotly questioned.32 In regions with a relatively high concen-
tration of practitioners such as California, the press for certification
has been strong. Some view the advent of professional standards as a
logical road to maturation. Others think it spells the death of authentic
restoration.
A compelling feature of ecological restoration, perhaps the single
feature that has lifted its profile, is community involvement. There are
no accurate estimates of the total number of restoration projects that
have been undertaken in North America—tens of thousands, I would
wager—but many have involved volunteers. Restoration is so labor
intensive: weeding, clearing brush, hauling away refuse, digging, plant-
ing, seeding, and so on. The volunteers are often the people who moti-
vate the project in the first place, and either take it on themselves by
drawing on local talent or hire a consultant to assist with planning. The
value of this participation is a political theme that is gaining attention
in restoration and one that I discuss in chapter 6. The twin benefits of
efficiency achieved through low-cost labor and the enlivening of com-
munity effort have created considerable momentum and defined an
archetype of restoration. This ideal of restoration has been celebrated in
essays by William Jordan, Stephanie Mills, and Freeman House, among
others. They advance this view of restoration because it heals landscapes
and also the relationship between people and landscapes.
This idyllic view of restoration fails to encompass the full range of
activity. I mentioned above the demands of mitigation and creation pro-
jects. The growth in industry- and government-sponsored projects is
rising, and this development has a ratcheting effect. Policies such as “no
net loss” for wetlands are put in place to encourage restoration over
other management alternatives. Professional biologists and others heed
the call for specialized services. Struggling restoration consultancies are
suddenly flush with work. Engineering and landscape architecture firms
hire a part- or full-time restoration practitioner. These practitioners
have a vested interest in advancing restoration initiatives and do so by
210 Chapter 5
lobbying agencies and companies, joining professional organizations,

and marketing their services. The moral burden imposed by restoration
takes hold. Where government agencies such as Caltrans (the California
Department of Transportation) formerly were content with old-style
reclamation or rehabilitation, they now demand restoration of sites.
Restoration is gaining considerable cultural capital, leading to more
growth, and so the cycle continues. It would be wrong to assume from
my account that professional restorationists are overwhelmed with work
at present; rather the point is that the need for professional restoration
is growing. A government agency may be unlikely to sponsor a volun-
teer restoration project, preferring the predictability and guarantees
offered by a professional firm (unless of course there is professional assis-
tance in designing and supervising a volunteer project). This segment of
restoration practice is growing and becoming a stronger force. The
tensions between volunteerism and professionalism are escalating.
This tension between those who want restoration as a professional
practice and those who fear the loss of the practice of volunteerism
threatens to pull apart restoration practice. There is a familiar refrain
among restorationists—especially young ones—that goes something like
this: “I was so excited by the prospect of restoration, and realized
suddenly that my life could be made whole by practicing what I had
been preaching and earning a reasonable living at the same time. Now
that I’m into it, the opportunities seem few and far between.” These spe-
cific conditions may change sooner rather than later. There is no denying
the impulse behind people wanting to find, as Wendell Berry recom-
mends, “good work that does no harm.”33 To make one’s lifework
healing the land, integrating the skills of planning, management, and
hands-on ability, and working outside more than in, is a noble enter-
prise. It seems to stand on the same pedestal as traditional professions
and trades such as carpentry; mind and body are engaged in a demon-
strably worthwhile purpose. There are no obscene profits, questionable
ends, or fashions to worry about. Restoration practice is preeminently
wholesome. What could possibly be wrong with this?
Andrew Light, a philosopher, is concerned about the extent to which
professional tendencies will deflect the real work of restoration. His
argument is one with which I have considerable sympathy and partici-
pated in developing.34 Ecological restoration has inherent democratic

potential. This is different from arguing that restoration is inherently
democratic. There are too many reasons why this is not the case, not the
least being that restoration projects can and are being conducted in unde-
mocratic ways. Having inherent potential means that restoration prac-
ticed well would preserve “the democratic ideal that public participation
in a public activity increases the value of that activity.”35 Thus, restora-
tion has the capacity to increase the value of a place through participa-
tion. This is a distinctive feature of restoration as distinguished from,
say, preservation. To preserve something actively or passively means to
leave it alone, to allow the value already in place to rest by itself; no new
value is created. The fact that restoration increases the value of the place
does not mean it is a better activity than preservation; instead it means
that they have different ends and manifest value differently. Restoration
produces value that would not be produced otherwise, presuming that
autogenic regenerative processes do not result in restoration in many
cases. It is the process of restoration involving human agency that
produces value, which Light argues forms its unique character. Partici-
pation is a vital evaluative component of restoration, and most restora-
tion projects involve not just individuals but communities. If restoration
is public participation in ecological processes, and presuming that more
rather than less participation is good, the more participatory restoration
is, the better. The inverse of this argument, and the one troubling for
many professional restoration practitioners, is that a lack of participa-
tion degrades the value of restoration. Light is careful to stipulate that
there may be good reasons for a lack of participation in some circum-
stances, although he does not clarify what these are. In any case,
participation forms a vital dimension of restoration, one that is less obvi-
ously championed through professional approaches to restoration. The
value of human agency in ecosystems and ecological restoration is
explored in chapter 6.
The most worrisome feature of professionalization for Light is certifi-
cation. Certification is a process by which restoration practitioners
would be evaluated and then accredited. A minimal model would be a
voluntary certification process with relatively accessible standards that
could perhaps even be contemplated by dedicated volunteers. Such a
212 Chapter 5
model might run along the lines of the master gardener programs that
are proliferating. The intent is less to guard the gate than to provide an
incentive for rigorous instruction. A lack of widespread or universal
standards would limit the force of such certification. At the other extreme
would be a full-scale certification process governed by a professionally
appointed regulatory body. The standards would be high and the
outcome severe. Those unable to pass standardized tests would be pre-
vented from practicing as restorationists. Major professional groups use
this model presently: physicians, engineers, and accountants. To certified
practitioners, however, the professional doors swing wide open and there
are built-in professional responsibilities that ensure work (e.g., the need
for engineers to sign off on construction plans).
A more rigorous approach to certification has mixed benefits, which
is why it has been hotly contested. The most obvious benefit for clients
is at least the promise of uniform, sophisticated knowledge. An accred-
ited restorationist would possess a minimum suite of skills and knowl-
edge as well as a clearly articulated commitment to a code of practice.
A signature on a restoration plan would entail some form of legal lia-
bility. The benefits for the restorationist would be the ability to antici-
pate a more stable professional atmosphere, and the right to charge a
standard or at least professionally set fee. There are considerable perils
as well. First, and most relevant to the discussion above, accredited pro-
fessionals would have a vested interest in limiting who can conduct
restorations in the same way that medical professionals restrict who can
practice medicine. Some would argue that this ensures a high level of
competence, but professionalism would likely limit the amount of public
participation and lower the value of restoration. Second, certification
would create a new kind of political economy for restoration, where the
cost of restoration would rise to meet the needs of professionals at the
expense, perhaps, of community clients. Third, and perhaps most vexing,
is the uniformity of practice. While creating a uniform or at least less
heterogeneous curriculum that is regulated by standard tests, one ensures
a solid base of knowledge. There would be some heterogeneity in
engineering curriculums, for example, in the way that some universities
are known for problem-based learning while others follow a more
traditional approach. The problem is that such uniformity will restrict
creativity. Ingenuity often occurs outside the main currents of practice.

True rebels are often the parents of invention. By pressing restorationists
into a certified mold, there is a danger of losing some of the vitality that
makes restoration so bountiful.
Light identifies the main issue in terms of closed versus open content
of restoration. Certification, he worries, will close the content of restora-
tion by enforcing an exacting definition of restoration. What counts as
restoration will be restricted and measures will be put in place to enforce
the content, including an appropriate vocabulary. Those who understand
the restricted content—those who are specialized and certified—will
prosper. A related worry, and one that emerged in discussions of the
Chicago Wilderness project, is that volunteers (i.e., nonprofessionals) are
sometimes scapegoated because they lack specific qualifications.36 Open
content, for Light, is the key for maintaining the participatory character
of restoration: “If open content is an important part of the democratic
potential of ecological restoration, and certification is a move toward
closed content, then certification can threaten the egalitarianism of
ecological restoration.”37 Further, moves toward closed content tend to
be irreversible because of the institutionalization necessary to develop
professional practice. This is not an argument against certification, just
a further cautionary note.
I take these arguments less as a rejection of professional aspirations
and more as guidelines for advancing restoration practice. This is based
on two practical assumptions: that there is a pressing need for the crea-
tion of meaningful restoration work, and that participation remains a
vital aspect of restoration. Perhaps these tensions are not irreconcilable.
They may well require new thinking about how best to grow the prac-
tice of restoration. It is clear, I think, what we do not want: an overly
controlled, circumscribed professional practice that forecloses on com-
munity involvement. The answer may be to form small-scale practitioner
guilds that can encourage high-quality local practices. Training and edu-
cation programs should aim to impart the best available knowledge,
including ensuring that students are aware that restoration builds par-
ticipation and is a critical cultural practice. Finally, there is a need
to develop and enlarge models for effective participation. There are
many possibilities for mixing professional and volunteer activity, and
214 Chapter 5
developing strong volunteer programs is becoming a priority in many

sectors, not just restoration. Kellie Westervelt’s Cape Florida volunteer
program, an ambitious restoration initiative operated by the American
Littoral Society just a few miles south of Miami, has clear standards of
conduct, mandatory training, and clear responsibilities. These are not
meant to be onerous or restrictive, rather to encourage and enliven pos-
sibilities for volunteers. Judging by the care taken in preparing the vol-
unteer handbook and by the hundreds of participants, this seems a good
strategy. There are alternatives worth exploring that do not involve either
stalling the ambitions of people who want to earn a living as restora-
tionists or creating a professional orthodoxy.
It is nonetheless a tension, and one that will not go away easily or
quickly. That we live in a society geared to experts and specialization is
an indication that participation will be the one needing defense, not pro-
fessional ambition. Life in a consumptive culture amplifies this tendency
by making ecosystems commodities. The theming of nature, mitigation
projects, and corporate restoration conspire to turn restoration into a
process of commodification. The tendency toward professionalization
through certification and other mechanisms is an indication that the very
practice of restoration can be a product.
The Promise and Problems of Ecological Restoration
The process of commodification threatens to undermine the subject of

restoration by distorting our relations with natural processes and also
by turning the practice of restoration into a product. There are other
reasons why we should worry about the prospect of restoration, and they
have to do substantially with the growing success of restoration. Ironi-
cally, the greatest strength of restoration—its capacity to embrace a new
way of looking at involvement with natural processes—is also potentially
its greatest weakness. Too much success as well as the specter of com-
modification risk denaturing restoration. Restoration becomes not a
practice of authentic engagement but one of detached, unapologetic,
technological repair. Restoration is prey to forces such as commodifica-
tion because of its broad cultural reach. We read into it aspirations that
go significantly beyond quotidian concerns, and it is the expanse of the
promise of restoration that makes it especially ripe for the picking.

Perhaps the most transparent view of the larger cultural significance of
restoration comes through the notion of redemption. Restoration offers
a redemptive opportunity—we heal ourselves culturally, and perhaps
spiritually, by healing nature (in redemption, to carry the biblical image
further, there is also the possibility of absolution, which provides a strong
incentive for action by those racked with guilt over environmental degra-
dation). Thus, restoration taps potent cultural values that may well accel-
erate both participation and commitment to its practice. William Jordan
and Frederick Turner have argued separately that restoration engages
profound cultural beliefs such as shame, and this calls for rituals to
process the pain of destruction and the rebirth of beauty.38 I find myself
frequently describing restoration in terms of health, as in restoring
planetary health. All of this is grand, heady stuff, and reflects the extent
to which restoration evokes profound reflection.
Closely connected with these claims is a win-win attitude that has
swept public and corporate life. Traditional conservation and preserva-
tion techniques were, and are, perceived as denying certain groups (e.g.,
industrial loggers) their lifestyle in order to protect an ecosystem. With
restoration, degraded lands are returned to a former or ecologically
diverse character, and in the process new value is created through social
participation.39 This has not escaped the notice of environmental groups,
government agencies, and corporations. Restoration is finding an espe-
cially comfortable home in corporate boardrooms, as I mentioned
earlier: an act of restoration is perceived by all as a sound investment,
for example in sites around corporate offices. We are caught also in a
vortex of change about one of the most basic questions: What counts as
proper representation of nature? Older images of bucolic country wood-
lots and mountain vistas are giving way to the cultural productions of
roadside rest areas, MTV backgrounds, nature themes in video games,
imagineering at Disney World, and a host of televised images of nature
that bear faint resemblance to more deeply rooted cultural ideas about
nature.40 Thus, hyperreality moves increasingly to the foreground. The
ambiguous notion of postmodern restoration, described earlier, is fueled
in part by this new approach to reality. Through new ways of critically
assessing what nature means to us and how restoration can best
216 Chapter 5
function, it also offers the best hope we have for advancing good restora-
tion. The world we are entering in the early twenty-first century is only
partly comprehensible in terms of antecedents.
Taken together, this partial list of cultural values and ideas expands
the conception of restoration from practice to mode. The broad reach of
restoration means that it has significance at the level of a cultural idea
instead of only at the level of practice. The idea of a restorative mode is
borrowed from Leo Marx’s work on pastoralism, especially his specula-
tions on its future. Marx’s work is significant for restorationists in that
he defines and describes a characteristic American mediation between
culture and nature. Pastoralism is an ancient concept the essence of
which is “a sophisticated vision of the simple life led by a shepherd (or
surrogate) figure, one who mediates between the imperatives of nature
and culture, between the dangers and deprivations of the undeveloped
environment (wild nature) and the excessive constraints of civilization.”41
Emphasizing its constitution as a mode instead of, say, a practice, is to
underscore the mentality or general principle of pastoralism. Restoration
may be divided similarly between the manifold practices of restoration
and restorationism. The latter is a mode referring to a characteristic way
of thinking about the relationship between nature and culture and signals
perhaps a reunion of these two traditionally opposite representations.
Restorationism directs attention to the increasing habit of repairing
damage or despoliation, and acknowledges the cultural significance of
the capacity to mend ecosystems. Taken as a mode, then, restoration
becomes a way of understanding nature that is connected to a diverse
set of practices and institutions. The difficulty comes in assuming that
restorationism is necessarily good. After all, there are some features of
it beneath the surface that should cause us concern—for example, the
way restoration can easily become a technofix or a Disney prop, and
there is little to prevent it from being an apology for increased develop-
ment. The crucial question is this: How can the restorative mode be
shaped to honor our relations with ecosystems? This was, to a certain
extent, the theme of chapters 2 and 3, and a theme to which I will return
in the final chapter.
For now, let us invert the question and ask what is dangerous or wor-
risome about restoration. There is excitement about restoration, the kind
of infectious, boundless enthusiasm that one finds at any restoration con-

ference. There is a sense that one’s own practices are tied to a world of
practice, and that small steps taken together can remove the corrosion
of too much heedless activity. With anything, however, true belief can
turn easily into blind obeisance if not tempered. We risk courting restora-
tionism as an ideology, in other words a strong mode that may initially
advance our cause but may ultimately undermine our best intentions the
way so many ideological positions tend to do. The fact that restoration
is an easily identifiable mode is one clue. The late David Brower, a cham-
pion of American environmental causes, rejected restoration in the 1980s
because he feared that it would deflect energy from preservation and con-
servation. He caused quite a stir at the first SER conference in Chicago
in 1989 when he claimed that restoration should be opposed at all costs:
it would distract the serious work of environmentalists in protecting pre-
cious places. He recanted later, producing his global CPR—conservation,
preservation, restoration—strategy on behalf of the Earth Island Insti-
tute. He touched a nerve with many who believed that restoration was
an industrial apologia, a mop to clean up after our messes. The under-
lying fear is that we will become so proficient at restoration that this
will give us license to despoil anything we want and later fix it up. The
point is legitimate. Think of the analog with recycling. In the 1970s
when I first helped with volunteer recycling programs, we practiced the
four Rs: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Twenty-five years later,
four R’s have been reduced to three. The first and to my mind the most
radical one has been dropped: refuse. During this interval large waste-
management companies began to integrate operations moving toward
processing trash for purposes of industrial recovery. Sophisticated
waste-separation systems are now available that obviate the need for
source separation. A combination of fancy machinery and hand labor
separate the streams into compostable, reusable, and landfill waste. With
such a system in place, and with no minimal additional demands on the
consumer, the incentives are removed for refusal to consume. In fact,
quite the opposite is true. It becomes economically productive to gener-
ate more waste if a significant portion can be recycled. The implications
are similar with ecological restoration. If restoration becomes embedded
deeply in social practice, will this deflect our best intentions around
218 Chapter 5
protection of existing places? Will restoration give us the technological

capacity to lay waste to areas with the promise of restoration or creation
elsewhere? David Brower was right: we should be worried.
Some philosophical critics of restoration amplify this concern by point-
ing to restoration as an elaborate practice of fakery. This charge
originated in Robert Eliot’s 1982 essay “Faking Nature,” in which he
described restoration as a kind of forgery.42 Andrew Light interprets Eliot
as distinguishing between malicious and pernicious forms of restoration.
At the core of Eliot’s case is the “restoration thesis,” which stipulates
that “the destruction of what has value is compensated for by the later
creation (recreation) of something of equal value.” Cast in this light, it
is easy to see why restoration is a pernicious activity: this opens the door
wide to mitigation and wholesale creation of ecosystems solely accord-
ing to human interests. Restoration recreates value where the original
value was eliminated. Hence, the art-forgery analogy makes sense. A
forgery is seldom (never?) accorded a higher value than the original on
which it is based. Surely Eliot must be referring to specific kinds of
restoration, not to restoration practice as a whole. Stripping value from
one place and giving some of that value to another is not representative
of all types of restoration. Eliot indicates as much in his later work when
he proposes that “artificially transforming an utterly barren, ecologically
bankrupt landscape into something richer and more subtle may be a
good thing. That is a view quite compatible with the belief that replac-
ing a rich natural environment with a rich artificial one is a bad thing.”43
I agree with Light that this paves the way for a distinction between good
and bad restoration and that Eliot has done a thorough job of dismiss-
ing the latter.
Eric Katz, who fuses interests in the philosophy of technology and
environmental philosophy, took up Eliot’s position a decade later and
argued that restoration as a whole is a misguided and a dangerous dis-
traction. Restoration is “the big lie,” in which human arrogation and
domination are worked out on the land yet again. Restored ecosystems
are human artifacts, not natural ecosystems. Despite good intentions
people are remaking nature, often in their own image. Ecological restora-
tion is a preeminent device for managing nature; it encourages by its very
constitution the deliberate manipulation of nature. Unlike other envi-
ronmental practices that typically are intended either to remove human

insults or protect places from abusive activities, restoration obliges
people to pick up shovels, plant, seed, weed, burn, and selectively use
biocides. For Katz, restoration represents lamentable meddling; it con-
forms to the same destructive patterns that produced the problems to
which restorationists are now responding. Restoration is a product of a
commodified relationship with nature, one that provides technological
fixes to damaged ecosystems at the expense of the important matter of
environmental preservation. In a sense restoration is a philosophical
category mistake: one cannot do what it is impossible to do—that is,
restore nature. Nature is self-regulating and autonomous.44
This philosophical dispute also exposes a very basic differerce of
opinion between those, like Katz, who see a sharp divide between nature
and culture, and the many restorationists who prefer an integrated view.
For a strict dualist it is inconceivable that human intervention in eco-
systems could be anything but instrumental and therefore corrosive.
Apart from this ontological difference, which is difficult to mediate, Katz
(and Eliot, too) seriously underestimates the cocreative process of
restoration, the fact that restorative acts are insignificant without
ecological processes. Restoration practice is always about assisted recov-
ery and not about the creation of artifact even if the deliberate (or
otherwise) remnants of human activity are later evident. To counter the
instances of domination advanced by Katz, it seems equally plausible that
restoration liberates ecological processes that are stalled or eradicated by
malicious or heedless human activity. More important is the possibility
that restoration creates positive value.45 Moreover, Katz seems unmoved
by alternative propositions about the way restoration is practiced. He is
right to point out that restoration easily manifests human arrogance
toward natural processes. At the same time he does not admit that
restoration practice can also produce profoundly humbling, salutary
relations between people and ecosystems. I agree entirely that restora-
tion risks commodification, and disagree completely that this is either an
inherent property of restoration or an inevitable condition.46
What Katz, Eliot, and earlier, Brower, argue is that the broad consti-
tution of restoration is destructive of our best ecologically inclined ambi-
tions. The arguments work in three substantial ways, first by pointing to
220 Chapter 5
the problem of faking nature, second by proposing that restoration

mirrors destructive technological patterns, and finally by deflecting atten-
tion from things that ought to matter to us more, such as conservation
and preservation. All three arguments warrant attention by practicing
restorationists if restoration is to advance beneficially for natural
processes. As I have already indicated, the argument about fakery seems
naive in light of what we know about ecological process. The second
argument ignores the possibility that beneath destructive technological
patterns that may harm restoration are patterns that enliven participa-
tion and benefit natural processes. Finally, it would appear at least so far
that restoration has, if anything, underscored the importance of preser-
vation and conservation of precious ecosystems. After all, most restora-
tionists are attuned to the fact that restoration is a regrettable necessity
in the wake of wanton human activity. In all three of these arguments
one finds inattention to the practice of restoration, or what it is that
restorationists are actually doing.
Several years ago in an essay that delineated the meaning of good eco-
logical restoration, I traced an expanded conception of restoration (figure
5.1). My argument was simple: we measure the value of restoration not
by narrow measures of scientific effectiveness but by the broader impli-
cations of this practice, or taking inspiration from Bruno Latour,
“restoration in action.”47 Restoration depends on two foundational
principles: ecological integrity and historical fidelity (chapter 3). Thus
a restoration is effective to the extent that these two principles
are satisfied according to prior criteria and normative practice. Few
would disagree that this is the core of ecological restoration.48 What if
the notion of efficiency is introduced? Supposing that two talented
restoration professionals are bidding on the same contract. Both
will deliver a top-quality product by satisfying all the stated criteria.
An efficient restoration is an effective restoration accomplished in the
least amount of time with the least input of labor, resources, and mate-
rials. In adding efficiency we shift away from strictly technical criteria in
defining good restoration. Efficiency introduces a different value system.
Efficiency matters for several reasons. In a competitive market of
ecological restoration, which in some cases is beginning to form in the
wake of American policies such as “no net loss,” efficiency provides a
Effective Restoration Efficiency Expanded

Conception
Satisfies ecological fidelity: economic prescriptions historical
structural/compositional replication cultural
social
functional success
political
durability
moral
aesthetic
Figure 5.1
Expanded conception of ecological restoration (adapted from Higgs, “What Is
Good Ecological Restoration.”).
performance edge for the restorationist. A doctrine of efficiency runs

deep in North American culture, suggesting that in the competition
between two activities heading for the same end, the more efficient one
is more valuable. Beyond interproject competition, efficiency is defensi-
ble because it frees up more resources, materials, and personnel for
restoration. Thus, if we want restoration to flourish, we ought to want
efficient restoration.
Recognizing the expanded context of efficiency results in a disquiet-
ing view of restoration. What happened to public participation, cultural
revitalization, social justice, beauty, and a host of other considerations?
Is efficiency as far as we want to go? I suspect not, which is why I
argued that we need an expanded conception of ecological restoration
that acknowledges that good restoration is more than technical
competence and efficiency, but embraces a range of social, cultural,
political, moral, and aesthetic qualities that vary from place to place. In
expanding the conception of restoration to include these additional
qualities, we adjudicate its worth on a wide basis. This means that
factors other than scientific measures will determine the worth of a
222 Chapter 5
restoration project, that additional kinds of practice and knowledge

are vital.
On reflection, I realize there are two serious flaws in this position,
although I think the notion of an expanded conception is still useful as
a heuristic device. First, in opening up a broader context for restoration,
there is little to suggest that restoration practice will be informed by con-
structive principles such as social justice, moral regard for nonhuman
species, attentiveness to different kinds of cultural knowledge and
practice, and so on. Attention to these kinds of concerns is far from
guaranteed. In fact, what seems more likely is that the broader pattern
of the device paradigm—commodification—will infect the practice of
restoration, leading us increasingly to evaluate its worth on the basis
of technological considerations. This constitutes a grave threat to the
promise of ecological restoration as a socially responsible practice. Once
again, restorationism suggests the great power of restoration to inform
our cultural practice of redressing ecological damage, and at the same
time risks being co-opted by destructive patterns. The problems and the
promise, therefore, are two sides of the same concern.
The second oversight was inattentiveness to the matter of cultural
integrity. I recognized in proposing an expanded conception that cultural,
political, social, aesthetic, and moral beliefs would loom large. However,
the model I proposed still had only effectiveness at its core. It is appar-
ent to me now that restoration is successful only to the extent that
the life of the human community is changed to reflect the health of the
restored ecosystem. In other words, we are engaged in a reciprocal rela-
tionship with ecosystems that are close to us. This shifts the locus of the
model of good restoration to include a bicameral view of restoration,
one that combines cultural practices and ecological integrity. This is the
main subject of the next chapter. Social involvement through focal prac-
tices is a crucial factor in the success of ecological restoration. By focus-
ing on things of enduring significance that bear scrutiny and reflection,
it is possible to avoid or at least reduce the distractions of commodified
restoration. The solution, or more properly the reform, is locally enacted
and globally sanctioned. The countless small acts of restoration carried
out by people who value participation in natural processes will continue
to make a difference as long as this cooperation is acknowledged and
supported by the broader movement. If restoration becomes overly pro-

fessionalized and scientifically determined, or we lose sight of what is
authentic and what is distraction, restoration will become merely another
instance of human arrogance. Ecological restoration is too easily ab-
sorbed by the device paradigm unless there is a conscious, sustained local
participation in decision making and practice. Science is a critical ingre-
dient in restoration, but so too are those practices based on long-stand-
ing, firsthand experience with places.
This highlights the theoretical distinction between technological
restoration and focal restoration. Technological restoration is that which
results from commodified practices in a hyperreal setting. The reference
points for such restoration are conditioned by the device paradigm.
Glamorous distractions are produced by a machinery of illusion that
manipulates us into consuming packaged, digestible cultural products,
and these morsels appeal to deeply held beliefs about community, family,
adventure, achievement, and nature. Similarly, we are witnessing the
rise of technological representations of nature and wilderness that are
proving alluring, and they condition our awareness of the real thing. Our
cultural beliefs affect our practices, and spectacles such as the Disney
Corporation’s Wilderness Lodge are transforming our beliefs about
wilderness. The message is that nature is more pliable and congenial than
previously thought, and this undermines the potential for locally engaged
ecological restoration. Alternatively, focal restoration resists the device
paradigm by centering on reality and the precarious resourcefulness of
local participation and focal practices. The former describes the wide,
paved road to the future, the latter the meandering and less traveled one.
Can we bring focal restoration to prominence and articulate its charac-
ter in a society given over to technological spectacle? Are our imagina-
tive capacities diminishing, so that we are less and less able to conceive
of positive encounters with real nature?
6
Focal Restoration
Sailing for Oriental civilizations and unconscious of either true destination or

the motives that drove the sails, Columbus and his successors broke in upon
mythic zones wholly unsuspected. It is impossible to overemphasize their error.
What soon became known as the “New World” was in fact the old world, the
oldest world we know, the world the West had once been. Now the onward press
of Christian history brought a civilization into contact with its psychic and
spiritual past, and this was a contact for which it was utterly unprepared. The
ensuing conflict was so deep that it has yet to be resolved or even understood.
—Frederick Turner, Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit against the
Wilderness
The transformative power of the great romance—be it with an admirable mate

or a noble cause—remains marvelous. Surely the possibilities of it linger, surely
as the seed bank of the forest will reproduce the woods, given the least advan-
tage. If I could wish the total and complete restoration of the world, and the
banishing of despair, I would wish for the immediate preservation of all species,
all prairies, all forests, all swamps, all deserts; and for a return of crazy love,
of go-for-broke passion between women and men, men and men, women and
women, humans of all ages and places; between humans and soil and everything
that arises there from. Let the love and commitment between beings be part of
this great healing, and purify us of cynicism. If only we can dare to belong to
one another, and to our land.
—Stephanie Mills, In Service of the Wild: Restoring and Reinhabiting Damaged
Lands
For my part, I will be thinking about what salmon are trying to teach us. That
there is a way for us humans to be, just as there is a way for salmon to be. That
we are related by virtue of the places to which we choose to return.
—Freeman House, Totem Salmon: Life Lessons from Another Species
In this chapter I present an antidote to technological restoration, which

was critiqued in the previous chapter. If technological restoration reduces
226 Chapter 6
ecosystems and the practice of restoration to commodities, focal restora-

tion rebuilds our concern with things that matter. In this chapter we learn
that restoration is about more than ecological integrity and historical
fidelity; it is also about focal practice. In fact, what is so distinctive about
restoration as a practice is that it builds value through participation, and
in doing so strengthens human communities. Restoration is doing well
when it nourishes nature and culture.
The journey begins on Discovery Island near my new home in
Victoria, British Columbia. The Lekwungen people, or Songhees First
Nation, are regenerating their way of life by restoring the harvest of a
traditional food plant, camas. This act of cultural restoration is at the
same time ecological restoration, and so the two are inextricably bound.
A number of restorationists have advanced different ways of bringing
ecology and culture together. I admire, for example, the impulse behind
terms like ecocultural restoration, but I want a term such as focal restora-
tion that goes beyond merely binding two agencies together (ecology and
culture). An appropriate antidote to technological restoration must
be capable of pointing to what is good restoration. A discussion of the
cultural dimensions of restoration would be incomplete without an
account of ritual, which has been a minor if persistent theme in restora-
tion literature, and participation, which moves focal practice in restora-
tion onto a political platform. Finally, having worked with different
models for representing good restoration, from expanding circles of
consideration to one that situates cultural practice and ecological
integrity at the same level, I conclude the chapter with a process model:
landscape evolution. I propose that ecological processes and focal prac-
tices are in a continuous, spiraling relationship. Restoration now has
three bases: historical fidelity, ecological integrity, and focal practice.
Discovery Island
I sat in the hazy morning sun near the boat launch at Cattle Point watch-
ing recreational fishers and boaters prepare for a day on the water,
including an unreasonably large trailered luxury yacht whose owner had
neglected to replace the engine compartment drain plug. Misfortune
aside, there was satisfying hubris in the mad scramble to stop the salt-
water from drowning the engine, one of many nightmares a yacht owner
can experience (I was rooting silently for the saltwater). This was my
fifth day on Vancouver Island, the beginning of a several-month sojourn
as a visiting professor at the University of Victoria. Nancy Turner, my
host and noted ethnobotanist, had invited me to tag along on a camas
(an important root vegetable in the traditional diet of First Nations in
the region1) harvest and traditional pit cook that was to take place that
day on Discovery Island. It was difficult to gauge how much weight to
attach to the invitation; I knew that Turner had inspired many students
and First Nations colleagues through recovery of traditional practices.
She had filled me in on the background for the trip, the people who
would be attending, and what I should bring. I tried to be attentive, but
I find there is so much to absorb arriving in a new place that details
sometimes do not stick, or the ones that do end up not being the impor-
tant ones in the longer stretch of time. I sat on the boat launch sipping
coffee from a thermos, expectant but not yet excited.
Discovery Island is part of a small chain of islands easily visible from
the east side of Victoria, a city of several hundred thousand and the
capital of the Province of British Columbia. Victoria is located at the
southernmost tip of Vancouver Island, the largest island off the west
coast of Canada. Through quirks of history, politics, and ecology,
Victoria is located considerably south of the Canada-U.S. border and
is caught in the rain shadow cast by the Olympic Mountains. Summers
are dry and warm; winters are wet and mild, but less wet than most
places on the west coast. Plants grow here that are reminiscent of the
Mediterranean region. Gardeners in Victoria are the envy of all
Canadians, and are often heard smugly on national radio programs
extolling the virtues of fresh figs and artichokes. The small group of
islands just off Victoria is a popular destination for picnickers and
overnight campers (as is the larger archipelago of U.S. and Canadian
islands known as the Gulf Islands, but these are farther away from
Victoria). These islands—Discovery and Chatham being the main ones—
are designated ecological reserves and First Nations land, as well as being
host to communications towers and navigational aids. There are no per-
manent residents, the last person, a member of the Songhees First Nation,
or Lekwungen people, having left Discovery Island in the 1950s.
228 Chapter 6
The dozen of us heading to the north side of Discovery Island that day
were shuttled in two groups. I volunteered for the second crew, assess-
ing quite accurately, I think, that my help was less vital. I had never par-
ticipated in pit cooking, knew few of the coastal species of plants, and
was dumb as a post about marine travel and organisms of the littoral
zone. It was a new world for me. The four people left behind were con-
versational in that awkward way that strangers are who are about
to embark on a voyage together. I struck up a conversation with Cheryl
Bryce, a woman who had been introduced to me earlier as one of the
prime movers behind the day’s activities. I asked about her connections
to this place. Bryce gestured over her shoulder toward Cadboro Bay:
“My great-great grandfather lived there. I am descended from the people
who once lived here.” Then it sank in. This is her place. She is one of
the Lekwungen people, whose lives in this region stretch back thousands
of years. Concerted British colonization began in 1843 when James
Douglas was dispatched by the Hudson’s Bay Company from Fort
Vancouver on the mainland to establish a presence on the southern tip
of Vancouver Island. Concern was growing over American annexation
of the Columbia River basin and settlement in the Oregon and Wash-
ington Territories. A British presence across the narrow Strait of Juan de
Fuca from the Olympic peninsula would solidify British colonial ambi-
tions. Douglas arrived on March 14, 1843, and chose a site for Fort
Victoria on land owned by Lekwungen people.2
The Treaty of Washington between the United States and Great Britain
in 1846 secured the border at the forty-nineth parallel, with exceptions
being made for Vancouver Island and several of the Gulf Islands between
Vancouver Island and the mainland, which lay well to the south of
this latitude to become British-claimed territory. On January 13, 1849,
in a move that would boggle the mind of even the most zealous prop-
erty developer today, Queen Victoria assigned Vancouver Island to the
Hudson’s Bay Company. Rapid settlement of the region would effectively
fend off lingering American interests, and there was no better agent than
the Company. With the decline of fur trading in the nineteenth century,
this monumental corporation was diversifying into property sales and
management, fish harvesting and curing, farming and logging—basically
anything that would turn a handy profit from a fecund landscape. An
initial order of business was to secure prime lands for settlement by fol-
lowing the Royal Proclamation of 1763 that required the supposed extin-
guishment of Aboriginal title to lands.3 Prevailing colonial policy of the
era compelled Douglas to negotiate sale of the lands from First Nations,
who would retain ownership of limited village lands and enclosed fields.
The compensation was modest by any calculus: £103.14 Sterling.4
Thus was completed the sale of lands that to the British meant unbri-
dled opportunity and to the Lekwungen the promise of continued use
of traditional hunting and gathering areas in unoccupied lands. The
misunderstanding was profound. Over the next sixty years, having been
decimated by smallpox and other diseases brought by traders and set-
tlers in the late nineteenth century, the Lekwungen were relocated twice,
ending up in their present reservation, about 100 acres in what is now
Esquimault, a suburb of Victoria, mostly surrounded by suburban devel-
opment. The first move was a gathering of people from scattered village
sites into a reservation in the inner harbor of Victoria, roughly where
the posh Ocean Pointe housing and resort complex now lies. The second
move from there to the present reserve further to the west took place in
1911. There were fewer than 100 survivors of several thousand that lived
here prior to historic times.
The scope of the misunderstanding and devastation is difficult for me
to comprehend, but imagine what it is like for Cheryl Bryce. Sitting at
the boat launch that summer morning, I looked north along the coast
toward Cadboro Bay and saw a lush city, expensive waterfront homes,
sailboats in the harbor, commercial shipping vessels in the distance, and
in the foreground were people hauling coolers of beer and snacks to their
boats. Bryce sees this, too, but her imagination connects to the life of her
ancestors in the way all of us do who stand in the place where our people
once stood and lived—except that her vision is continuous for hundreds,
thousands of years. I cannot come close to understanding the loss she
feels each time she gazes at the landscape. She assembles the knowledge
of smallpox, manipulative land deals, promises to hunting, fishing, and
gathering areas that were overtaken by development, and the compres-
sion of her culture into a piece of reservation land smaller than many
settlement farms further north on the Saanich Peninsula. Bryce can walk
anywhere along the coast of what is now Victoria from Metchosin to
230 Chapter 6
Cordova Bay, past the Empress Hotel, the tony housing complexes of the
inner harbor, the promenade along Dallas Road, Clover Point (named for
a native species of clover long extirpated from the site), Oak Bay (“more
British than Britain”), and the University of Victoria, and know that her
ancestors used this land. Former village sites dot the landscape, but these
are covered by the laminations of other people’s lives.
Bryce knows that if the practices of her ancestors die, if their distinc-
tive dialect is lost, the world becomes less diverse and we have lost yet
another model for how to live in a place. The pressures of assimilation
are tremendous in an era of wage labor and technological distraction,
and to a certain extent all of us are caught in a web of consumption (see
chapter 5). The challenge is one of balancing tradition with the lifeways
of a dominant culture. The Songhees First Nation now numbers about
400 people, rebounding from the devastatingly low numbers at the turn
of the twentieth century. Activists such as Bryce, who works for the
Nation as a cultural program specialist, and Dave Bodaly, a member
of the Snuneymuxw (Nanaimo) First Nation who lives among the
Lekwungen people and works to document the life histories of people
through photography, are part of a cultural revitalization. Their work is
a kind of restoration, at least to the extent that what took place in the
past guides their work in the present and opens possibilities for the
future.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the Discovery Island activities.
Discovery Island and Chatham Island are also vestiges of traditional
Lekwungen land that are deeded in part as reserve. Lekwungen families
lived on the islands as recently at the 1950s, and the islands were impor-
tant locations for harvesting and fishing. Joan Morris was ten years old
when her family left the island, and she remembers three or four long-
houses now obliterated by vandalism and vegetation overgrowth.5 The
rich meadows were cultivated primarily for blue camas, a critical food
source and trade item for the Lekwungen.6 Camas fields were carefully
tended, eliminating competing plant species such as the related but
deadly death camas (Zigadenus venenosus), and burned regularly to
increase fertility. Harvesting of the camas bulbs would take place in the
springtime after flowering. Women, primarily, would use digging sticks
(which still remain the best way to harvest camas bulbs) to lift the
meadow sod, select the large, healthy bulbs, and replace the sod con-
taining smaller bulbs for harvest in subsequent years. Regular tending of
this garden would result in easy harvest of large quantities of bulbs.7
Camas bulbs are prepared for eating traditionally by pit cooking, an
elaborate and ceremonially rich practice.
Bryce had first approached Nancy Turner in 1998 for help in identify-
ing plants near Cattle Point for a research project on traditional food
and medicinal plants; Cattle Point, one of the closest points to Discovery
Island, was a site of former Lekwungen occupation. In addition to
Turner’s renown in ethnobotanical circles, she is a fixture in Victoria,
having grown up here, raised a family, written many definitive field guides
on plants in British Columbia, and most recently teaching in the popular
School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria. She is
often the first point of contact for anyone wishing advice on local
plants. Brenda Beckwith, a graduate student at the University of
Victoria with a specialty in the ethnobiology of blue camas, accompanied
Turner to help identify plants at Cattle Point. The discussions that day
on Cattle Point turned to the idea of traditional harvesting, and this set
in motion the idea of harvesting camas on Discovery Island. Bryce did
some research and found out that the last camas harvest likely took place
in the late nineteenth century, over 100 years earlier. Here was a chance
to bring back an important cultural practice and reassert traditional land
management on an island crucial to Lekwungen history. This is how the
group of us, including a half dozen Lekwungen teenagers who might
have had other activities in mind on that sunny summer morning,
managed to be sitting on the boat launch waiting for a ride to Discovery
Island.
The trip to the island took only fifteen minutes by inflatable boat
powered with a substantial outboard engine and piloted by Marilyn
Lambert, a renowned local naturalist and local caretaker of the island
ecological reserves. We passed over the wide part of the channel but not
far to the left was Strongtide Island, which is an emblem for prodigious
tidal races and large standing waves. We arrived on the north shore of
Discovery Island at low tide. When the boat engine shut down, the world
was serene. The sound of voices carried clearly but not noisily across the
tangle of reefs and tidal pools that separated us from the beach. The first
232 Chapter 6
party had chosen a site for the pit cook on the beach just above high
water, surrounded by huge drift logs and shaded by a Garry oak tree.
Volunteers had radiated out, some in search of the camas meadow and
others for suitable pit-cooking stones, firewood, and plant materials. I
helped with the fire, which needed time to build a strong bed of coals to
heat the pit-cooking rocks. The principle of pit-cooking is straight-
forward, but knowing how to make it work well is a finely tuned art.
Two dozen stones free of cracks and smaller than an adult’s fist were
needed. If too large, they will not heat sufficiently; too small and they
are difficult to handle and will not carry the heat. Once the fire was
roaring we placed the stones on top and fed the flames for an hour until
some of the stones were glowing hot. The pit itself is roughly one and a
half meters across and a half-meter deep, and we dug through coarse
beach gravel and sand. Making a good pit is an exercise in meticulous
preparation and then furious action. With the fire well underway and
the pit dug, we headed for the camas meadow.
A camas meadow in midsummer on a sunny slope is unremarkable
to the novice. The camas bulbs send up glorious blue flowers in spring
(April), produce distinctive seed stalks, and then die back. Growing
among grasses and other plants, most of which have passed their sea-
sonal flowering, the camas can be hard to locate. Beckwith lectured
us on avoiding death camas, a relative of the edible species, which by
its very name inspired respect. In well-maintained traditional camas
meadows, people would weed out the death camas. It is most reliable to
identify the three members of the lily family likely to be found in asso-
ciation on Discovery Island—common camas, chocolate lily, and death
camas—by their bulbs, and thus samples were dug for us to compare.
Several of us tried shovels to turn over a patch of sod, lift the bulbs, and
then replace the sod. My experience was similar to all those who try a
new harvesting technique for the first time: How on earth could people
survive if they relied on such a slow activity? Bryce had brought along
a traditional-shaped digging stick, which is a tool of simple sophistica-
tion. Formed from hardwood, the stick is straight and roughly one meter
long. One end is cut in a spatula shape, and this is the end that is plunged
into the meadow. Designs vary on this theme, some with t-handles at the
top, some longer or shorter, and some with decorations. Digging was a
relatively new experience for Bryce, too, but with the digging stick she
was able to achieve almost immediately what I had been struggling to
accomplish with the shovel. The stick loosened the sod and turned it over
easily, revealing the multiple bulbs. Most of them were small, about the
size of a clove of garlic. Beckwith assured us that in an actively managed
camas meadow these would have been considered too small for collec-
tion and left for harvest in subsequent years. Her theory, which is one
of the main ideas she is testing through her experimental work on camas,
is that traditional methods enhanced the production of larger camas
bulbs. We found a few larger bulbs approaching the size of a new potato.
The lack of production did not surprise Beckwith, Turner, or Bryce: this
meadow had not been tended for over a century.
We combined our meager harvest of approximately two cups of camas
bulbs and some Hooker’s onions that someone had found, and joined
the rest of the group around the fire. It was just after noon. Turner and
others had brought vegetables to cook in the pit—carrots, potatoes,
yams, leeks, onions, and garlic. These were mostly nontraditional veg-
etables, but they allowed us a good feast in any case. There is nothing
to suggest that traditional cooking methods must be matched entirely
with traditional foods. The blending of past and present brings height-
ened meaning to both. Everyone was assigned a task to match the
exuberance we shared once Turner had finished explaining the operation
and gave the signal to commence. First, two people with shovels sepa-
rated the burning embers from the rocks, lifted the hot rocks, and placed
them evenly across the bottom of the pit. Someone spread a layer of wet
kelp fronds over the rocks and a cloud of steam rose. A two-meter-long
stick was held vertically in the center of the pit to create an opening for
pouring water later. Wet Douglas-fir boughs went on next,8 then a layer
of spinachlike orache (Atriplex patula). On this, all of the food was
arrayed. Another layer of the orache was next, followed by a final
layer of fir boughs. The stick was removed from the pit, leaving a narrow
hole in which to pour about three liters of water for steaming the
food. Two overlapping canvas tarps covered the entire pit—woven
bark matting would have been used in earlier times—and were com-
pletely covered with a layer of sand and gravel. Any leaks of steam were
sealed with more sand, and two large sticks were placed across the pit
234 Chapter 6
to ensure that no one would step on it. The entire loading operation took
under five minutes. Speed was of the essence—controlled chaos—to
ensure that as much heat as possible was retained. Elated, we began the
long wait.
A few of us headed out crab fishing after the pit was set. Pits are often
left for twenty-four hours to fully cook the food, which in the case of
camas helps convert the complex carbohydrate, inulin, in the bulbs to
simpler sugars based on fructose. When cooked completely the camas
tastes like a sweet, sweet potato. Turner’s vast experience with pit
cooking, stretching for several decades among the many First Nations of
British Columbia, indicated a minimum of four hours would be required.
There is always mystery with pit cooking, wondering whether the food
will cook well, how it will taste with the essence of different plants. In
this case, Turner was worried that the Douglas fir might impart too
strong a taste. Pits vary considerably in their construction and purpose.
Different plants are used for the base and surrounding the food, and each
imparts special qualities. Vegetables are commonly cooked in pits, but
so are seafood, fish, and meats.
The afternoon was radiant, with Mount Baker, an exhausted snow-
capped volcano, glowing to the east, and the crystalline Olympic range
to the south. A rising tide changed the shape of the small islands. After
setting the crab trap we headed for Chatham Island to look at a rare
orchid and to show me, the visiting restorationist, the problem with inva-
sive plants and careless activity. Few request permission as they should
of the Songhees First Nation to camp on the islands. We counted several
dozen people preparing for a weekend of sun, armed with portable
barbeques, coolers, large tents, portable generators, and portable stereos.
One of the islands was burned to a crisp by campers who needed res-
cuing; their signal fire got away. Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius),
the bane of local naturalists and restorationists, was evident everywhere.
Broom is a tenacious weedy shrub that closes out most native vegeta-
tion, a fine example of ecological imperialism.9 The story has it that a
Scottish settler, Captain Calhoun Grant, who stayed on Vancouver Island
for a brief time, brought with him a few seeds of broom, and it was from
this germination that the tangle of green originated. Like so many weedy
exotics, its presence is often a bane only to those who can distinguish a
weedy plant from a nonweedy native one, and who care about plant
invasions. For many, broom is welcomed as hardy greenery that sports
brilliant yellow flowers in the spring.
To a restorationist these islands need limits on human practice,
removal of garbage, elimination of invasive species, selective planting
and seeding of plants, erosion control, and intensive work on heavily
used camp and picnic sites. I wondered what restoration meant for Bryce.
If she had been standing here 500 years earlier looking toward Cadboro
Bay, she would have seen the homes of her ancestors. This place has
continuity for her that I cannot understand given my own mobile family
history. Her recollections recover a deep past, but nostalgia is never
enough. The motivation for her and others in the Songhees First Nation
is cultural survival and flourishing. Remember, this luscious landscape
that is home to one of North America’s most desirable cities was once
the place of the Lewungen people, and all of it has boiled down to an
urban reservation, smaller than the average-sized farm in Canada, and
a couple of islands. There is no prospect of restoration in the sense of
returning to some point in the past. Moving to the future depends on
strategic alliances with the dominant culture and rejuvenation of histor-
ical practices. Why are these past practices so vital? They tap into cul-
tural continuity and provide inspiration. The strength of the culture that
thrived here for thousands of years remains protected in the ceremonies,
practices, stories, and lives of people. Bringing these back or guarding
them is the only sure way of continuing, and one of the best ways that
the dominant culture has of learning a different way of being on and
with the land. The weight of Bryce’s responsibility is tremendous. I met
with her after the Discovery Island experience at the Songhees Band
office, a modest building along busy Admiral’s Road in Esquimault,
and we headed for coffee at an upscale café in the adjacent shopping
mall. She moves between two cultural realities, making sense of both and
bringing what is necessary to each. The challenge of restoration for her
is not just in revitalizing a lost practice, but also in convincing people of
the need for maintaining such practices and ensuring the ecological con-
ditions that underlie such activities. The ecological aspects of restoration
on Discovery Island, for example, are critical. Ensuring healthy com-
munities of native plants, including rare ones, will ensure the harvest of
236 Chapter 6
camas and other medicinal and food plants. Restoration would involve
active management of the camas meadows, not to create a monoculture
of camas even if this were possible, but a complicated perennial poly-
culture.10 Restoration might involve bringing people back to live on the
island, not in large numbers, but a few who would watch over the place.
Restoration would make the island more integral, both culturally and
ecologically.
The tide was high after the crab-fishing expedition, and we were
able to beach the boat not far from the pit. Turner had prepared a large
kettle of tea made from plants she collected within easy reach: wild rose
(Rosa nutkana) and thimbleberry leaves (Rubus parviflorus), and some
Labrador tea (Ledum groenlandicum) that she had gathered recently on
the San Juan ridge near the Jordan River, west of Victoria. We built the
fire up again for the crab water. People began to assemble, stirring them-
selves from a snooze on the beach or wandering on the island in search
of botanical curiosities, or just inhaling a perfect summer day. When
everyone had gathered, Bryce offered a prayer of thanks for the forces
that made this moment possible. Two people were given the important
task of pushing away the coverings and revealing the full, sweet steamy
essence of the pit. Plates were passed around and everyone dug in,
loading up with favorites, trying the camas bulbs, which were the star
of the afternoon, and exclaiming how good everything tasted in the way
that only outdoor-cooked food can taste. Everyone present, even the
teenagers for whom this excursion was a somewhat forced distraction,
recognized this was a remarkable event in the continuity of time. Some-
thing old had begun again in a new way.
Ecocultural Restoration
Dennis Martinez, founder of the Indigenous Peoples’ Restoration

Network and former Society for Ecological Restoration board member,
champions the idea of ecocultural restoration, the fusion of ecological
and cultural restoration implicit in projects such as Discovery Island. The
meaning of ecological restoration has evolved from a singular focus on
bringing back ecological integrity to a recognition that both the process
and product of restoration can have salutary benefits for people—bring-
ing people together in the act of restoration builds community, and the
restoration projects themselves often offer educational, recreational, and
scientific value. This view fits well with ideas from diverse commenta-
tors on restoration: John Cairns’s proposal for “ecosocietal restoration,”
William Jordan’s restoration-as-celebration, Stephanie Mills’s “rein-
habitation,” Daniel Janzen’s “biocultural” restoration. All of these,
including Martinez’s ecocultural restoration, push closer the connection
between ecology and culture. Not only are there instrumental benefits
from restoring places, but also presumably the very goal of restoration
ought to be one of cultural as well as ecological restoration. Thus, what
is being restored encompasses cultural beliefs and practices along with
ecological processes, structures, and patterns.11
Recall the expanded conception of ecological restoration presented
in the previous chapter (figure 5.1). With this I argued that as we would
expect, the core of ecological restoration is ecological, comprising eco-
logical integrity and historical fidelity. Recognizing that economic
concerns enter restoration decisions regularly, an additional circle
of consideration could be added that would convert merely effective
restorations into economically efficient ones. Having added such a value
perspective, and realizing that our judgments about the worth of a
restoration project depend on such values, the circle can be expanded
outward to include a host of other factors (aesthetic, political, and so
on). Most conventional evaluations of good restoration depend only on
the core ecological considerations of restoration and not on expanded
concerns.12 Surely economic considerations and public participation
are just two among many possible variables that could be used readily
in determining whether or not a restoration project is successful. Hence,
determining what good restoration is depends on a host of factors, not
just on ecological ones. Suppose we follow Martinez’s lead and admit
that the core of restoration is not just about ecological conditions but
cultural ones, too. Our view of restoration would change to a bivalent
core, and the need for expanding circles of consideration would be
eliminated (figure 6.1).
One of the clearest examples to support this is the one that Martinez
provides of the Sinkyone Intertribal Park in Northern California. The
goal of this project was not simply about recovering ecological integrity
238 Chapter 6
Ecocultural Restoration
Ecological Fidelity Cultural Fidelity

Based on participation +
structural/compositional cultural livelihood
replication language
place
functional success health and well-being
durability traditional knowledge
sustainable economies
regional design
social justice
Figure 6.1
A model of ecocultural restoration that shows how cultural values can share
the core of ecological restoration.
after decades of industrial forestry, but also about restoring some of the
traditional practices of Aboriginal peoples in the region. By restoring
a near-shore fishery, a subsistence economy was being restored, too.
Through management of the forests for sustainable harvesting, an
economic mainstay was being provided in addition to the ecological
benefits of selective harvest. This much has become standard fare in sus-
tainable forestry.13 The Sinkyone project also wanted to restore old trails
that provide historical ties with earlier movement patterns on the land-
scape, and to rejuvenate the harvest of food and medicinal plants. Thus,
the restoration objectives were both cultural and ecological. This kind
of fusion is evident in many restoration projects conducted by First
Nations that aim to rekindle traditional practices and beliefs as a way
of securing cultural sustainability; this was plainly evident on Discovery
Island.
I wonder whether the idea of restoration holds up very effectively in
circumstances where the long-term human connections with the land
are either severed or unknown. Turning again to Jasper National Park
(chapter 1), people used the upper Athabasca Valley for thousands of
years and almost certainly affected the ecological patterns with their
activities. Depending on the intensity of use, it could be argued that
the landscape evolved as an interplay between cultural and ecological
processes. In setting goals for restoration, as much as we might try to
base the work on historical patterns and processes, it is unlikely that
human agency will follow history. Park managers who restore fire to the
valley bottoms might do so informed by inferred patterns of Aboriginal
burning practices, but it is unlikely that historical human agency will be
restored. In the well-known Chicago Wilderness restoration, an ambi-
tious, two-decade-long restoration of extirpated oak savanna and asso-
ciated ecosystems within the metropolitan boundaries of Chicago, new
cultural practices are growing up around the restored ecosystems; earlier
ones might be celebrated but they are not returned.14 The Morava Rwer
restoration projects (chapter 2) in the Slovak Republic depend on the
successful management of wet-meadow function, which in the distant
past was conditioned by routine hand mowing and is now threatened by
changes in human agency, or more specifically changes in technological
practices. Ecocultural restoration acknowledges the ecological diversity
that has sometimes grown because of human activity, not in spite of it.
However, restoration from a cultural standpoint means not necessarily
bringing back a traditional activity, for example hand mowing, but
rather developing ways of matching functional characteristics of former
practices. For reasons that perhaps are all too apparent, returning to the
human past in a literal way is unappealing in many cases. Nostalgia
beckons us to reflect on the past, but the lessons are often painful. On
close examination we find cultural wounds among the ecological ones:
First Nations whose lands have been dispossessed; backbreaking labor
that bespeaks poverty, not elegance; careless land clearing in the inter-
ests of profit and a peculiarly arrogant view of landscape. We need to
know earlier mistakes and also the ways of living more gently that were
washed away by tides of colonialism and industrialism. In human terms,
the past offers wise counsel but no simple lessons.
The price paid for power over First Peoples and the land is estrange-
ment. The connections to place that are bound by respect and reciproc-
ity have been substantially lost, which is why at least to a significant
240 Chapter 6
extent we are able to construct and celebrate virtual worlds, giant shop-
ping malls, cities without centers, and national parks that are more like
museums than living landscapes.15 By creating nature as a category sep-
arate from culture, and by always ranking civilization over wildness, we
have evolved a cultural viewpoint that makes it terribly difficult to create
the conditions of reciprocity and respect.16 If nature is regarded as some-
thing else and we are not participants, there is no way of exercising
responsibility—nature will always fall victim to human authority. The
divide between nature and culture in contemporary Western cultures is
deep and wide.17 With the surge of interest in environmental respon-
sibility in the last several decades, many have made the point that we
need to move beyond a strict dualism, but few theories have been suc-
cessful at inspiring change. A notable exception is the Gaia hypothesis,
originally promulgated by two scientists, James Lovelock and Lynn
Margulis.18 The earth is understood as a self-organizing system in which
life can take place. We are, as individuals and as a species, organisms
that are part of a larger organism. The intuitive and metaphorical appeal
of such an idea is strong, and it has begun to gain hold in a way that
may lead to change away from nature as a separate estate. Restoration
pushes against this line by implicating human practice and participation
inside ecological processes. A restored ecosystem is usually hard to sep-
arate from the human participation that went into its making. If eco-
logical restoration exists only to perpetuate the separate estates of nature
and culture, it will not break the pattern. What is inspiring about restora-
tion is that it does change the pattern under the right conditions.
I find the idea of ecocultural restoration appealing but not ultimately
compelling. It has tremendous heuristic power in highlighting cultural
practices and values. In the end the term itself leaves me cold in the same
way that so many neologisms do. I want something plainer, more earthy,
to describe desirable restoration practice. And again, the concept of
restoration proves confounding. In cultural terms, is it restoration we
want or something akin to regeneration or rejuvenation? It is far from
clear in many instances that we would want to return in a rigorous way
to many prior cultural practices. In what follows I present a case for
focal restoration, a sympathetic alternative to ecocultural restoration. To
focus on something means to give it concerted attention, to comprehend
that thing in its own right, and to understand how it fits within a larger
social setting. The word thing has a special technical meaning for
Borgmann, and always seems to trip up the first-time reader. A thing is
something situated in a social history such that an individual, or a group
of people, have cultural commerce with that thing. The thing achieves
substantial meaning from its particular setting and the traditions that
surround it. A device, on the other hand, exists almost exclusively outside
of any particular setting. Focal restoration is distinguished from techno-
logical restoration and by invoking bodily and social engagement with
place, restores as well as creates meaning. The value of restoration resides
substantially although not exclusively with process, and the process
properly conceived brings people to a new, enlightened awareness of
human relations with place. Instead of restoring culture in a literal sense,
which I think has limited application, cultural practices and beliefs are
being reconfigured and generated anew to reflect the character—histor-
ical, literal, and metaphorical—of a place.
Focal Restoration
If ecological restoration is threatened by a growing tendency toward

technological restoration, and the underlying pattern is explained by
the device paradigm and reinforced by a colonization of the imagina-
tion (chapter 5), then the prescription is focality. The device paradigm
describes a systematic transformation of focal things—things that matter
to us—into machinery and commodities that are largely stripped of con-
tinuity and presence. The rise of this pattern, Albert Borgmann argues,
is “the most consequential event of the modern period.”19 It is most easily
visible in the devices that surround us, but more significantly in the
processes, habits, mindsets, ways of living, and systems that populate our
lives. The spread of the paradigm is the story of the twentieth century
and accounts for the transition of lives lived primarily in communal
settings unmediated by technological systems, to our present state of
technological saturation. This pattern easily extends to restoration, both
in the way we are increasingly rendering nature as a conceptual product
and through the commodification of practice. We should not be surprised
that restoration is subject to such a powerful social pattern. At the same
242 Chapter 6
time, we can take comfort in the fact that restoration practice is

sufficiently grounded in participatory communities and hands-on
effort that it can resist these trends to a certain extent. Nevertheless my
worry, which is the worry that animated the writing of this book in
the first place, is that restoration will become increasingly technological
at the expense of engaged, local, grassroots initiatives: restoration as
technofix.
Focal things, the practices that support them, and the reality that
enfolds are critical in orienting us to matters of significance in our lives.
Thus, it is not simply the focal things and practices that matter, but also
the extent to which they place the rest of our lives in perspective. The
challenge is to develop effective, resilient focal practices, ones that when
combined with shared practices and economic reforms, produce authen-
tic communities centered on matters of concern greater than mere con-
sumption. Repairing damage by designing interventions that reconstitute
ecological and cultural integrity requires treating ecosystems as things
rather than devices. For the ecological restorationist, this entails focal
restoration: practices that create a stronger relationship between people
and natural process, a bond reinforced by communal experience. A
focal restoration is one that centers the world of the restorationist,
expresses the commanding presence of nature, and demonstrates conti-
nuity between that particular act of restoration and other activities on
the landscape. Focal restoration is mindful restoration.
Focal restoration is the antidote to technological restoration. Techno-
logical restoration manifests in the abstract a distinctive pattern of con-
verting a place to a site and thereby forcing a split between the machinery
of restoration and the commodity of a restoration product. What is sig-
nificant in the foreground of restoration is the commodity as represented
by a completed restoration. The phenomena that brought it into being—
professional designs, extensive labor, plantings, excavations, and so on—
recede from view in order to concentrate attention on the commodity.
Foreground and background become increasingly separate, and the
capacity for volunteer restoration, for example, diminishes in the face of
demands for increasingly predictable, professional projects. Action and
consequence are unhitched, too, and this creates problems of respon-
sibility: the greater the separation of an action from direct and indirect
consequences, the more difficult it is to act responsibly. The pattern of

technological restoration is of one piece with the larger pattern, the
device paradigm, that describes a widespread reduction of things that
matter into objects for consumption. That this pattern exists is not pecu-
liar. What is peculiar is that we tend not to see the pattern at work, partly
because it is now so widespread. With the expansion of technological
approaches to life it becomes more difficult to imagine how restoration,
for instance, might be done otherwise. The power of the device para-
digm is what makes me wary of a concept like ecocultural restoration,
which is focused primarily on bringing cultural practices back to land-
scapes in a good way. Ecocultural restoration lacks a critical perspective
that gets to the root of things.
A focal thing is distinguished in Borgmann’s sense from a device
because it has presence and continuity. Something is focal if it operates
within a rich, comprehensible context. All of us experience focal things
as the features in our lives that permit the flourishing of social and bodily
engagement with the world. I used the example of a guitar in chapter 5,
but let’s turn to one of Borgmann’s classic examples, a wood cookstove:
A stove used to furnish more than mere warmth. It was a focus, a hearth, a place
that gathered the work and leisure of a family and gave the house a center. Its
coldness marked the morning, and the spreading of its warmth marked the begin-
ning of the day. It assigned to various family members tasks that defined their
place in the household. . . . It provided the entire family a regular and bodily
engagement with the rhythm of the seasons that was woven together with the
threat of cold and the solace of warmth, the smell of wood smoke, the exertion
of sawing and carrying, the teaching of skills, and the fidelity to daily tasks. . . .
Physical engagement is not simply physical contact but the experience of the
world through the manifold sensibility of the body. That sensibility is sharpened
and strengthened in skill. Skill is intensive and refined world engagement.20
Some have criticized Borgmann for nostalgia—that is, for presenting

paradigmatic images that bespeak a former time. Recall, however, that
the point of his theory is to show the steady conversion of focal or
centering things into devices for consumption. The woodstove was
supplanted by hand-fed, coal-fired furnaces, which ushered in central
heating. Later came oil, gas, and electricial heating systems that offered
a commodity, heat, via an increasingly concealed infrastructure. Beyond
the thermostat, few people have much interaction with a gas-fired
244 Chapter 6
furnace, and certainly few would make their furnace into a hearth in any
profound sense.
Focal things are precarious and require continual nourishment.
Devices that offer compelling alternatives easily supplant them—heat
that is more easily and safely procured with a furnace than with a wood-
stove. Lost, however, is the social milieu that went with wood heating,
and so also is the skill required to operate and maintain self-reliant
heating. Those attentive to these issues will make careful preparations to
ensure that focal things continue to grace their lives once a decision is
made to abandon a particular thing. This requires careful and measured
reflection on the significance of things and awareness of the fragility
of centering forces in our lives. The promise of technology is compelling,
indeed, but liberation and enrichment are rarely delivered without con-
sequence to the things we value. One way of maintaining focal things
is through focal practices, which in effect are the challenging, skillful,
sometime tedious activities required to keep something of value alive.
The woodstove does not work well in the hands of someone who simply
tosses wood in without knowledge, practice, and preparation. One
cannot be accomplished at pit cooking without a steady regimen of prac-
tice that builds confidence and skill.
With the acquisition of skill, there are always disappointments and
hardships that must be acknowledged and reconciled. There are bad
guitar lessons, practices that do not work, and the occasional embar-
rassment in front of others. These must be measured against the larger
and more significant accomplishments and self-realization that come
about through practice. The same holds, I believe, for most things we
value.
Taken together, focal things and practices produce a focal reality
wherein technological reality is relegated to the margins of experience.
This suggests that things that matter to us are given prominence. We
might, for example, use a number of conveniences in the preparation of
a pit-cooked meal, but these would be merely preparatory in the process
of arriving at the focal thing: the celebratory meal. During the pit cook
on Discovery Island, a number of devices were used to aid our work:
lighters, outboard engines and inflatable boats, cameras, and store-
bought snack food to get us through the day. The pit cook did not depend
on these devices. Rather the skill of the individuals who were engaged
with their practice made it work. Most cooks I know, pit cooks or
otherwise, have enduring things that are central to their preparations—
a knife once given as a gift, a chopping block that holds good
memories. These are things, not devices. More often than not focal
things are relatively simple, although this is not always the case.
Focality requires that a thing have commanding presence, which
means that it must not be ephemeral or disposable. For something to
have presence it must also have engagement with a person. A superb
knife may have no resonance with an individual, who may turn
instead to an old, pocked blade that has contributed to many fine
meals and moves sinuously in the deft hands of the cook. A brand-
new, ergonomically designed digging stick, assuming something like this
existed, might be put aside in favor of an old handmade one: sentiment,
experience, and function exist in a delicate balance. Something that
makes demands on us has such presence; it requires attentiveness, grace,
and skill.
Continuity is central to understanding focal things, practices, and
reality. Borgmann suggests that things depend on long-term connection
with the past to take on significance. As we noted in chapter 4, where
continuity was proposed as one of the main reasons for the significance
of ecological restoration, the past orients the present. A cook takes
special pride in a recipe that issues from an ancestor or old friend. The
recipe might have associations with a good evening with friends, or
conjure up the first attempt at creating a new dish. I have a recipe card
smeared with batter, typed by my late mother, for my maternal grand-
mother’s scones. There is always the tingle of memory when I bake these.
Continuity is maintained by the narratives we create to explain our place
in the flow of things. For this, Borgmann proposes, we need to illumi-
nate and guard focal things and practices with the principled testimonies
that come from our creative endeavors: visual art, stories, evocative
writing, and so on. He uses the rare word deictic, which is transliterated
from a Greek word that means “to show,” to describe this kind of dis-
course. I do not need a mathematical proof to explain why a great meal
is a good thing; I only need to recount my experience with that meal and
to have it resonate with others.
246 Chapter 6
Borgmann argues that wild nature is possessed of “commanding pres-

ence and telling continuity.” This is what makes it real. No matter
how much we might try through various machineries of simulation and
enhancement, there is nothing that can compare ultimately with the
experience of reality. Imagine an artificial skiing experience, as Borgmann
does, where a person experiences skiing through elaborate representa-
tional technologies (immersive video, realistic sound effects, and so on).
Even taken to the brink of perfectibility, this contrasts with the experi-
ence of true skiing:
In the higher reaches of a ski area, you find yourself in a beautiful and forbid-
ding world, and at seventy-five hundred feet you are the only charismatic
megafauna in sight. The bears are hibernating; the cats and ungulates have
descended to five or four thousand feet. The trees have been transformed into
snow sculptures. You may come across a weasel, scurrying in and out of the
snow, or a snowshoe hare flitting from one bush to another. Otherwise the chick-
adees in the trees and the crows in the air have the high country to themselves,
a world extending endlessly, austere in whites and blues and, but for the peaks
and ridges, soft and smooth of shape. Skiing down, you dive, bank, swoop, and
turn much like the crows overhead. The world’s center of gravity has shifted to
these high and pristine slopes, and you are the animal that has the skill and grace
to appropriate them fully.21
I find David Strong’s idea of correlational coexistence to characterize

the distinctive mutual relationships that emerge between people and
things very powerful. A thing is enlarged by care, and a person is
rewarded with a more profound understanding of existence and respon-
sibility. This is what happens in ecological restoration when lives
both human and natural are inspired. Correlational coexistence makes
many kinds of restoration into focal practices and places that we restore
into focal things. Ecosystems have a commanding presence, a sense
that there is something other, some would argue greater, than our actions
can control. In thinking of restoration as an act involving narrative
continuity (chapter 4), we are motivated to respect the manifold com-
plexity of a place and work. It is easy to understand restoration in terms
of focality.
The practice of ecological restoration is blessed with many fine writers
who have articulately mapped a view of restoration that connects the
restoration of ecosystems to the restoration, regeneration, or reinhabi-
tation of human values and spirit. Stephanie Mills, in her eloquent treat-
ment of restoration, In Service of the Wild, emphasizes self, community,
and nature. Writing from her unremarkable but deeply loved plot of land
in northern Michigan, she links the restoration of her own spirit with
the restoration of the landscape around her: “Restoration is what lies
before us, but the restoration must be of the whole system, and that
whole ecosystem includes the human self, the personal heart.”22 Mills
also accounts for other restoration projects—the Curtis Prairie in
Wisconsin, Aldo Leopold’s land in Sauk County, the Mattole Restora-
tion Council in California, and Auroville, an intentional community in
India. A common theme is the extent to which the restoration projects
connect individuals and communities to place, or in other words, the
extent to which they involve focal practices.
The story Freeman House tells of the Mattole watershed restoration
is especially instructive. Faced with overfishing, destructive landscape
practices in spawning areas, and increasing genetic homogeneity of
hatchery-raised stock, a native strain of king salmon faced extinction in
the Mattole River. Too much of this kind of loss had taken place and
people in the watershed banded together in the early 1980s to see what
could be done. The obstacles were daunting: to restore spawning and
rearing habitat in the stream, instream and streamside restoration and
enhancement were necessary. This was only the beginning. Siltation from
forestry operations continued to cover spawning beds, which meant a
change in the way forest operations were conducted. A change in indus-
trial practices necessitated shifts in the local economy, and economic
changes always beget social transformation. The technical challenges
were daunting, not least because the project was too small to interest
state fisheries biologists. This left the problem of figuring out ingenious,
low-cost hatchery techniques for dedicated amateurs, who poured
through technical journals. Community tensions among ranchers,
loggers, environmentalists, and back-to-the-landers rose sharply at times
and threatened to undo the work. Twenty years of work is chronicled
soulfully in House’s Totem Salmon. It is overwhelming and inspirational
at the same time, but through it all runs the same message as in Stephanie
Mills’s writing: dedication to place through restoration is a focal prac-
tice that engages individuals and communities.
248 Chapter 6
I recall how my understanding of shortgrass and tallgrass prairies

changed when I helped create the Robert Starbird Dorney Ecology
Garden at the University of Waterloo (chapter 2). My studies of ecology
and countless hours in the field were no match for the knowledge
required to arrange an integral assembly of organisms that would ulti-
mately work together in a fashion closely resembling what must have
once occupied this site. It was humbling to know this hard work
was but a slight contribution to the autonomous ecological processes
that took over the moment planting had ceased. I discovered myself
making countless tiny decisions—for instance, the outer boundaries
of a Monarda fistulosa planting—rooted in the integrity of organisms
and their relationships, and my art. Hence, reciprocity formed between
me and the garden that opened up an appreciation of things that I
had long taken for granted. Ten years and 2,500 miles distant, the
Dorney Garden has left deep contours in my understanding of restora-
tion. In the words of Gary Nabhan, I was “building habitat as well as
memories.”23
A main figure in the conceptualization and popularization of restora-
tion, William Jordan, has written extensively on the integration of
cultural practices and ecological processes. His regular editorial in Eco-
logical Restoration (formerly Restoration and Management Notes) has
invoked qualities of devotion, sacrament, shame, ritual, community prac-
tice, and spiritual renewal.24 Jordan emphasizes that restoration is artful
as well as scientific. Against the backdrop of scientific accuracy, a restora-
tionist is always attending to the subtle business of ensuring that proj-
ects meet broad cultural canons of taste. For Jordan, restoration is a
kind of performance or ritual that points to the possibility of focal
restoration.
Can a restored ecosystem be focal? The answer is yes, although this
must be tempered by concerns about commodification. There is nothing
inherent in restoration that makes it focal. For something to remain focal
it must engage people in some kind of focal practice. A thing is not focal
unless it is maintained in practice. Focal things and practices are central
to reforming of the device paradigm. Thus, the debilitating effects of a
life centered in consumption can be countered by embracing focal things:
things in our lives that have significance through the definition and delin-
eation of context. Focal things and practices help distinguish technolog-

ical restoration such as corporate projects and hyperreal commodities (it
is not proper to call Disney’s Wilderness Lodge a restoration project per
se, but it does indicate a drift toward increasingly contrived views of
nature and wilderness), from focal restoration activities of grassroots
restorationists. In this way I have found the theory of the device
paradigm helpful in clarifying the extent and means of assimilation of
restoration into technological culture. Fortunately restoration continues
to produce a stream of practices and commitments that resist the
desiccating effects of technology, providing hope for the field as a way
of integrating ecological concern and cultural practices. What we need
is not less intervention, perhaps even more intervention. But such
deliberate involvement must center on things, not devices. Focal restora-
tion offers the promise of being a main force against incursions of the
device paradigm into nature and wilderness.
Ritual and Restoration
Ecological restoration is seldom a solitary pursuit; it works beautifully

as a demonstration of communal focal practice. For example, the “Bag-
pipes and Bonfire” festival in Lake Forest, Illinois, developed out “of the
yearly act of burning all the exotics and weedy nonnatives” removed
from the Lake Forest Preserve.25 On a Sunday afternoon in the fall several
years ago more than a thousand people participated in a festival that
includes “family entertainment, period actors, hot-air balloons, food
and drink . . . [and] . . . at dusk, a 100 piece Scottish piping band [that]
emerges from the prairie, solemnly circles the brush pile, and plays
traditional airs.” Karen Holland suggests that ceremonies such as this
are “celebratory, rousing, and filled with pageantry,” and that “they
invite participation by society.” Moreover, “with its bonfire ritual, [the
festival] renews the spirit of a community sharing in the regeneration of
a native ecosystem.”26 Historical connections are invoked and respected.
The strict division between nature and culture is blurred, and people are
brought into closer connection with natural processes and cultural pat-
terns. Communities are strengthened through the gathering of energy and
commitment.
250 Chapter 6
The fusion of art and restoration, such as the artist Barbara Westfall’s
“Daylighting the Woods” at the Curtis Prairie in Wisconsin, turns
restoration into a performance. Restoration-as-performance is more
often than not a public activity, such as the Bagpipes and Bonfire festi-
val or any of the growing number of restoration projects that invite
participation. Viewed as celebratory performances, such events renew
“the spirit of a community sharing in the regeneration of a native ecosys-
tem.”27 Some performances arise spontaneously and others are elabo-
rately organized to achieve specific results. By bringing performance to
scientifically based activities, one can presumably tap into profound and
earthy connections between people and places.28
Some think of such performances as ritualistic and advocate ritual as
a necessary aspect of restoration practice. Chief among these is William
Jordan, whose thinking is substantially informed by the work of
Frederick Turner, a literary scholar, and his parents, the renowned anthro-
pologists Edith and Victor Turner. Jordan urges that restoration should
come to terms with the shame of killing, an essential part of most restora-
tion projects, through ritual. Ritual provides a formal structure for trans-
formation of self and community and for the transubstantiation of
ecosystems. Jordan’s arguments are powerful because they tap into deep
cultural roots. Ritual invokes religious experience, and religious values
and beliefs are at the heart of his program for successful restoration.
My hesitation to embrace ritual stems from wanton use of the word
ritual and also from some of the questionable undercurrents of such a
concept. At the same time, I am enthralled by the connections Jordan
makes between religion and science, spiritual belief and restoration prac-
tice, and also support in limited ways the use of ritual in restoration.
Lisa Meekison and I explored a number of instances of ritual in restora-
tion and compared these with the results of anthropological studies of
ritual.29 Our concern was people who, as Meekison suggested, “liked
their ecology straight,” and would be unnerved by a quasi-religious
practice. Claims have ranged widely, from the idea of restoration as a
spiritually transformative experience such as the Christian sacrament of
communion to the view that ritual is simply regular, attentive activity. In
any case, a simple rejection of ritual risks losing it as a conscious way
of bringing people into deeper participation with natural processes.30
Part of the difficulty in understanding ritual in restoration has to do

with terminological and conceptual variation. Performance has the most
general meaning, referring to any public presentation or exhibition. The
words ritual and rite are often interchangeable. Conventional use of
ritual to refer to virtually any routine activity of special significance to
a group of people has obscured other meanings. Some use ritual to refer
to religious activities and rite to refer to secular ones. Again, the confu-
sion is considerable and such a distinction does not always hold up. Both
terms, ritual and rite, are sufficiently loaded with meaning that search-
ing for an alternative label for intentional, transformational social expe-
riences is wise. This is the basis for proposing the idea of focal practice
as an alternative.
If many restorationists, especially those who view their work prima-
rily as a technical or scientific practice, would look askance at ritual,
why should we consider it at all? Ritual, according to many sources
(notably Victor Turner, who made a long study of the meaning of ritual
and performance), offers a way of examining, expressing, and even
changing relations between nature and culture. This latter consideration
is especially important if we accept the idea that restoration has the
potential of rearranging destructive patterns.
William Jordan has weighed in heavily supporting the role of per-
formance and ritual in restoration. Restoration is transformative if
understood at least in part as a means for connection. He is critical of
environmentalists who separate nature and culture, a perspective that
he warns “turns us all—hiker, birder, and strip miner alike—not into
members of the community but into users and consumers of the natural
landscape.”31 Environmental problems are “rooted in human ideas,
values and beliefs.” Thus, technical solutions are inadequate and
recourse is necessary to culture change. Performance and ritual associ-
ated with restoration offer an alternative by showing us “not only how
to have a healthy ecological relationship with the world but also how to
articulate and celebrate that relationship in a personally and socially
effective manner.”32
Victor Turner’s concept of liminality has inspired thinking about how
culture changes. An activity is liminal, in Turner’s sense, if it occupies
the border zone between two states of being without being either one or
252 Chapter 6
the other. Arnold Van Gennep, for example, proposes a three-phase

model for rites of passage: separation, liminal state, and incorporation.
In the first phase, an individual is removed from everyday patterns where
transformation is difficult. Once removed and in the liminal state, a kind
of limbo, conventional patterns are weakened, dissolved, or rearranged
in preparation for reworking. The liminal state is often difficult, but it
is also a time of considerable freedom and creativity. Incorporation
takes place when the individual is returned to ordinary life in a new
role. This general model applies widely to classical notions of formal
ritual and also to more private and unacknowledged forms of change.
The collective expression of shared liminal experience is what Turner
calls communitas.
Communitas is that exhilarating sensation when human unity
transcends ordinary social structures, the kind of uplift one senses when
sharing with neighbors and friends an afternoon of affirming work on a
restoration project. The conditions can be put in place for communitas,
but more often than not achieving it is elusive and unpredictable. Ritual,
therefore, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for such an experi-
ence. Some speak of change in terms of epiphanies, leaps of under-
standing based on ordinary but striking circumstances. What Turner and
others would argue is that such observations and subsequent change are
made from a liminal condition—that is, when one is prepared to accept
a new way of understanding the world. What is the transforming capac-
ity of ritual? Barbara Myerhoff, an American anthropologist, suggests
that ritual is genuinely transformative but that the change is not neces-
sarily durable. Sustaining change is often the greater challenge.
Regardless of the staying power of such change, to what end is the
change directed? Proponents of ritual in restoration have generally
adopted the view that ritual has benefits such as enrichment, community,
creativity, and liberation. However, there is also evidence that ritual can
have a conservative function and constrain social possibility. It can exert
a powerful normative force on a community, which is often the case with
devout and heavily prescriptive religious practice. And ritual is very
powerful. As both Myerhoff and Abner Cohen suggest, the techniques
of ritual—repetition, costuming, dancing, and so on—can effectively
convince participants of the desirability of the ritual’s purported goal.
This is best illustrated in the authority of liturgy and ecclesiastical prac-

tices of organized religions. Taken to an extreme, such techniques con-
tribute to mind-shaping experiences associated with cult activities.
Ritual, no matter how it is understood, is political. Anthropologists offer
no conclusive evidence as to whether ritual is more often transformative
or normative, or that it should be one or the other. Four factors influ-
ence the outcome: the goals of the people organizing the ritual, the expec-
tations of those participating; the content and style of the activities; and
the context of the ritual. Analyzing ritual from these four perspectives
opens it up and allows intentions and processes to be made clear.
The primary difficulty with ritual, in my estimation, concerns ortho-
doxy, authority, and control. The strategies for restoration are as diverse
as the communities in which they are based. Advocates of ritual must be
sensitive to such multiplicity and ensure that social justice or at least
equity is ensured. The right to perform the rituals one chooses can be a
political issue on a par with freedom of religion and expression. Thus,
questions such as “who participates in ritual and why?” need to be
posed. Open questioning is the surest way of guarding against orthodoxy
in restoration ritual and guaranteeing informed participation.
There are no serious concerns that restoration will be taken over by
unsavory ritual, resulting in undesirable ecological practices. What is
more likely is that some will promote ritual activities in such a way that
will exclude broader participation. At some level this is perfectly accept-
able in the same way that certain religious practices exclude broad
participation. William Jordan’s writings have sometimes moved beyond
advancing secular forms of ritual to considering religious themes such
as the attainment of Holy Communion with nature. In the collection
of essays on restoration and culture titled Beyond Preservation, Gene
Willeke and Jack Kirby both express concern that Jordan is moving
restoration in the direction of an environmental religion. Willeke com-
ments that “the restoration ecologist’s aim is to do nothing less than save
neo-Europeans’ souls. Salvation is accomplished by ritual, which recon-
nects human with nature.” Kirby is sanguine about participation in
restoration and formalized practices that honor connections between
people and ecosystems, but he doubts seriously “if weeding or fire-
tending will save [his] soul.”33 What is most important at the bottom of
254 Chapter 6
this is that coercion be avoided in restoration. People have and will find
myriad ways of expressing their relations to a place, and some of these
will end up being quietly or openly spiritual. Some will be religious. A
principle of open expression is needed that allows everyone to find a con-
genial way of practicing restoration. If it turns out otherwise, that people
begin to feel that their background or beliefs are unwelcome or incom-
patible, restoration will be alienating. It may be true, as many anthro-
pologists have suggested, that there is a widespread desire for myth,
religion, and performance. Whatever the case, it should not mean that
all restorationists should or will be able to express this impulse through
restoration projects.
Ritual and performance are ways individuals and groups can recon-
figure their relationships with place. It is difficult to overestimate the sig-
nificance of such social processes. Moving toward an ecological society,
as is clearly the case with the work of restoration on Discovery Island,
requires a shift in consciousness and belief. To the extent that restora-
tion is a kind of performance, it is prudent of us to understand the poten-
tial that resides within it as regards transformation. If the camas harvest
and pit cook become an annual event on Discovery Island, and serve as
a focal point for cultural renewal as well as restoration, specific tradi-
tional and novel practices that bind the Songhees people together
may become ritualized. Ritual can be a powerful agent of transforma-
tion. And, as Jordan points out, the most effective way to restore
ecosystems is to engage “the full array” of human activities and abili-
ties, including the aesthetic and performative.34 The challenge is main-
taining vigilance to ensure that ritual enlivens tradition instead of merely
perpetuating it.
This brings me back to the idea of focal practices. Even modest kinds
of performance achieve in part the work of engaging people with place
and facilitating change simply through literal practice. Full-blown ritual
is unnecessary in many instances to effect change and secure relations.
I am convinced that the sharing of labor and practice, the fidelity to
regular tasks whether extraordinary or quotidian, is often enough to
elevate the significance of a place. Focal practices are engaging at least
to the extent that they demand attentiveness to and care for things that
matter deeply. Individual focal practices are strengthened and made more
meaningful through collective focal practices. The idea of focality does
most of the work that ritual does, and at the same time saves ritual
for describing focal practices that have a deliberately transformational
purpose. There is an intuitive appeal to focal practices understood by
almost everyone who has participated in a restoration project. They are
unthreatening and open.
Participation in Restoration
There are two main ways of justifying added social involvement in eco-
logical restoration. First, participation in restoration is an added bonus
of restoration practice. All things being equal, if there is community
participation that achieves a strengthening of ties among people and
between people and place, this is an external good. It is important, but
not part of the traditional core of restoration (figure 5.1). It is, in other
words, the icing on the cake and not the cake itself. The second approach
is to locate participation at the center of restoration practice as some
inherent quality of what counts as good restoration. This second
approach is more congenial to the overall argument I am making about
the cultural significance of restoration, but is there anything beyond
merely stipulating that participation ought to be part of restoration? Are
focal practices anchored somehow to democratic politics? Could there
be a political warrant for focal restoration? This was the question that
haunted Andrew Light and me several years ago.35 We reasoned that
ecological restoration has inherent democratic capacity. The qualities of
restoration practice promote community engagement, experimentation,
local autonomy, regional variation, and a level of creativity in working
along with natural patterns and processes. It is the combination of value
to nature and value to community that gives it the capacity to enhance
a participatory politics. What is distinctive about restoration in contrast
to other environmental practices such as preservation is its potential to
build value. Restoration builds value in two ways. First, restorationists
bring back a set of ecological conditions undermined by heedless action
that would not likely recover otherwise. This is in a sense a neutral kind
256 Chapter 6
of value; it is true that value is being returned that would not be returned
otherwise, but it is also the case that in the end the ecological conditions
are merely being brought back to a former condition.
However, there is a positive value, too. Restorations do not happen
by accident but by conscious intention. There is, therefore, political value
created in the act of deciding to restore and through the action of restora-
tion. The value of a restoration project can be measured in part by its
contribution to democratic participation, and the greater the participa-
tion the greater the value. Our argument rested on a distinction between
politics in restoration, encompassing the larger questions about the char-
acter of restoration that we believe to be relatively constant, and poli-
tics of restoration, in which the political conditions vary from one
circumstance to another. Restoration has inherent democratic potential
through its capacity to add value through participation. Whether or not
a restoration project is participatory has everything to do with specific
practice.36
Light has refined these arguments by pointing to the unique character
of restoration as producing something that would not exist otherwise
and arguing that this production is tied to “a participatory act by a
human.”37 Thus, participation is an aspect of restoration that can be
revealed through practice. This inherent democratic potential can easily
be thwarted by unsavory or unscrupulous practice, which is another way
of pointing out that participation is only potential. Commitment and for-
titude are required to maintain community-based focal restoration prac-
tices, and to ensure that the political terrain remains hospitable for this
more embracing view of restoration. Thinking of restorations as focal
practices is the surest way of maintaining such openness.
To ignore the political significance of restoration is to underestimate
its power and potential by giving too much importance to restoration as
a technical practice. The politics of and in restoration reveal much deeper
currents of human social practice, so deep indeed that restoration stands
alone as an environmental activity. The kind of engagement that comes
of restoration-as-focal-practice builds lasting ties to the land that are
stronger than those possible with many other forms of environmental
action. This is obviously a contentious claim, and it is not intended
to diminish the significance of habitat protection, park creation, and
various kinds of preservation activities. These are crucial, but they do

not build constituency in the way hands-on involvement can. A few select
activists—those who give their lives literally and figuratively to a place
or those who are involved in the nitty-gritty challenges of saving a piece
of land threatened by development—feel the engagement that extends
between people and place. The commodification of the environmental
movement generally, which has produced endless requests for cash dona-
tions instead of local commitment, as well as the belief that environ-
mental problems are merely economic problems in a different guise, have
diminished involvement or turned it into yet another aspect of cultural
hyperactivity.
The conclusion from the earlier discussion of ritual and now partici-
pation in restoration is that social engagement is a vital part of restora-
tion and not merely an afterthought. Since restoration has inherent
democratic potential, careful attention is needed to ensure that the
politics of restoration affirms this. The obligation is more significant:
restoration must be conceived in a way that makes the connections
between culture and ecology, people and place, prominent. The best way
of accomplishing this is, I believe, through the recognition and enlarge-
ment of focal practices, not only to advance restoration in an ecocultural
fashion but also to provide a counterforce to the withering forces of the
device paradigm. Borgmann’s theory of the device paradigm is a com-
pelling account of the social, political, economic, and moral crisis in con-
temporary life. We risk losing the ends of good citizenship, justice, and
a healthy planet because of overreliance on consumption. This pattern
is evident intuitively, but as a pervasive pattern it eludes easy detection.
Recognizing debilitating consequences now and in the future for eco-
logical restoration connects restoration to the need for wider reform.38
Thus, developing focal restoration is one piece within the larger reform
of the device paradigm. It is an especially significant one, given the
unique potential of restoration as regards the regeneration of positive
human practices together with ecological processes.
Are focal practices sufficient for the reform of the device paradigm?
In particular, if we accept the implications of the device paradigm for
ecological restoration through the commodification of nature and prac-
tice, then engagement with focal things (ecosystems) is the best place to
258 Chapter 6
begin a concerted program of reform. Change must begin with individ-

uals (re)appropriating things that matter in their lives and developing
practices that uphold and protect the significance of these things.
Borgmann wants us to undertake two important challenges: first, to
clarify our understanding of things that have final significance, a list
comprising widely agreeable civic, physical, and character virtues;
and second, to acknowledge the way things serve clearly and unam-
biguously as the center of our lives. The next stage of reform involves
the translation of personal focal practices to a civic level. Communal
focal practices—athletic gatherings, public events, participation in local
decision making—are not merely an aggregation of individual practices,
but an awareness of the importance of maintaining a vital communal
life.
There is a third and final stage that involves the establishment of a
two-tier economic system. At one level is an artisanal economy com-
prising locally autonomous practices. At the other would be economic
institutions that would produce desirable goods deemed too complicated
and intensive to be produced through decentralized processes. By this,
Borgmann means consumable goods such as refrigerators, automobiles,
computers, and so on. Governmental actions to encourage an artisanal
sector would also lessen the grip of large industrial activity. People
committed increasingly to focality and against the device paradigm
would resist as much as possible the use of culturally and ecologically
destructive goods. Pragmatic choices would be made to lessen our
dependence on mass-produced goods, seeking to use and support local
ones. Ecological restoration would be an important element of such
reforms. By steering away from manufactured nature—technological
restoration—to community-engaged practice, critical new patterns
would be laid down for the relations of people and place. Restoration,
by virtue of a commitment to locality—local seed and plant sources,
labor, and so on—would benefit the artisanal sphere of Borgmann’s
proposed economy.
I have been puzzled by Borgmann’s economic reforms since first
reading about them in 1984. They seem inadequate against the size and
effectiveness of institutions involved in what Edward Herman and Noam
Chomsky have termed “manufacturing consent” in their book with the
same name (1988). The continued spread of television, increasingly

stealthy and inventive approaches to advertising and marketing, corpo-
rate concentration of the media and entertainment industries, and the
confluence of information technologies beginning with the Internet, have
changed the character of the economy. Borgmann’s theory of the device
paradigm accounts for the implications: as the pattern of decomposition
of machinery and commodities becomes more pervasive, the more diffi-
cult it will be to imagine a world other than one captivated by this
pattern of manufactured consent. The manufacture of consent becomes
easier and easier, making it more difficult to resist the incursion of tech-
nology, and imaginative possibilities are narrowed. The result is a hyper-
real economy, and one that is more resistant to conventional strategies
of resistance. In my mind, arresting the device paradigm is a race between
the formation and stability of focal practices, and the manufacture of
consent.39
These dour observations are offset by the endless resourcefulness and
motivation of individuals and communities who remain steadfast in their
support of focal practices; there is nothing, fortunately, that can remove
the possibility of focal concerns and practices, in the same way that spirit
and private conviction survive through extreme deprivation. This is good
news for ecological restorationists who have thrived mostly on local
ambition, experimentation, and humility. The fact that restoration is a
grassroots movement, by and large, bodes well for the near future. What
concerns me is the longer-term trajectory. The warning signs of com-
modified practice within a hyperreal nature are close enough to witness,
and the energy required to steer toward the gentler path is much less
now than it will be in a decade.
Landscape Coevolution
A model of ecological restoration is needed that represents the core prin-

ciples of ecological integrity and historical fidelity as well as creating a
central position for cultural practices, which has been the main argument
of this chapter. Figure 6.1 goes some of the distance, but there is no
dynamic quality to the relationship that shows how this interaction
between people and nature changes over time and in turn affects the
260 Chapter 6
landscape. An effective model must show the dynamic qualities of land-

scapes and acknowledge that what makes a landscape is a continual
interplay between human activities and ecological processes. Human par-
ticipation in landscapes also changes over time in response to shifting
values about appropriate action. Hence, the perception of good restora-
tion changes despite being anchored to core concepts such as integrity
and fidelity. Even more daunting is the notion that in twenty-five or fifty
years, restoration may no longer map onto contemporary meaning. This
evolution in perception is not itself a bad thing. In fact, it is critical that
change take place to respond to the changing landscape itself. The
degrading forces of the device paradigm will continue to have an impact,
as will other corrosive forces, and effective resistance lies in knowing that
change is both possible and inevitable. Human agency is not only impor-
tant in bringing about change that is sustainable and salutary, but such
involvement is necessary. Ecological restoration depends on participa-
tion. One note of caution: the fact that restoration builds community
and thus is valuable does not lessen the need for the critical practice
of preservation and any associated management efforts that may be
necessary. In the areas where we have done damage and in those we
choose to inhabit, restoration offers a way of connecting and recon-
necting with natural processes. Gary Nabhan suggests that “the entire
continent was not a Garden of Eden cultivated or hunted by Native
Americans, nor was it all pristine. Many large tracts of the North
American continent remained beyond the influence of human cultures
and should remain so.”40
Underlying my thinking about restoration, then, is the notion of land-
scape evolution.41 Landscapes change in response to cultural and eco-
logical processes. Over sufficiently long periods of time, the length of
which varies widely depending on the ecosystem in question, landscapes
evolve to fit new conditions. If human practices are part of this change
without overwhelming them, this can be said to be coevolution. From a
cultural perspective, coevolution implies a reflective process of learning
in response to shifting ecological conditions and cultural values. The
model I propose is place based (figure 6.2). Any given place changes over
time as a combined function of cultural and ecological processes.
Narrative continuity is assumed from the past to the future. To act
Landscape Evolution
Ecological Cultural
future imagination
Present
Cultural Reference
reflection conditions
Time
Ecological Cultural
history memory
Cu
ulture Ecology
Figure 6.2
A model of landscape evolution showing how ecology and culture are knitted
together through time. Historical knowledge is translated into the present
through cultural reflection and knowledge of reference conditions, allowing us
to make sense of the future.
262 Chapter 6
effectively in restoring something for the future, we must take account

of cultural memory and ecological history. These two kinds of knowl-
edge, which have now been brought together by environmental histori-
ans but remain in large measure separate for many people, must be
understood together. In the present, knowledge of the past combines to
provide an understanding of ecological reference conditions as well as
reflection on cultural practices: how they have changed, how they need
to change. In the future, of course, is cultural imagination—that is, the
free play of possibility, or what the landscape can be like. This knowl-
edge must be tempered by knowing what is likely to happen to the land-
scape under various conditions. This general model brings together the
main ideas I have presented so far: ecological integrity, historical fidelity,
historicity, narrative continuity, reference conditions, and cultural value.
Beyond this, it also imbeds the idea of focal practice by virtue of its
unapologetic rootedness in place. Wrapping the cultural and ecological
strands together asserts the connection to specific places, and this in turn
enlarges the prospect of focal things, practices, and reality.
On that perfectly sunny July day on Discovery Island I glimpsed the

future of ecological restoration, one that makes the regeneration of cul-
tural tradition contingent on ecological tradition. Harvesting camas may
not prove more than a symbolic practice that binds the present commu-
nity with the past, although we must not be so certain. Who knows?—
Cheryl Bryce and her colleagues may well find a specialty and local
market for camas and reconnect with a much older economic tradition.
Traditional foods are considered much healthier than modern fast food
diets. In this sense, restoration may contribute not only to ecological
health but directly to human health, too. Such reconnection, whether
symbolic or economic, makes possible the respect and understanding
necessary to love a place thoroughly. Restoration-as-focal-practice gives
place significance in our lives and gives prominence to the things
that matter outside of restoration. We are doubly blessed by the act of
restoration.
The plight of the Songhees First Nation (Lekwungen) and many other
First Nations in British Columbia is serious. Resisting at least two cen-
turies of colonization, struggling for legal definition in the treaty process,
and balancing the need of tradition with the demands of contemporary

life is an ongoing fight. It is presumptuous of me to express a vision, but
I hope that in ten or twenty or a hundred years, cultural and climate
change notwithstanding, Bryce’s relatives will be harvesting the rich
camas meadows of Discovery Island and looking back on the restorative
moment in the summer of 2000 when the possibility became real. And
I hope that the rest of us—newcomers—will learn from this. There is
much to be learned from thinking of ecological restoration in cultural
terms.
What I have searched for in presenting a model of ecocultural restora-
tion is a formulation that works widely and not just in the confines of
conventional restoration. It builds on an expanded conception of restora-
tion—the “What Is Good Ecological Restoration?” model in which I
argued that a broader social interpretation is necessary to evaluate good
restoration—by proposing that ecological values must share the stage
with cultural ones. The core of ecological restoration remains ecologi-
cal, but the model also now requires that the core be enlarged to make
room for cultural involvement. This high measure of interconnection
between ecology and culture is necessary insurance for the kind of
restoration that produces positive value and builds support for the
complex lives of ecosystems. Focal restoration achieves this: it resists the
corrosive forces of the device paradigm, instantiates participation, makes
space for ritual if that is what makes sense for a specific project, and
makes absolutely certain that good restoration practice knits together
culture and ecology.
7
Nature by Design
The lessons we learn from the wild become the etiquette of freedom. We can
enjoy our humanity with its flashy brains and sexual buzz, its social cravings and
stubborn tantrums, and take ourselves as no more and no less than another being
in the Big Watershed. We can accept each other all as barefoot equals sleeping
on the same ground. We can give up hoping to be eternal and quit fighting dirt.
We can chase off mosquitoes and fence out varmints without hating them. No
expectations, alert and sufficient, grateful and careful, generous and direct. A
calm and clarity attend us in the moment we are wiping grease off our hands
between tasks and glancing up at the passing clouds. Another joy is finally sitting
down to have coffee with a friend. The wild requires that we learn the terrain,
nod to all the plants and animals and birds, ford the streams and cross the ridges,
and tell a good story when we get back home.
—Gary Snyder, The Etiquette of Freedom
The mind and the body are ruined by too much rectilinearity.
—Freeman House, Society for Ecological Restoration Conference, 1995
Remembrances of Landscapes Past
The curtain between dream and reality was diaphonous one cool summer
morning at the Research Center in Jasper National Park, the place where
this book began. I nursed a coffee on the back deck and smelled the first
downdraft scents of mountain slopes, squinted my eyes, pushed the
present to the edge of perception, and conjured the place a hundred years
before. I basked in an utterly different landscape. Instead of a dense
thicket of aspens, spruce, and fir, I stared straight up at Pyramid Moun-
tain, the largest massif in this part of the park. A few monumental
Douglas firs were visible, as well as some standing, dead trees, waiting
for the next major windstorm to bring them closer to rest. Fires had
266 Chapter 7
raced through the area a decade earlier, clearing out many of the trees,
leaving the characteristic sense of openness that Ross Cox described
seventy-five years earlier, in early June 1817:
We had an extensive view of the surrounding scenery.
The genial influence of a June sun relieved the wintry perspective of snow-clad
mountains, and as it rose above their lofty summits, imparted a golden tinge
to the green savannahs, the open woods, and the innumerable rivulets which
contributed their waters to swell the Athabasca. It was indeed a landscape of
contrarieties, scarcely to be met with but in the Alpine regions of the Rocky
Mountains.1
Over my right shoulder, just a few hundred yards distant, were the
several buildings that Lewis Swift and his family had erected in 1895. I
could hear the sounds of their daily activities—the rasping of a crosscut
saw, or the voices of children. Working the dry land, Swift had begun
an irrigation system to feed the market gardens in the fields a short dis-
tance away. An old trail ran along his family’s side, the west side of the
Athabasca River Valley, the river itself flowing but a short walk away.
Following the trail north and east would bring me to the doors of several
Métis families—the Moberlys, Joachims, Finlays (now Findlays), and
Adams—who had for a couple of decades after the decline of the fur
trade been farming in the valley. Traveling south and west would yield
few encounters with people, just some old fur-trade buildings moldering
away. It was just at the beginning of the period of alpine adventure in
the region; few were coming this way yet.
More remarkable still are the features I would not have seen a hundred
years ago: the town of Jasper; the Dominion Forest Preserve (later,
Jasper National Park), and all its associated infrastructure; the Yellow-
head highway (Hwy. 16); two railway lines; telegraph, telephone,
and fiber-optic cables; oil and gas pipelines; campgrounds; motor courts;
fire roads; tote roads; sewage and water treatment lines; hiking trails
and hikers. None of this existed on a quiet, cool summer morning in
1899.
How you interpret these changes is very much a matter of perspective.
Some will lament the loss of a wilderness. Some who know that the upper
Athabasca Valley was farmed before the park was created will see the
loss of pastoralism. Still others will see a logical sequence of develop-
Nature by Design 267
ments culminating in present conditions, an inevitable reflection of a

wider culture. Irrespective of viewpoint, visible to any keen observer are
both the extent and rate of change. And the changes are mind-boggling.
In less than a hundred years, the complexion of this valley has changed
irrevocably. This is a simple fact we sometimes neglect because of the
incremental quality of the changes. The trajectory is clear so far, but how
will the changes unfurl in the next century (figure 7.1)? Taken as one
piece, the sweep of history ought to incite a consideration of the future
in the thinking of park managers, scholars, citizens, and visitors, or so
one would think.
The problem, perhaps the central one, arises when we try to arbitrate
different interpretations of history. There are those who see a dim future,
a wilderness ensnared by fences and developments, a grand and
greatest-of-all theme park; then there are those who walk optimistically
into a world of greater amenities, carefully designed ski areas, outdoor
hot tubs facing snow-swept peaks, and more opportunities for visitation.
We may call these, respectively, the incarcerated and the cornucopian
futures. Adherents of the former will try their utmost to prevent further
development and to decommission existing operations. The battle will
be tough because the perceived adversaries—amassed capital and the pat-
terns of technological development—are deeply entrenched (chapter 5).
The focus is on setting aside whatever remains intact, and keeping it safe
from hordes of despoilers. Adherents of the cornucopian view believe
with equal fervor that wild places and human visitation are compatible,
that amenities are precisely what make the world better. Yes, there will
be problems, but each and every one can be solved as it arises. Theirs is
a truly cornucopian vision. Its critics see it as shortsighted, financially
motivated, and intent on breaching the limits of ecological integrity.
These critics believe that such a vision for national parks, far from being
cornucopian, is deluded and dangerous.
This dichotomy represents a fundamental confrontation of cultural
values. On its own terms, each worldview is consistent; each has its stal-
wart supporters. Skirmishes will be fought regularly—a road might
be ripped up, the proposal to expand the size of a hotel outside the
town will be granted (when push comes to shove, it seems that the
cornucopians are winning right now). Such confrontations help throw
268 Chapter 7
Figure 7.1
View of the town of Jasper facing north from Whistler’s Mountain. The top
photo from 1915 is by M. P. Bridgland (see chapter 4), and the repeat image
(below) is from exactly the same location in 1998 (J. Rhemtulla and E. Higgs).
The build-out of the town is striking, as are the changes in vegetation.
into relief the fact that national parks and natural areas generally are
shaped by our cultural values. Once realized, that fact obliges us to
acknowledge that cultural values change; they do not tend to resist time
well; like those of us who make them, they are mutable. We do not allow
hunting in Jasper today; we did once. We did not have several million
people driving through the Yellowhead Pass twenty years ago; now we
do. With the current trajectory, certain kinds of development will con-
tinue in the park, although perhaps under much greater scrutiny. That
scrutiny must be informed by a satisfactory understanding of how we
got to where we are.
There is a third way of looking at the future, a restorative one, and
this is the point of this book. By contemplating the legacy of change in
Jasper National Park, we can all imagine a different kind of place in the
future. What if we were to take a different lesson from historical change?
What if we understood the many changes as contingent, as mere points
on a longer timeline? We might then wonder whether it is possible to
make equally large changes in the future, yet do so with greater con-
scious intention than ever before.
I hear often that the Yellowhead highway, a major east-west highway
equivalent to any interstate highway in the United States, is with us for
good. Perhaps it is. Yet there is no reason why, over the course of several
decades and with a change in popular values, the highway would not be
phased out. It seems unlikely now, but who knows what will happen
with transportation technologies? Cars were barely rolling off the dreams
of inventors in 1899, a century ago. Perhaps we will adopt a scheme of
placing all vehicles on railcars for a trip through the park, as is done in
certain mountainous areas in Europe, or of limiting travel within the
boundaries to shuttle buses. Who is to say whether Jasper’s boundaries
will remain fixed? They have shifted several times over the course of
the last century, mostly by shrinking. However, the bold vision of the
Yellowstone-to-Yukon project, with its call for a cordilleran-connected
wildland, and changes in economic activity might create the conditions
for expanding the responsibilities of Jasper National Park and, thereby,
bringing it into closer connection with the working landscapes sur-
rounding it.
270 Chapter 7
The third way of conscious intention is ecological restoration. It

compels us to regard the past and the future with equanimity. The past
provides information about reference conditions, patterns of distur-
bance, and models for healthy activity as well as lessons about destruc-
tive activity. Historical knowledge is used to set goals for the future, goals
that inscribe our intelligence on the landscape. The point is simple: the
future holds dangers as well as possibilities. We have filled the landscape
to this point with commercial activities, park amenities, and communi-
cation programs; moreover, we have inscribed the landscape with a
plethora of human intentions. In the future, as in the past and present,
we will continue to write on the landscape. What kind of authors will
we be?
Our goals will not be perfect. We should aim at the very least for
respect of ecological and cultural patterns and processes. As authors, we
must strive to do our very best work. It is important to realize that people
will look back on our efforts with the circumspection with which we
now regard the work of those who came before. If we do our very best,
then, we trust, people looking back will say that we had the right idea,
that we sparked a new way of thinking about the management of pre-
cious wild areas.
We need to gaze a hundred years into the future and ask what we think
Jasper (and of course other places) should—not will—be like. The image
will be vague and difficult to resolve at first. Because it is subject to new
knowledge and shifts in value, it will change. It is bracing to realize that
we have both the capability and the responsibility to act so far into the
future.
The Ambiguity of Design
We restore by gesturing to the past, but our interest is really in setting

the drift pattern for the future. This is the foundation I tried to create in
chapters 2 through 4. What I have not yet dealt with is how restora-
tionists ought to grapple with the future. I hinted at the importance
of temporal continuity in the landscape-evolution model at the end of
chapter 6, and that a commingling of ecological conditions and cultural
imagination shapes the future. What is missing is a clear statement of
the intentionality of ecological restoration, the fact that any act of

restoration makes explicit our inscription of the future. Every act of
restoration is also and always an intentional reach for what will be or
what might be. In this chapter I propose that intentionality—or what I
later call wild design—occupies, or at least ought to occupy, a main spot
beside ecological integrity, historical fidelity, and focal practices, together
constituting the four keystone concepts of restoration (figure 7.2).
Understanding intentionality in restoration brings the issue of design
into prominence. As restorationists we are involved in the design of
ecosystems and places whether we like it or not. Landscape architects
have worked with this idea for a long time. Ian McHarg’s study of how
to plan landscapes ecologically, Design with Nature, was greeted enthu-
siastically in the late 1960s in North America because it broke with
traditions that took ecological processes and patterns for granted. The
entire river of activity in ecological and environmental design over the
last three decades, whether it be closed-cycle waste treatment, earth-
friendly buildings, civic plans that mandate green space, or engineering
Wild design Focal practices
Ecological restoration
Ecological integrity Historical fidelity
Figure 7.2
The four keystone concepts of good ecological restoration.
272 Chapter 7
alternative energy systems, has reached a confluence where for the first
time we are able to glimpse the possibility that ecological principles will
be taken seriously in civic and private development.2 The Adam Joseph
Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at Oberlin College in Ohio is a
crystallization of this vision. Opened in 2000 after almost a decade of
student-centered design activities and work with some of the top archi-
tects, designers, and environmental engineers in the United States, the
building boasts zero-waste outflow and a positive source of energy for
the college. More than this, it is a living laboratory for students who will
emerge with an integrated understanding of ecological problems and
their solutions. In the words of David Orr, a leading force behind the
Lewis Center,
It is a means to the larger end of improving how and how creatively we think.
In the century ahead all of those who will be educated here must learn how
to: power society by sunlight and stabilize climate, disinvent the concept of
waste and build prosperity within the limits of natural systems—in ways that
can be sustained over the long term, preserve biological diversity and restore
damaged ecosystems, and do these things while advancing the causes of justice
and nonviolence.3
Ecological design is heralded, and justly so, as being a primary way

through the muddle we find ourselves facing at the beginning of the third
millennium. By conscious reflection and intention we make whole what
has been ripped apart, clean what has been contaminated, and use less
more intelligently.4 The promise is beguiling.
The prospect is not nearly so elegant for ecological restorationists.
Restorationists aim their work at historical fidelity and ecological
integrity, in effect honoring the patterns and processes given by ecosys-
tems. In one very important way, to restore is simply to hold a mirror
to nature. Thus, human intention can only be perceived as getting in the
way or giving an otherwise hygienic project a taint. Design in this sense
is an ugly concept. It conjures the worst of our technological imposi-
tions. Some restorationists will argue that the highest goal is self-
abnegation, the deliberate denial of human artifice.
In this book I have tried to show that ecological restoration is a het-
erodox practice comprising diverse activities and intentions; there is no
single, correct approach to restoration but many kinds of good restora-
tion. I have argued that beyond the integrity of ecosystems, history

matters and needs to matter to the restoration enterprise, and that people
and their particular kinds of involvement matter, too. As we walk deeper
into a technological world, restoration conducted as a focal practice that
engages people with places will help orient us and prevent restoration
from becoming another commodity. However, this does not address
the crucial fact that as restoration advances, as more people become
involved, techniques will be refined, efficiencies sought and achieved, and
performance measures documented. These are perfectly obvious ways of
moving forward, at least by our contemporary standards. They are desir-
able if we wish to significantly advance the practice of restoration. Pre-
suming that we are able to forestall wholesale professionalization and
instead ensure room for diverse practice and widespread participation,
even schoolyard projects and community stream restorations will want
to learn from successes and failures. Moreover, the way a project comes
into being, how it is presented, what the construction phases look like
to passersby, how successfully vernacular elements have been incorpo-
rated to make it an enduring part of the local human community, and
the kind of design elements—yes, we will call them that—matter in the
end to the durability and success of a project. Such ambitions clearly fall
into the realm of design. Thus, on top of ecological integrity, historical
fidelity, and focality, we have another suite of concerns. For those who
were queasy when I introduced cultural features alongside the ecologi-
cal core of restoration, envisaging restoration as a continuous spiraling
of culture and ecology, this move toward design is farther out toward
the edge of the known world.
The difficulty lies in reconciling apparently opposite tendencies in
restoration: the fact of intentionality and the independent character of
ecosystems. This is the ambiguity that motivates the title of this book,
Nature by Design. The title can be read as both a criticism of restora-
tion for those who worry that restoration is becoming a technological
artifact, and as a call to arms for those who would fight for restoration
to become a fully flowered practice. My sense is that design is consid-
ered an implicit part of most restoration projects at least to the extent
that plans are required for how to proceed. These plans involve con-
siderable detail in professional contracts, where detailed maps show
274 Chapter 7
engineering and planting features, walkways and access points are iden-
tified, interpretive facilities are laid out carefully, and artists’ concepts
are rendered to give the client and the public a glimpse of the future.
Such designs are taken for granted as a necessary and mechanical means
to a specified end (the end being an ecological one).
I am arguing that we need to take design to another level, a more
explicit one, in which we acknowledge human agency in restoration.
More than this, we need to acknowledge that restoration is funda-
mentally a design practice. Abnegation is not the proper path—we
should celebrate and enlarge our skills and wisdom in restoration
design, not bury it under the patina of ecological accuracy. Besides, no
matter how much we try to attune ourselves to the interests of ecosys-
tems, to bring something back to the way it was, or to honor our rela-
tions with natural processes, we end up exerting some of our will. Hence,
design is unavoidable. The dilemma presented by this ambiguity is not
about erasing design, rather figuring the best way of understanding
design. Is there good design in restoration? How best can we understand
the character, function, and perils of design? Can restoration design help
us avoid the debilitating consequences of technological restoration
(chapter 5)?
To design is to work something out in a skillful or artistic way. When
we think of design conventionally we think of plans, arrangements,
models, and structures that impose a particular image on the world.
While design is not a unified profession in the same way as medicine,
law, or landscape architecture, design professionals operate in a
wide variety of settings: automotive design, interior design, landscape
design, industrial design, and many others. Richard Buchanan, a
central figure in theorizing about design and editor of the journal Design
Issues, suggests that design has shifted enormously in the last century,
growing “from a trade activity to a segmented profession to a field for
technical research and to what now should be recognized as a new liberal
art of technological culture [original emphasis].”5 This more recent role
as a liberal art of technological culture is intriguing. It suggests that
design is a way of integrating an assortment of practices and bringing
these to bear creatively, perhaps at times critically, on technological
matters. Design offers the prospect of reorienting our typical relations in
a technological culture, enhancing the possibility of focal practices

and creating openings for things (instead of devices; see chapter 6) to
flourish.
Design is never able to offer a magic solution to a problem. Think of
good design as a necessary but not sufficient condition for focal prac-
tices. What makes Prospect Park in Brooklyn so remarkable is its capac-
ity for absorbing and gracing so many kinds of public activities. Designed
in the 1860s by Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, it is under-
going intensive restoration of historic structures, designed landscapes,
and woodland ecosystems. I lived in Brooklyn for a year in the late 1980s
when Prospect Park was beginning to rebound from its low ebb in the
1970s. Low on cash and without adequate community support, the
park had decayed from the original vision of a pastoral retreat—stately
forests, great lawns, ponds for skating and boating, and equestrian trails.
To my mind, Prospect Park is more interesting than the better-known
Central Park because Olmsted left sizable tracts of native vegetation in
place—these were worked into an elaborate arrangement of trails and
viewpoints.6 I walked through the park almost daily. It sopped up some
of my urban anxieties and eased the transition from a small cabin on
Lake Huron to the buzz of metropolitan New York. On my frequent
journey from a small neighborhood, Kensington, at the southwest side
of the park I would usually skirt Prospect Lake and Lookout Hill, cut
across the Nethermead to the trail around Quaker Hill, before walking
the entire length of Long Meadow, that vast nearly mile-long grassland,
and out the north end of the park near the Grand Army Plaza and the
Brooklyn Public Library, where I did some of my work. The walk was
a gentle adventure and great tonic, but was nonetheless disturbing to my
ecological sensibilities. Litter was everywhere; scattered around benches
were crack cocaine vials. The ponds were heavily fertilized from an abun-
dance of well-fed waterfowl. Trails cut everywhere through the forested
areas, and weedy plant species were spreading. Most of the facilities suf-
fered years of decay, except the boathouse and a few of Olmsted’s dec-
orative stone arches, which had recently been restored. Most pronounced
was the roar of traffic around the circular road that Olmsted had
intended originally as a carriage road. At rush hour a moving barrier
encircled the park.
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I returned for a visit in February 2000, hosted by Anne Wong, direc-

tor of landscape management for the park. It was a misty, cool day,
expectant with rain. We toured some of the most ambitious projects in
a breathtaking and widespread restoration plan that has occupied park
staff for nearly a decade. Buoyed with higher public and private funding
and with a much-enhanced volunteer program, park staff have restored
The Pools, small ponds that now sport native vegetation and are better
shielded from heedless activity. Remarkably, I saw a great blue heron
at close range, and heard tales of increased bird life. Shortcut trails
have been ripped up and revegetated, original trails fortified, and weedy
species removed, all with the aim of returning some of Vaux and
Olmsted’s original viewpoints. Some of the graceful rustic timber
shelters have been rebuilt based on photographs of the originals, and
most dramatic is the restoration of The Ravine, a small gorge, waterfall,
and associated trails, as well as lookouts and shelters. Here the aim
was to bring the original design back to life, and in doing so represent
the admixture of artifice and natural process. The Ravine was entirely
contrived, but it runs through a section of historic woodland. The
effect is stunning; at once one is transported back in time to a very dif-
ferent era, succumbing to the contemplative elegance of the design and
the grace of an old forest. Prospect Park is an astounding restoration,
beating the odds of urban decline and fusing cultural and ecological
arrangements.7
The designs at Prospect Park, both the original ones and all those that
followed (including the most recent restoration initiatives), created pos-
sibilities for flourishing ecosystems and focal cultural practices. They did
not, however, determine the character of the place; this depended, and
depends, too much on the manifold ecological processes and patterns of
human caring that unfold from the designs. A good design is one that
makes room for these possibilities, respecting the literal and figurative
contours of the place. Good planning, like good design, according to
Lawrence Haworth, depends on openness, flexibility, and adaptability.8
The success of Prospect Park has much to do with its openness to many
forms of life and ecological processes, including ones continuous with a
much older landscape, the flexibility of its structures for diverse activi-
ties that respond to community (ecological and social) needs, and adapt-
ability in accommodating new activities such as drumming circles,

running clubs, fishing contests, nature hikes, and pedal boating. There is
little question that cultural processes edge out ecological ones in Prospect
Park, but what is remarkable is the large amount of ecological diversity
and integrity present in a multimillion-person urban sea. Design was nec-
essary for the restoration and flourishing of natural processes in this
Brooklyn oasis. This is an inescapable verity about ecological restora-
tion, which points us toward understanding the reach, meaning, and
limits of design.
Wild Design
Design practices are pervasive in contemporary life not least because of

the complexity of technological systems and choices. It is no longer suf-
ficient, for example, to design a product by itself. A computer worksta-
tion, for example, can be thought of as a single product for design and
shaped according to available materials, engineering constraints,
marketing demands, and consumer opinion. A new approach to design,
emergent in the last two decades, considers design challenges more
broadly: it is not the workstation per se that is designed, but the user’s
experience with the workstation. The relevant sphere of consideration
now includes the surfaces on which the computer and peripheral devices
are placed, lighting, seating, the visual experience of the user, and myriad
other factors that shape experience. Well beyond ergonomics, experience
is now modeled and designed to achieve specific human-centered goals,
although typically in the realm of corporate objectives, too.9
Buchanan suggests four ways in which design is now deployed:
• Symbolic and visual communication, which includes traditional tasks
of graphic designers, advertising personnel, and similar specialists, is
shifting away from “bookish” familiarity to a fusion of language and
images that is being driven significantly by Internet technologies.
• Artifacts, which includes the design of every conceivable product from
clothing to food to automobiles, are shifting away from the design of
objects as noted above to a consideration of the interaction of users and
objects.
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• Activities and organized services—“which includes the traditional

management concern for logistics, combining physical resources, instru-
mentalities, and human beings in efficient sequences and schedule to
reach specified objectives”—are expanding into how experience can be
made “more intelligent, meaningful, and satisfying.”10
• Complex systems or environments for living, working, playing, and
learning, which include traditional practices such as engineering, archi-
tecture, urban planning, are a high priority.
Hence, design practice spreads across signs, things, actions, and
thoughts, and moves up and down this list to accommodate specific
needs. It is the fourth area, a critical one emerging in technological
culture, which comes closest to representing ecological restoration.
Buchanan writes that this approach to design “is more and more
concerned with exploring the role of design in sustaining, developing,
and integrating human beings into broader ecological and cultural
environments, shaping these environments when desirable and possible
or adapting to them when necessary.”11 Designers need nimble responses
to changing circumstances and particularities, which is why Buchanan
advocates thinking in terms of placements instead of categories.
Placements “have boundaries to shape and constrain meaning, but
are not rigidly fixed and determinate.”12 Categories are more rigid
and shaped within a well-established philosophy or conceptual
framework. What allows designers to be creative is recognizing that
new placements, in effect the possibility of multiple new perspectives,
allow for creativity, serendipity, and invention. At the same time place-
ments are also place—that is, they manifest tradition. This agrees with
constructivist sensibilities that have been current in the last decade or
more, the notion that reality comprises socially negotiated meaning (see
chapter 5).
Functioning well in a complex technological culture requires good
design, and good design depends on a fusion of science and the arts,
the kind that John Dewey called for so clearly early in the twentieth
century:
If modern tendencies are justified in putting art and creation first, then the impli-
cations of this position should be avowed and carried through. It would then be
seen that science is an art, that art is practice, and that the only distinction worth
drawing is not between practice and theory, but between those modes of prac-
tice that are not intelligent, not inherently and immediately enjoyable, and those
which are full of enjoyed meanings.13
Defining good design is notoriously difficult. Here one confronts

canons of aesthetic taste and shifting value positions. This is the art of
design. But there is also a science to the extent that we learn from the
systematic application of different techniques, approaches, strategies, and
arrangements. Good design demands that we integrate across sciences
and the arts, a gulf that defies so much in contemporary institutional life.
Ecological restoration as a design discipline demands attention to
tradition and novelty at the same time, searching creatively across the
spectrum of the arts and sciences for the best way to respect ecological
and cultural integrity. Design specifies intention, meaning that our biases
and dispositions and practical concerns are revealed through design: the
cards are well displayed on the table. There is no sense that we are merely
conveyors of nature, even to the extent that we work incredibly hard to
honor the historical character of an ecosystem as well as its contem-
porary patterns and processes. In the most sophisticated restoration
projects, we do more than arrange material objects; our concern is with
communication, appearance, function, organization (both ecological and
social), and experience.
There are two main problems with design as a model for ecological
restoration. I am worried that there are relatively few examples from the
core of integrated design that take the interests of ecosystems seriously
instead of just the interests of people. This is a serious shortfall, and
perhaps constitutes another “wicked problem” for design.14 The design
literature is filled with examples of better designs for human experience,
but little is available on how design can represent the unspoken con-
cerns of other species. Landscape architects and designers have certainly
engaged these questions, but most of their work is aimed at satisfying
human clients. Restoration pushes the boundaries around relevant design
elements. The ecological design movement that produced the Environ-
mental Studies building at Oberlin College is understandably enthusi-
astic about the integration of human and ecological processes. For
example, William McDonough, one of the Oberlin project’s main
designers, is reported in an interview as saying:
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The philosophy of the work I do is really about community. When we begin

a project, we don’t really think of ourselves as designing buildings, we think of
ourselves as creating an environment for a community. And we start with the
idea of all species in that community. Instead of simply saying, How can we begin
loving our own children, even for seven generations, we ask, How do we love
all the children of all species for all time? In that sense it’s a fundamental act of
restoration and regeneration.15
The approach that McDonough and other designers take is encour-

aging, but the process still begins with human concerns instead of eco-
logical ones. Ecosystems are valuable to the client primarily in terms of
ecological services, and whatever independence ecosystems are given,
say the rooftop prairie that The Gap headquarters facility sports in San
Bruno, California, is a component of the overall design. Restoration
design demands that ecosystems be taken seriously. Despite my claims
that ecological restoration involves the knitting together of cultural prac-
tice and ecological processes, it is the ecosystems that have priority (from
a strictly logical point of view, ecological restoration would not be eco-
logical without the starting point of any project being the ecosystems
themselves).
The second problem concerns the character of design as an outcome
of technological culture rather than as a critical response to technology.
Design, especially in its newer integrated forms, is clearly an adjunct to
technology, and this is made clear in Buchanan’s formulation of design
as the liberal art of technological culture. Such a definition cuts two
ways. In one direction design practice can make things more functional
and beautiful, but is this not paving the way for a further entrenchment
of technology? Judging from the evidence of so much that now
passes for design, this would seem to be the case. In the other direction
design can attune us to critical responsibilities. Think, for example, of
the provocative, satirical print and television advertisements produced
by Adbusters, a Canadian organization dedicated to exposing the
dangerous underbelly of marketing, advertising, and experience man-
agement. In this sense, design can be a subversive instrument, to follow
Andrew Feenberg’s account of how technologies can be turned into
socially constructive, sometime revolutionary devices.16 The challenge for
designers, then, is to make their work a critical practice that simultane-
ously uses the best advice and equipment of technology and resists the
incursions of the device paradigm. Put differently, can design practice
emphasize focal reality?
It seems to me that there is nothing inherent in design as a practice
that would lend itself either to focality or commodification. Much
depends on how design practice is construed and the kinds of values
on which it rests. Buchanan proposes design as an argument that
“moves toward the concrete interplay and interconnection of signs,
things, actions, and thoughts.”17 Design is an appropriate mixture of
core content, usability, and desirability. This is Buchanan’s view of
human-centered design, which he believes can be adapted for ecological
restoration. The primary task is divided two ways: designing the eco-
systems knowing that ecological processes will be at least partially
autonomous, and designing human experience and engagement with the
ecosystems. The attentiveness to ecological matters emerges through core
content in which the designer assigns significance to the ecological char-
acter (instead of usability and desirability) of a project.18 As elegant as
this is, it neither solves the problem that restoration presents for design
in terms of ecological priority, nor does it effectively resist technological
patterns.
The “new,” human-centered design carries a deeper argument about
integration of experience in a technological culture. This provides an
obvious opening for arguments that embrace focal practices—that is,
placements in the case of ecological restoration that emphasize engage-
ment with natural processes. This can be extended to good design being
about the excellence of material culture, as Borgmann proposes. Restora-
tion designs, accordingly, would approach excellence to the extent that
they benefited human excellence and the integrity of nature. Borgmann
writes, “In preservation and restoration, design takes on a both more
subservient and more significant role, more subservient because it
submits to the conditions that history has left it, but also more signifi-
cant because careful design alone can recover historical depth for present
use.”19 Borgmann rests his argument on the idea of engagement to refer
to “the symmetry that links humanity and reality.” When one is bodily
and socially engaged with reality, focal things take on central importance.
282 Chapter 7
Focal things demand attention, fidelity, and skill on the part of the
person, and things develop in character with the attention of the
person.20
Superficiality is what impels Borgmann’s proposal for engagement, or
to adapt his phrasing, focal design. Sophisticated designers concentrate
on modeling experience and on providing a rich, complete adventure,
whether this be the feel of a Web site, the ambience of a building, or the
disposition one has while walking through a restored prairie. Suppose
that you are charged with designing a tour through Jasper National Park
for a group of politicians studying the fate of national parks. Their time
is limited, and the impression you wish to convey is one of transcendent
beauty and threats to ecological integrity. You would integrate the design
of advance material, provide special menus that highlight provocative
themes of ecological stewardship, arrange for walks at the time of day
most likely to encounter either large crowds (threats) or sun puddles on
a montane forest floor (beauty), and make sure that there is some kind
of memorable outdoor experience, perhaps a campfire but nothing that
will tax the energy or suggest true physical hardship (the trick, in fact,
might be to gesture toward hardship, the rugged outdoor experience,
without actually doing the work; this could be accomplished by having
a renowned mountain guide lead a short hike with lots of harrow-
ing anecdotes). Hence, the experience could be designed masterfully to
convey specific messages. In the end, the problem suffered is one of super-
ficiality: you are not truly engaged with a place, especially a wild place,
without being there on its terms, not yours.
The antidote for superficiality is depth. Depth is achieved by ensuring
that a primary professional obligation of designers is nurturing engage-
ment, which comes about through emphasis on personal and commu-
nity focal practices. “The good of design,” writes Borgmann, “is the
moral and cultural excellence of the humanly shaped and built environ-
ment.”21 Thus design is doing well if it can move away from straight-
forward concern with products—form and function—to the manifold
and deep experience of things. This concept of design is compatible with
much that is progressive in contemporary design circles. Design is very
political to the extent that it reflects the ideologies of its practitioners,
and these in turn inspire and are shaped by public response. In a hyper-
active marketplace that depends on increasingly sophisticated image and

imagination technologies, the politics of design is largely conditioned by
postmodern capitalism. At the risk of touching a larger body of debate
without engaging it, whatever the authority and compulsion of contem-
porary capital arrangements, the ideology neither encourages nor sup-
ports focal practice. Fortunately, focal practice remains an intensely local
experience, and one that is not easily co-opted by advanced market
forces. Gardening, for example, has become a gadget-oriented avocation
with a rising number of expert expectations, but in the end the experi-
ence of gardening, of mucking and planting, transcends the distant dis-
tractions of commodities (these commodities, hopefully, serve the focal
practice).
Ecological restoration is the same way. Participation in restoration
encourages focal practice, and the tide of corporatization and efficiency
measures, at least as exclusive or dominating forces, is held at bay. Good
design in restoration encourages such openings. Restoration pushes
design, too. Designers are used to working with the artificial—human-
centered or made objects. Restoration defies this orthodox view because
of natural process. No matter how much human agency and intention
are applied to the practice of restoration design, natural process kicks
in and sometimes takes over completely. What is more, this is typically
desirable. Call it wild design. This goes beyond conventional ideas of
ecological design, which are based typically on ecological services for
human use. There is always some measure, even if very small, of human-
centered interest in restoration.
What, then, can design offer ecological restoration? First, restoration
designs can follow convention, albeit recent convention, in design and
emphasize the experience of the human visitors to or dwellers in a
restored place. The ecological integrity of a site is assumed or ensured
through ecologically minded interventions, much like what restora-
tionists do presently. However, the experience of the visitor is designed
to balance ecological integrity and appreciation. After all, and this is a
difficult lesson generations of park managers have had to learn, animals
and plants do not typically require management. Rather, most of the
emphasis must be on designing experience for the visitors and dwellers
that emphasize long-term responsibility, respectful action, and
284 Chapter 7
contribution, material or otherwise, to the flourishing of ecosystems.

Explicit design of human experience in restoration will improve recep-
tivity to restoration activity and bolster the livelihood of places.
A more radical role for restoration designers is pushing beyond human
interests to meet the implicit demands, patterns, and character of ecosys-
tems. The language is difficult to come by in describing such practice.
We must become especially attuned to what ecosystems want, knowing
of course that ecosystems will never express their wants in conventional
terms. This implies a heavy, perhaps the heaviest responsibility: we are
not designing for ourselves, articulate clients, or identifiable users, but
for the largely silent interests of ecosystems. Engagement is a key to such
practice. Many restoration practitioners have a profound feeling for the
places they work, and by intention—careful planting, well-timed releases
of new species, mimicking historical watercourses—encourage the flour-
ishing of natural process.
I am pushing the traditional meaning of restoration in emphasizing
intentionality and through this, design. Design is a practice that empha-
sizes intention, and good designs nurture individual and community
engagement. Achieving excellence in design means creating convivial set-
tings for focal things and practices, and to this extent design emphasizes
human agency and the relationship of people to ecosystems. The notion
of design can be pushed further, I believe, toward wild design—that is,
the deep appreciation of what an ecosystem requires to flourish, and then
making such conditions possible. There is in such action always an
element of intention, but this is soon overwhelmed by the fecundity and
diversity of ecological processes. We need to acknowledge that restora-
tion is an intervention in natural process; the greatest and most demand-
ing challenge is to figure out how our actions, our designs, can work
alongside natural processes.
In grasping the significance of restoration as a focal practice we ensure,
or at least show how to ensure, a reduction in linear thinking, pure
efficiency measures, greed and shortsightedness. Alas, there is no magic
solution for dealing with debilitating patterns in a technological culture.
There is no singular way to practice restoration that will work perfectly
against the rising tide of development that engulfs natural areas and
threatens also to displace restoration from its roots as an engaged, par-
ticipatory activity. Oddly perhaps, restoration is the best hope we have

not only for repairing damage but also for creating new ways of being
with wild processes. It engages minds and bodies in ways that build
visceral connections to natural processes, even in the middle of cities
and desolate, ravaged landscapes. Restoration is hard work, and for this
reason alone tempers our ambitions; it urges conservation and protec-
tion. It brings perspective to life in a technological culture and suggests
there are other ways of living that are sustaining. These alternative ways
of living will not rise to the surface without some help. Design enables
openings for nature and culture, as one being, to go wild.
Restoration as Conversation: A Storied Landscape
In chapter 4 I made extensive use of the idea of narrative continuity to

show the links between past, present, and future in ecological restora-
tion. The depth of our engagement with a place depends on our con-
nections both forward and backward in time, and the greater the reach,
generally the stronger our connection. Depth depends on more than the
passage of time. Our connections depend on the practice we engage and
on the stories we tell, literally, about our involvement with place, and
how these are transmitted from one generation and group to another.
The ardor and commitment required by restoration practice tends to
ensure that stories will be told for a long time and that these will enrich
the care of a place. Restoration is about restorying place.
In the end I am uncomfortable about leaving restoration at the
doorstep of design in spite of the many benefits that accrue from the
association. Intentionality is critical to the success of restoration, but
intentionality courts hubris. We take the risk that participatory practices
of restoration will lead to a fast-forward, can-do, technofix approach
to natural processes—this was one of my main worries in the previous
section. Even the word design, despite attempts to qualify it for partici-
patory engagement, connotes for the contemporary mind a power over
artificial and natural things. Design needs a counterweight to keep it
honest, some practical model that sticks easily in people’s minds and
remains true to the clarity and directness of design. I propose that we
think of restoration as conversation.
286 Chapter 7
A conversation in the most general sense is a reciprocal exchange.

Reciprocity implies mutual interest. Conversation is typically com-
munication that occurs between two people or among a small group.
Conversation is talking with, not talking to. Conversation also implies
continuity in the sense of bringing together events and ideas from the
past to bear on the present, and sometimes conversations between or
among longtime friends or colleagues have in themselves a distinctive
continuity. Usually conversations have a point, or a reason for taking
place, although this is not always the case with conversations that erupt
spontaneously. A lovely aspect of conversation is that a true conversa-
tion implies a sharing of information, perspectives, knowledge, and
wisdom. If one person gets the upper hand, it turns into an argument, a
fight, or the domination of one will over the other.
In applying the idea of conversation to restoration, I wish to empha-
size the idea of reciprocity between restorationists and ecosystems, and
among science, aesthetics (cultural values), and participation. Restora-
tion is working well as long as there is a genuine conversation between
restorationists and natural processes, which in a more grounded sense
means that the interests of people and ecosystems are both engaged.
Ecosystems cannot speak in any conventional sense, but attunement
to the specific needs of ecosystems allows restorationists to represent
their interests. And a conversation of this kind proceeds only when
the restorationist takes the time to know a site on the site’s terms,
and as much as possible, to let the vernacular conditions shape the
project. The loud, garrulous humans will always dominate unless
specific attention is given to the soft-spoken ecosystem, just like the
attention and respect required of a teacher when there is a shy seminar
participant being drowned out by more forceful discussants. It is a gift
to know when someone wishes to speak and when that person wants
only to listen to the goings on. The restorationist-as-designer must be
skilled at the art of conversation.
There is another, more figurative kind of conversation, the one that
takes place among the demands of observation and experiment (science),
judgment (aesthetics, construed broadly to mean what is beautiful to us),
and the engagement that comes of participation. Restoration practice is
anchored strongly in science, either in the site-specific gathering of infor-

mation or the application of systematic knowledge borrowed from other
projects. We rest comfortably on a foundation of good sense about how
ecosystems work.22 Science demands both experience and skill, which
means that those who contribute this knowledge to a restoration project
are specialists. The risk, of course, is that their knowledge will be all that
matters in formulating a design. Matters of taste and judgment matter
at the very least because we want to encourage support for restoration
and certain kinds of human involvement. As I suggested earlier, design
is directed in one sense to shaping the experience of the people who walk
in or around a restored place. The conversation that might take place
between scientists and professional designers would lead to a profes-
sionalized kind of restoration. In some cases this may be necessary or
desirable, but for most restoration initiatives, the ultimate success of a
project depends on participation by as many people as practically pos-
sible. Thus, we admit the third and crucial discussant: participa-
tion. Together, science, judgment, and participation will create the best
designs, and restoration becomes a conversation.
I finish where I began, in Jasper National Park, a landscape of contra-

dictions, ambiguities, and hope. It is a wild place without being wilder-
ness in the conventional sense; people have been too much part of that
landscape for any people-less notion of wilderness to make sense. Yet
there are vast areas that have likely always been hostile to regular travel
and encampment, places remote from regular trails and shielded by dra-
matic rock and roaring rivers. Even in the main Athabasca Valley, the
zone of heaviest historical and contemporary human use, there are nooks
away from the buzz.
I do not envy the daunting responsibility faced by park managers who
must manage and restore, although I must remember that these are
places held in trust and bear some action by others. This is why so many
citizens have been active in pushing park managers to act on various
issues, from continued visitor development on the inside to the rapid
resource development along the perimeter, and this is also why I have
given my energies to understanding the culture, ecology, and restoration
288 Chapter 7
of Jasper. Such a wild, contradictory place is an acid test for ecological

restoration.
The main question, of course, is what to do? Let us begin with what
not to do: turn away from resolute action. The pace and extent of
human change—whether indirect effects such as suppressed wildfire to
increased trail use—demands some redress. The simple act of packing
up our managerial responsibilities and letting nature take its course, the
old natural regulation model, will result in a freakish landscape far
outside the known historical range of variability for the landscape.
Action is necessary in one form or another to ensure ecological integrity
and fidelity to historical conditions. Fortunately, such resolve is taking
form in Jasper.
Second, there is a need for more, not less, engagement with people.
Certainly it is crucial that human activity be routed away from fragile
areas or those that require healing. And something will have to be done
about the sheer volume of people who want to love the place. Beyond
this, however, the surest way of creating a durable ecologically integral
future is building the engagements—scientific research programs, volun-
teer restoration projects, education activities—that create fidelity.
Ecological restoration, with its intentionality and commitment to focal
practice, makes this possible.
The largest challenge is in thinking into the future, and then connect-
ing the future with the past. Restoration builds on this connection. Once
long-term intention (and responsibility) comes to the fore, the possibil-
ity of design enters, too. We know an increasing amount about past eco-
logical conditions and cultural practices, and these data form the basis
of future action. Models are just that—models of reality. We must not
confuse them with what will be. They provide guidance for conversa-
tions, paint portraits of future landscapes, and bind together our inten-
tions. One thing that must change is the degree of participation in such
decision making. Precious natural places such as Jasper must be open to
involvement by citizens. Some managers fear loss of control, and others
worry that militant environmentalists or wanton developers will seize
the agenda. My hunch is that people who are given a vast responsibility
and provided the opportunity for genuine engagement come around to
a deeper appreciation of the place. There is a better chance of wise
decision making with such participatory processes. Any such decision

making must operate within an adaptive framework, too. Climate
change, cultural values, visitation pressures, and so on will change over
time, and intentions must adapt to meet these major and minor shifts.
With restoration design, the point is not to be an author of nature, but
to create a narrative in which natural and cultural processes can write
the text.
Notes
Chapter 1
Portions of this chapter are adapted from E. S. Higgs, “The Bear in the Kitchen,”
Alternatives 25, no. 2 (1999): 30–35.
1. The town of Jasper and the park as a whole undertook a major campaign in
the 1970s to secure garbage in sealed, animalproof metal containers, a strategy
that great reduced the number of bears habituated to human food. That this par-
ticular black bear found attractive pickings was testament more to the hunger
or habituation of the bear than to the conditions in the town.
2. Since grizzlies are a sufficiently unusual sight and the park likes to keep
track of their movements in the busy summer visitor season, we phoned in a
report. News traveled back to the center and a small cadre of people drove
up right beside the paddock in a van, which drove off the bears. After this dis-
appointing experience, we thought twice before making subsequent wildlife
reports.
3. E. S. Higgs, S. Campell, I. MacLaren, J. Martin, T. Martin, C. Murray, A.
Palmer, and J. Rhemtulla, Culture, Ecology and Restoration in Jasper National
Park, 2000 (available at ·www.arts.ualberta.ca/~cerj/cer.htmlÒ).
4. J. Baird Callicott, Larry B. Crowder, and Karen Mumford, “Current Nor-
mative Concepts in Conservation,” Conservation Biology 13, no. 1 (1999):
22–35 (quote on 25).
5. Information on the Wildlands Project is available at ·www.twp.orgÒ.
6. Ian MacLaren, “Cultured Wilderness in Jasper National Park,” Journal of
Canadian Studies 34, no. 3 (1999): 7–58 (quote on 42).
7. See Thomas Birch, “The Incarceration of Wildness: Wilderness Areas as
Prisons,” Environmental Ethics 12 (1990): 3–26.
8. Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory (New York: Vintage Books, 1996),
14.
9. Ben Gadd, Handbook of the Canadian Rockies (Jasper, Alberta: Corax Press,
1995), 188.
292 Notes to Pages 23–25
10. I draw on a number of historical sources, including MacLaren, “Cultured

Wilderness in Jasper National Park,” 42; J. Urion, “An Ecological History of the
Palisades Site,” unpublished manuscript, 1995; Gerhard Ens and Barry Potyondi,
“A History of the Upper Athabasca Valley in the Nineteenth Century,” unpub-
lished manuscript, 1986; Great Plains Research Consultants, “Jasper National
Park: A Social and Economic History,” unpublished manuscript, 1985.
11. Métis describes a complex ethnicity that refers to people of Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal ancestry, and seldom yields to simple definition. The Métis
families in the upper Athabasca Valley traced their ancestry mainly to Iroquois,
French, and English fur-trade workers.
12. R. M. Rylatt, Surveying the Canadian Pacific: Memoirs of a Railroad Pioneer
(Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991).
13. Mary T. S. Schaeffer, “Old Indian Trails Expedition of 1907,” in E. J. Hart,
ed., A Hunter of Peace: Mary T. S. Schaeffer’s Old Indian Trails of the Cana-
dian Rockies (Banff, Alberta: Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, 1980).
14. Archaeological Research Services Unit, Western Region, Canadian Parks
Service, Environment Canada, Jasper National Park Archaeological Resource
Description and Analysis (Calgary: Parks Canada, 1989).
15. Charles E. Kay, Clifford White, and Brian Patton, “Assessment of Long-
Term Terrestrial Ecosystem States and Processes in Banff National Park and the
Canadian Rockies,” unpublished manuscript, 1994.
16. Edward Wilson Moberly, interview conducted by Peter Murphy, August
29, 1980 (unpublished; original tapes available at the University of Alberta
Archives).
17. Nancy Turner has written extensively on the management practices, espe-
cially as regards the traditional use of plants, of First Nations in what is now
British Columbia. See, for example, her 1979 book, Plants in British Columbia
Indian Technology (Victoria: British Columbia Provincial Museum), as well as
Sandra L. Peacock and Nancy J. Turner, “ ‘Just Like a Garden’: Traditional
Resource Management and Biodiversity Conservation on the Interior Plateau of
British Columbia,” in Paul E. Minnis and Wayne J. Elisens, eds., Biodiversity
and Native America (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000), 133–179.
18. Henry T. Lewis, “Traditional Uses of Fire by Indians in Northern Alberta,”
Current Anthropology 19 (1978): 401–402.
19. Ross Cox, Adventures on the Columbia River, Including the Narrative of a
Residence of Six Years on the Western Side of the Rocky Mountains, among
Various Tribes of Indians Hitherto Unkown: Together with a Journey across the
American Continent, 2 vols. (London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley,
1831); quoted in MacLaren, “Cultured Wilderness in Jasper National Park,” 10.
20. Archival research in 1997 by J. Urion and M. Norton, two members of the
Culture, Ecology and Restoration team, uncovered correspondence in the
National Archives of Canada pertaining to the expulsion of the Métis families
in Jasper. With such documentary evidence coming to light, and a growing atti-
Notes to Pages 25–33 293
tude of conciliation on the part of the park, a process of healing has begun. At
a practical level, for instance, several descendants of the Moberly family were
involved in recent changes to the burial site of Suzanne Chalifoux.
21. I am guided in my analysis by William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis:
Chicago and the Great West (New York: Norton, 1991), in which the history of
Chicago is retold from the perspective of ecological change. The construction of
any city extracts a great deal from the surrounding region.
22. Banff–Bow Valley Task Force, Banff–Bow Valley: At the Crossroads
(Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services, 1996).
23. Jon Krakauer, “Rocky Times for Banff,” National Geographic, July 1995,
pp. 46–69.
24. Of course, such a simple gradient analysis is insufficient to account for local
circumstances. For instance, Banff National Park will always be more suscepti-
ble to heavy use than Jasper because of the Trans-Canada highway running
through Banff and because of Banff’s proximity to Calgary, a city of almost a
million people less than an hour away by car. In contrast, the road cutting
through Jasper will not likely ever be as important as the more southern route,
and the nearest major city is Edmonton, a four-hour road trip.
25. Leslie Bella, Parks for Profit (Montreal: Harvest House, 1987).
26. David Graber, “Resolute Biocentrism: The Dilemma of Wilderness in
National Parks,” in Michael Soulé and Gary Lease, eds., Reinventing Nature?
Responses to Postmodern Deconstruction (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1995),
123–135 (quote on 124).
27. This expression is borrowed from Alexander Wilson’s. The Culture of
Nature (Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 1991). Wilson illustrates the ways
views of nature have been conditioned for the motoring public and suggests that
away from the road, the view often looks very different.
28. D. W. Mayhood, The Fishes of the Central Canadian Rockies Ecosystem,
Freshwater Research Limited Report No. 950408 (1995).
29. L. N. Carbyn, “Wolf Population Fluctuations in Jasper National Park,
Alberta, Canada,” Biological Conservation 6, no. 2 (1974): 98.
30. Rhemtulla developed a technique for quantitatively analyzing survey
photographs taken in 1915 by a Dominion Land Surveyor, M. P. Bridgland, as
well as the repeat images taken by her at exactly the same locations decades later.
She used standard interpretations of aerial photographs from 1949 and 1991 to
register and confirm her interpretations of the original and repeat photographs.
Her methods and results are described in Jeanine Rhemtulla, “Eighty Years
of Change: The Montane Vegetation of Jasper National Park,” unpublished
master’s thesis, Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta,
Edmonton, 1999. Her work, in conjunction with that of this author and several
other colleagues at the University of Alberta, has led to the Bridgland Repeat
Photography project, which aims to repeat and analyze the complete collection
of 735 survey images from 1915.
31. White, a veteran Banff National Park warden and an early advocate of pre-
scribed fire in Canadian national parks, would probably use the word damaged
in place of altered, but I want to resist this expression at least until a convinc-
ing case can be made for why and to what extent we ought to be concerned
about such deliberate changes to the land. On what grounds is something
damaged? My position is not to deny the consequences of intensive and often
heedless human activity, but simply to ensure clarity about how such effects are
understood.
32. Gertrude Nicks, “Demographic Anthropology of Native Populations in
Western Canada, 1800–1975,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, Department
of Anthropology, University of Alberta, 1980.
33. Graber, “Resolute Biocentrism,” 133.
34. Society for Ecological Restoration Official Definition, 2002. Available at
·www.ser.orgÒ.
35. I use the restoraton of the Old State House in Boston, where restorationists
had to wrestle with the proper point of such a task, as an example in Eric S.
Higgs, “What Is Good Ecological Restoration?”, Conservation Biology 11, no.
2 (1997): 338–348. Marcus Hall uses the example of the Sistine Chapel to a
similar end. He points to the problem of extracting a reasonable reference point
when some people were shocked by the bright, bold qualities of the restored fres-
coes in the Chapel: See Marcus Hall, “American Nature, Italian Culture: Restor-
ing the Land in Two Continents,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, Institute
for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1999.
36. Daniel Botkin, Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First
Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 13.
37. Richard White, “The New Eastern History and the National Parks,” George
Wright Forum 13, no. 3 (1996): 31.
38. Stephanie Mills, In Service of the Wild: Restoring and Reinhabiting
Damaged Land (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 34.
39. See Michael Soulé and Gary Lease, eds., Reinventing Nature? Responses to
Postmodern Deconstruction (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1995).
40. Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man,” in Richard Ellmann and Robert O’Clair,
eds., The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton,
1988), 289.
41. There were several of these hotels in the mountain parks owned by
Canadian Pacific Railway, including Jasper Park Lodge, Banff Springs Hotel, and
Chateau Lake Louise.
42. Remarkably few studies have been done on the perceptions of park visitors
that take into account factors such as gender, ethnicity, age, and experience. This
is remarkable because it flies in the face of assumptions about the constructed-
ness of wilderness. We sense that the idea of wilderness is constructed, yet we
have few data to support the claim. More generally, relatively few studies
examine the often-discordant belief systems that constitute the human member-
ship in a park: park staff, workers in the private sector, the visitor industry, vis-
itors, environmentalists, community residents, and so on. Much more research
has been done on animal behavior in parks than has been done on human behav-
iors in and beliefs about the domains the animals inhabit. An improved under-
standing of the way the values of such groups both complement and tacitly
contradict one another is a vital aspect of understanding how the park is
collectively viewed. The reason for this lacuna is partly that anthropologists,
psychologists, and sociologists, key professionals who have a direct stake in
understanding the practices and beliefs of people, have concentrated mostly on
studying the exotic other. Those so close at hand are less enticing, less different
perhaps. Hence, we have very little systematic understanding of what people
really understand about the beliefs of visitors, or indeed about the larger cultural
forces that condition our predisposition to wilderness. Fortunately a growing
number of cultural studies are being done on subjects that bear directly on the
matter of what constitutes nature and wilderness. For instance, in “Simulated
Seas: Exhibition Design in Contemporary Aquariums,” Design Issues 11, no. 2
(1995): 3–10, Dennis Doordan concentrates on the cultural values featured in
the design of modern public acquariums. William Cronon’s edited collection,
Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature (New York: Norton, 1995),
highlights the kind of work we are concerned with. In this anthology, Candace
Slater’s treatment of the contemporary fascination with Amazonia, “Amazonia
as Edenic Narrative” (pp. 114–131), Jennifer Price’s wry examination of image
management, “Looking for Nature at the Mall: A Field Guide to the Nature
Company” (pp. 186–203), and James Proctor’s study of the divergent cultural
values of those involved in debates over the future of U.S. Northwest coastal
forest, “Nature as Community: The Convergence of Environment and Social
Justice” (pp. 298–320), are excellent examples of how cultural studies of insti-
tutions and practices can yield important information about the larger belief
systems at work in shaping parks.
43. The future of Jasper is contingent on policies that are set and implemented
by managers and others. But of course these policies are conditioned by the flow
of capital into the park and the region, the political climate in the headquarters
of the park systems in Canada, international styles in park management, spend-
ing allocations of visitors, changing infrastructure requirements, and a host of
other factors.
44. William Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,
on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798,” lines 102–106,
in M. H. Abrams, general editor, The Norton Anthology of English Literature,
Sixth Edition, Volume Two (New York: W. V. Norton & Company, 1993) 138.
45. Wilson, The Culture of Nature.
46. This section is based closely on the fieldwork and research of Jennifer
Cypher, “The Real and the Fake: Imagineering Nature and Wilderness at Disney’s
Wilderness Lodge,” unpublished master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology,
University of Alberta, 1995, and Jennifer Cypher and Eric Higgs, “Colonizing
the Imagination: Disney’s Wilderness Lodge,” Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 8,
no. 4 (1997): 107–130.
47. Cypher, “The Real and the Fake”, 22.
48. Walt Disney Corporation, Silver Creek Star, 1994, p. 1.
49. Since opening in mid-1994, the Wilderness Lodge has been a terrific success.
When Jennifer Cypher went to conduct fieldwork at the site, she could not
arrange to spend even a single night in the hotel; there were no vacancies.
50. Frederick Turner, Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit against the Wilder-
ness (New York: Viking, 1980).
51. In addition to Simon Schama’s Landscape and Memory, cited above, three
other works stand out in explaining changing views of wilderness: Max
Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1991); Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 3rd ed. (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1982); C. J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore:
Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the
Eighteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967).
52. Richard White points to the notable absence of labor and work in contem-
porary views of nature. See his “ ‘Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work
for a Living?’: Work and Nature,” in William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground:
Toward Reinventing Nature (New York: Norton, 1995), 171–185.
53. Cypher and Higgs, “Colonizing the Imagination.”
54. See L. M. Benton, “Selling the Natural or Selling Out?”, Environmental
Ethics 17 (1995): 3–22; Price, “Looking for Nature at the Mall.”
55. See, for example, Noam Chomsky, Year 501: The Conquest Continues
(Boston: South End Press, 1993).
56. Russ Rymer, “Back to the Future: Disney Reinvents the Company Town,”
Harper’s, 1996, pp. 65–78 (quote on p. 65).
57. Rymer, “Back to the Future,” p. 67.
58. Rymer, “Back to the Future,” p. 75.
59. Jennifer Cypher, “The Real and the Fake,” 1.
60. MacLaren, “Cultured Wilderness,” 39.
61. Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1995).
62. David Orr, Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Post-
modern World (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992), 86.
63. Mills, In Service of the Wild, 17–18.
64. William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to
the Wrong Nature,” in William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground; Toward
Reinventing Nature (New York: Norton, 1995), 69–90 (quote on 80).
65. The seminar that led to the production of Cronon’s essay “The Trouble with
Wilderness” and to the book he edited, Uncommon Ground, was held in
California.
66. David Strong, Crazy Mountains: Learning from Wilderness to Weigh Tech-
nology (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995), 130.
67. Albert Borgmann, “The Nature of Reality and the Reality of Nature,” in
Michael Soulé and Gary Lease, eds., Reinventing Nature? Responses to Post-
modern Deconstruction (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1995), 31–45 (quote on
38).
68. Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild (San Francisco: North Point, 1990),
24.
Chapter 2
1. Jennifer Cypher, “The Real and the Fake: Imagineering Nature and Wilder-
ness at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge,” unpublished master’s thesis, Department of
Anthropology, University of Alberta, 1995. MacMahon uses the term designer
ecosystem to refer to created systems that mimic real systems, the Biosphere II
project being perhaps the best-known example. See James MacMahon, “Empir-
ical and Theoretical Ecology as a Basis for Restoration: An Ecological Success
Story,” in M. L. Pace and P. M. Groffman, eds., Successes, Limitations, and Fron-
tiers in Ecosystem Science (New York: Springer Verlag, 1998), 220–246.
2. I am in a fragile position to criticize overzealous development. Edmonton,
Alberta, where I lived, is home to the world’s largest shopping mall.
3. Cost estimates are difficult to come by in the sense that they have escalated
as the scope of the project has grown and as new information has come to light.
Suffice it to say that the final budget will be very, very large compared with that
of most restoration projects.
4. For these and other details I am grateful for a special issue of Restoration
Ecology (vol. 3, no. 3, 1995) on the Kissimmee River restoration, and to Cliff
Dahm, guest editor of the issue. Readers who want more information on the
project, especially on ecological effects and hydrological characteristics, should
consult the series of articles in this issue.
5. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Central and Southern Florida, Kissimmee
River, Florida. Final Feasibility Report and Environmental Impact Statement:
Environmental Restoration of the Kissimmee River, Florida (Jacksonville, FL:
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, 1992); as reported in Joseph
W. Koebel, Jr. “An Historical Perspective on the Kissimmee River Restoration
Project,” Restoration and Management Notes 3 (1995): 152.
6. For examples, see Roberta Ulrich, Empty Nets: Indians, Dams, and the
Columbia River (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1999); Satyajit Singh,
Taming the Waters: The Political Economy of Large Dams in India (Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1997); George N. Hood, Against the Flow: Rafferty-
Alameda and the Politics of the Environment (Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1994).
7. Clifford N. Dahm, Kenneth W. Cummins, H. Maurice Valett, and Ross L.
Coleman, “An Ecosystem View of the Restoration of the Kissimmee River,”
Restoration and Management Notes 3 (1995): 225.
8. Fortunately, this project and others along the Morava River have been doc-
umented in J. Seffer, and V. Stanova, eds., Morava River Floodplain Meadows—
Importance, Restoration and Management (Bratislava: DAPHNE, Centre for
Applied Ecology, 1999).
9. For example, see Robert S. Dorney, “The Mini-Ecosystem: A Natural Alter-
native to Urban Landscaping,” Landscape Architecture Canada 3 (1977): 56–62;
Dorney, “An Emerging Frontier for Native Plant Conservation,” Wildflower 2
(1986): 30–35; and his posthumous book, The Professional Practice of Envi-
ronmental Management (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1989).
10. Eric Higgs, “A Life in Restoration: Robert Starbird Dorney 1928–1987,”
Restoration and Management Notes 12 (1993) 144–147.
11. Dorney was an inveterate tinkerer who, in addition to producing his front-
yard microecosystems and dozens of restoration installations, spent his week-
ends at a cottage on Georgian Bay in Ontario testing out effective ways of
restoring remnants of tallgrass prairie. He installed a series of plots on which he
used different treatments (rototilling, fertilizing, and so on), and then experi-
mented with using restored nodes of diversity to provide windblown seed stock
to larger patches. This work was done in his spare time, as a hobby. Dorney
found it a way of helping him better understand ecological function and local
conditions.
12. Expect the unexpected in restoration: one of the main participants in the
garden, Larry Lamb, has had good success in using goldenrod plantings in his
prairie restorations. For some reason, the particular strain used in the garden has
run amok, and the best way to deal with it remains a delicate matter.
13. Practitioner-oriented publications such as Jean-Marc Daigle and Donna
Havinga, Restoring Nature’s Place: A Guide to Naturalizing Ontario Parks
and Greenspace (Toronto: Ecological Outlook Consulting and Ontario Parks
Association, 1996), offer clear suggestions for restoration. Scientific/technical
resources such as the National Research Council’s (U.S.) Restoration of Aquatic
Ecosystems: Science, Technology, and Public Policy Committee on Restoration
of Aquatic Ecosystems (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1992),
provide state-of-the-science compendiums for scientists, practitioners, agency
official, and students.
14. Reprinted in Susan L. Flader and J. Baird Callicott, eds., The River of the
Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1991), 210–211.
15. Sperry was the first recipient of a lifetime achievement award given by
the Society, and the annual recognition given for outstanding contributions to
restoration is named “The Theodore Sperry Award.”
16. See Donald Worster, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1979).
17. John Cairns, Jr., The Recovery Process in Damaged Ecosystems (Ann Arbor,
MI: Ann Arbor Science Publications, 1980); A. D. Bradshaw and M. J.
Chadwick, The Restoration of Land: The Ecology and Reclamation of
Derelict and Degraded Land (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); J.
J. Berger, Restoring the Earth: How Americans Are Working to Renew
Our Damaged Environment (New York: Knopf, 1979); W. R. Jordan, Jr., M. E.
Gilpin, and J. D. Aber, Restoration Ecology: A Synthetic Approach to
Ecological Research (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) National
Research Council, 1992; J. A. Kusler and M. E. Kentula, Wetland Creation and
Restoration: The Status of the Science (executive summary), 2 vols., U.S.
EPA/7600/3-89/038 (Corvallis, OR: U.S. EPA Environmental Research Labora-
tory, 1989); A. D. Baldwin Jr., J. De Luce, and C. Pletsch, eds., Beyond Preser-
vation: Restoring and Inventing Landscapes (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1994); S. Mills, In Service of the Wild: Restoring and Rein-
habiting Damaged Land (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995); W. K. Stevens, Miracle
under the Oaks: The Revival of Nature in America (New York: Pocket Books,
1995); F. House, Totem Salmon: Life Lessons from Another Species (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1999).
18. J. G. Ehrenfeld, “Defining the Limits of Restoration: The Need for Realis-
tic Goals,” Restoration Ecology 8, no. 1 (2000): 2.
19. I construe science broadly, which is why traditional ecological knowledge as
applied to restoration could be restoration ecology.
20. E. S. Higgs, “Expanding the Scope of Restoration Ecology,” Restoration
Ecology 2 (1994): 137–146.
21. The administrative offices of the Society for Ecological Restoration were
shifted to Tucson, Arizona, in 1999.
22. Most of the historical notes are contained in chapter 6, “Learning Restora-
tion,” in Stephanie Mills, In Service of the Wild, 113–142.
23. Robert E. Grese, “Historical Perspectives on Designing with Nature,” in
H. Glenn Hughes and Thomas M. Bonnicksen, eds., Restoration ’89: The New
Management Challenge, Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the Society
for Ecological Restoration, Madison, Wisconsin, 1998), 43–44; Dave Egan,
“Historic Inititiatives in Ecological Restoration,” Restoration and Management
Notes 8, no. 2 (1990): 83.
24. A number of restorationists have pieced together personal accounts of the
development of restoration or highlights of restoration history, but few have
taken on the more ambitious historical project of situating restoration within
wider social movements.
25. Marcus Hall, “American Nature, Italian Culture: Restoring the Land in Two
Continents,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, Institute for Environmental
Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Hall argues for the general term envi-
ronmental restoration instead of ecological restoration, especially when dis-
cussing history. Both ecological and environmental are presentist words, but the
former is more distinctly a product of the twentieth century. Further, ecological
restoration and restoration ecology are, for Hall, too “easily confused” (personal
communication). I accept his assertion that ecological is less appropriate than
environmental when discussing the deep history of restoration, despite the fact
that even environmental is a term that has low currency prior to the twentieth
century. For that matter, the meaning of restoration has changed over time, which
makes any attempt to construct a linear terminological path difficult. I will stick
with my terminological conventions—chiefly using ecological restoration as an
umbrella term (see chapter 3)—since most of the explanations that concern me
are contemporary ones.
26. Marcus Hall, “Co-Workers with Nature: The Deeper Roots of Restoration,”
Restoration and Management Notes 15, no. 2 (1997): 173.
27. Hall, “Co-Workers with Nature,” 173.
28. Hall, “American Nature, Italian Culture,” 58.
29. This matter is addressed in an exchange in Ecological Restoration and a
reply by the editor, W. R. Jordan III. See J. A. Aronson R. Hobbs, E. Le Floc’h,
and D. Tongway, “Is Ecological Restoration a Journal for North American
Readers Only?”, Ecological Restoration 18, no. 3 (2000): 146–149.
30. The distinction here is a fine one between a view of ecological restoration
that is imposed from a single model, as is largely the case at present, and one
that arises from the confluence of common interests. To think of ecological
restoration as a global phenomenon is already to impose a kind of hegemonic
practice, albeit one that is supposed to have a salutary goal.
31. Quoted in Hall, “American Nature, Italian Culture,” 26.
32. Hall, “American Nature, Italian Culture,” 43. It is also true that many
gardens, strictly speaking, are built in cultural rather than natural spaces.
33. Hall, “American Nature, Italian Culture,” 70.
34. See I. McHarg, Design with Nature (Garden City, NJ: Natural History Press,
1967).
35. Stevens, Miracle under the Oaks.
Chapter 3
Sections of this chapter have been adapted from my essay “What Is Good
Ecological Restoration?”, Conservation Biology 11, no. 2 (1997): 338–348.
1. Wendell Berry, “In Distrust of Movements,” Orion 18, no. 3 (1999): 15.
2. Turning to an American source, the Meriam-Webster dictionary, the results
are similar. There is nothing new that would indicate variant meanings between
the Old and News Worlds, or for that matter anything that points directly at
ecological restoration.
3. In, “Restoration and Rehabilitation of Degraded Ecosystems in Arid and

Semi-Arid Land. 1. A View from the South,” Restoration Ecology 1, no. 1
(1993): 8–17, J. Aronson, C. Floret, E. Le Floc’h, C. Ovalle, and R. Potannier.
Make reference to the restoration of Renaissance paintings and buildings in
creating a distinction between restoration and rehabilitation.
4. Restoration may not deserve the distinction of being a plastic word, accord-
ing to Uwe Poerksen’s description of words that tyrannize language because of
malleable meaning and capricious use, but it certainly is worthy of nomination.
See Uwe Poerksen, Plastic Words: The Tyranny of a Modular Language, trans.
Jutta Mason and David Cayley (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1995).
5. John Berger’s book Environmental Restoration (Washington, DC: Island
Press, 1990) is a prime example.
6. There is tension within the SER as to whether professionalization is a
good move or not. Professional status will raise the profile of restoration but
potentially limit creativity and broader participation.
7. E. B. Allen, J. S. Brown, and M. F. Allen, “Restoration of Plant, Animal, and
Microbial Diversity,” in S. Levin, ed., Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, vol. 5, (San
Diego: Academic Press, 2000), 185–202.
8. Among those attending were Andy Clewell and John Rieger, both former SER
leaders; Nik Lopoukhine, incoming chair of SER; board members Deb Hilyard,
Laura Jackson, and Dennis Martinez; Mike Oxford, future board member; and
myself (future secretary).
9. For an account of the significance of this work see Stephanie Mills, “Learn-
ing Restoration,” in her In Service of the Wild: Restoring and Reinhabiting
Damaged Land (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 113–29, and also chapter 2 of the
present work.
10. On reading this passage Nancy Turner, an ethnobotanist and restorationist
at the University of Victoria, wondered whether this is in fact true or is perhaps
an artifact of our cultural amnesia about First Peoples. In regions such as Cali-
fornia, one wonders whether the human involvement in ecosystems was at least
as pronounced as in parts of England. The difference, of course, is the cultural
discontinuity following European colonization of North America.
11. This is beginning to change, thanks to essays such as J. G. Ehrenfeld’s “Defin-
ing the Limits of Restoration: The Need for Realistic Goals,” Restoration
Ecology. 8, no. 1 (2000): 2–9; R. J. Hobbs and D. A. Norton, “Towards a Con-
ceptual Framework for Restoration Ecology,” Restoration Ecology 4 (1996):
93–110; and the work of the SER’s Science and Policy Working Group.
12. Definitions from the Society for Ecological Restoration were gleaned from
various files and records of the Society.
13. National Research Council, Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems: Science,
Technology, and Public Policy/Committee on Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems.
(Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1992).
14. A. D. Bradshaw and M. J. Chadwick, The Restoration of Land: The Ecology

and Reclamation of Derelict and Degraded Land (London: Blackwell, 1980).
15. J. Cairns, Jr., “Ecosocietal Restoration: Reestablishing Humanity’s
Relationship with Natural Systems,” Environment 37 (1995): 4–33.
16. D. H. Janzen, “Tropical Ecological and Biocultural Restoration,” Science
239 (1988): 243–244.
17. D. Rogers-Martinez, “The Sinkyone Intertribal Park Project,” Restoration
and Management Notes 10, no. 1 (1992): 64–69.
18. Available at ·www.ser.orgÒ.
19. The Science and Policy Working Group, chaired by Keith Winterhalder,
included James Aronson (France), Jim Harris (England), Carolina Murcia
(Colombia), Andre Clewell (United States), Richard Hobbs (Australia), and
myself.
20. The definition, as well as the accompanying SER Primer, which contains
a comprehensive and evolving account of SER policies, can be found at
·www.ser.orgÒ.
21. Elsewhere I argue for the term ecological fidelity, which describes restora-
tion in terms of structural replication, functional success, and durability; see
Higgs, “what Is Good Ecological Restoration?” My intention was to describe
the core ecological constituents of restoration, and to this end it seemed prudent
at the time not to confuse it with notions such as ecological integrity. I still like
the term fidelity because it suggests a commitment to faithful work with
ecosystems. However, ecological integrity has become widespread in ecological
restoration circles; among other things, it was enshrined in the official
1996 SER definition. Andy Clewell has offered a third relevant term, authentic-
ity, which, as he points out, can be neatly subdivided into historical and natural
authenticity. See A. F. Clewell, “Restoring for Natural Authenticity,” Ecological
Restoration 18, no. 4 (2000): 216–217.
22. This points to a difficult contemporary issue in ecology: the extent to which
ecological succession is reversible. Some argue, for instance, that the ancient tem-
perate rainforests along the Northwest coast of North America cannot recover
or be restored following intensive timber harvesting. These ecosystems are simply
too complicated, and rely on too much accumulation of species and relation-
ships, to make any reasonable recovery possible. There is every indication, also,
that system thresholds limit the capacity for recovery; once an ecosystems sinks
beneath a certain threshold, it cannot attain, at least autogenically, a semblance
of its predisturbance condition.
23. Bill McKibben, “An Explosion of Green,” Atlantic Monthly, April 1995,
61–83. A modified version of this article appeared later, in McKibben’s book
Hope, Human and Wild (New York: Little, Brown, 1995).
24. The Moraine Lake story was covered extensively by the Canadian press. The
quote from Ritchie appears in an article by Tom Cohen, an Associated Press
writer; see Cohen’s “Restoring Lake Means Killing Fish,” available at the Calgary
Field Naturalists’ Web site: ·www.cadvision.com/cfnsÒ.
25. M. Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of
Hierarchy (Palo Alto, CA: Cheshire Books, 1982).
26. A. Light and E. S. Higgs, “The Politics of Ecological Restoration,”
Environmental Ethics 18 (1996): 227–248.
27. F. House, Totem Salmon: Life Lessons from Another Species (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1999).
28. D. Rogers-Martinez, “The Sinkyone Intertribal Project, “Restoration and
Management Notes, 15 (1992): 67.
29. J. J. Kay, 1991, “A Nonequilibrium thermodynamic Framework for
Discussing Ecosystem Integrity,” Environmental Management, 15(4): p. 483.
30. P. L. Angermeier and J. R. Karr, 1994, “Biological Integrity Versus Biologi-
cal Diversity as Policy Directives,” Bioscience, 44: pp. 690–697.
31. Aronson et al., 1993, and J. Aronson and E. Le Floc’h 1996, “Vital Land-
scape Attributes: Missing Tools for Restoration Ecology, Restoration Ecology,
4(4): pp. 377–387.
32. The debate between Hobbs and Norton, 1996, and Aronson and Le Floc’h,
1996, “Hierarchies and Landscape History: Dialoguing with Hobbs and Norton,
“Restoration Ecology, 4(4): pp. 327–333, is a good example of how the con-
ceptual sophistication of restoration can and will develop. Joan Ehrenfeld’s recent
essay, discussed in Chapter 2, 2000, “Defining the Limits of Restoration:
The Need for Realistic Goals.” Restoration Ecology, 8(1): pp. 2–9, is
another example of a widening literature that advances the conceptual bases of
restoration.
33. Hobbs and Norton, 1996 p. 93.
34. Angermeier and Karr, 1994, p. 690.
35. This test was inspired the late Alan Turing, a renowned British logician and
cryptographer, who invented the “Turing test” to evaluate machine intelligence.
It consisted of a simple device in which a judge exchanged questions and replies
with a computational machine and a person sitting on the other side of a wall.
The idea, simplified in my explanation, is that the person would judge the
adequacy of the responses provided by the two agents, one a machine and the
other a person; the teletype answers could come from a machine or a person. If,
after a sufficient period and using various linguistic tricks, the person posing the
questions could not tell whether the responses were coming from a machine or
a person, and they were in fact coming from a machine, one could conclude that
the machine had satisfied basic conditions for intelligence.
36. Higgs, “What Is Good Ecological Restoration?”
37. See W. R. Jordan III, M. E. Gilpin, and J. D. Aber, Restoration Ecology: A
Synthetic Approach to Ecological Research (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1987).
Chapter 4
1. It may appear a small semantic quibble, but I prefer the term fidelity
to authenticity in describing the historical goals of ecological restoration.
Authenticity implies a strict adherence to past states—a goal difficult (impossi-
ble?) to achieve in most ecological restoration. In his article “Restoring for
Natural Authenticity,” Ecological Restoration 18, no. 4 (2000): 216–217, Andy
Clewell makes effective use of the concept of authenticity by distinguishing
between its natural and historical forms. Natural authenticity is “an ecosystem
that developed in response to natural processes and that lacks indications of
being intentionally planned or cultured” (p. 216). Restorationists suggests
Clewell, should try to create ecosystems that will meet the criterion of natural
authenticity. Historical authenticity, on the other hand, requires replicating the
conditions of an earlier period. Such exactitude results in artifice. This is where
the concept of authenticity runs into trouble, by placing too heavy a burden on
history. Fidelity urges us to be faithful to history without necessarily replicating
it.
2. As a rare exception, Dave Egan and Evelyn Howell have published a collec-
tion of papers on reference ecosystems, The Historical Ecology Handbook: A
Restorationist’s Guide to Reference Ecosystems (Washington, DC: Island
Press, 2001).
3. By the mid 1930s, aerial photography began to supplant land-based tech-
niques, and the phototopographic methods that transformed mountain survey-
ing just a few decades earlier were now on the wane. M. P. Bridgland’s personnel
file records his dismissal in 1931. I find it difficult to comprehend how a person
with such exceptional qualifications, having spent half a lifetime climbing moun-
tains under staggeringly difficult conditions and producing beautiful, definitive
maps, could lose his job. Had he stuck like a thorn in the side of his superiors
in Ottawa? Was he embittered by the arrival of an era that elevated machinery
above human technique and judgment? Was the Great Depression responsible?
It is difficult to piece the story together, but one reasonable explanation is that
he resisted the imposition of newfangled technologies, preferring the results of
his phototopographic surveys. This may also have been the typical reaction of
more traditional surveyors at the end of the nineteenth century, who were faced
with a choice between retraining with the arrival of photographic techniques and
unemployment.
4. M. P. Bridgland, Photographic Surveying, Topographical Survey of Canada
Bulletin No. 56 (Ottawa: Department of the Interior, 1924).
5. Details are provided in Bridgland’s report of the 1915 survey to Edouard
DeVille, Surveyor General of Canada, dated February 9, 1916, National Archives
of Canada, RG88 vol. 353 file 15756.
6. E. O. Wheeler wrote Bridgland’s obituary in the Canadian Alpine Journal in
1948 (vol. 31, pp. 218–222). This obituary was also run in the American Alpine
Journal the same year (vol. 6, pp. 345–348).
7. S. Zeller, Inventing Canada: Early Victorian Science and the Idea of a

Transcontinental Nation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987).
8. I directed the Culture, Ecology and Restoration project, and from this
sprang the Bridgland Repeat Photography project, which originated in part in
Rhemtulla’s graduate research. The Bridgland Repeat Photography project is an
ongoing research project aimed a studying landscape change as portrayed by
photographic mountain surveys, initially those conducted by M. P. Bridgland,
and subsequent repeat images. At the time of writing, all 735 images have been
repeated from exactly the same locations, extensive archival research has been
conducted to find documents, negatives, and equipment, the before-and-after
photographs have been digitized and placed on a Web-served database, and
techniques are being developed for quantitative analysis of the photographs. The
1915 survey in Jasper was only one of many surveys conducted in the first few
decades of the twentieth century. The additional collections will illustrate land-
scape change throughout the Canadian Rockies.
9. Repeat photographic studies in North America include J. R. Hastings and R.
M. Turner, The Changing Mile (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1965); G.
F. Rogers, H. E. Malde, and R. M. Turner, Bibliography of Repeat Photography
for Evaluating Landscape Change (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,
1984); W. J. McGinnies, H. L. Shantz, and W. G. McGinnies, Changes in
Vegetation and Land Use in Eastern Colorado, report no. ARS-85,
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1991); T. T. Veblen and D.
C. Lorenz, The Colorado Front Range: A Century of Ecological Change (Salt
Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991); M. Meagher and D. Houston, Yel-
lowstone and the Biology of Time: Photographs across a Century (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1998); R. H. Webb, Grand Canyon, a Century
of Change: Rephotography of the 1889–1890 Stanton Expedition (Tucson: Uni-
versity of Arizona Press, 1996). An overview of photographic and mapping tech-
niques is available in T. Reithmaier’s “Maps and Photographs,” in D. Egan and
E. Howell, eds., The Historical Ecology Handbook: A Restorationist’s Guide to
Reference Ecosystems (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2001).
10. J. M. Rhemtulla, “Eighty Years of Change: The Montane Vegetation of
Jasper National Park,” unpublished master’s thesis, Department of Renewable
Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, 1999. Rhemtulla’s research demon-
strated the capacity of the imagery for quantitative analysis by using a straight-
forward if tedious technique. Photogrammetric analysis of oblique photographs
is challenging: perspective distorts the actual spatial extent of particular features,
which means that relative comparison is more easily obtained than actual com-
parison. Computer-assisted analysis will help considerably in the future.
11. We were joined early in our endeavors by Ian MacLaren, a professor of
literary history in the Department of English and also in the Canadian
Studies Program at the University of Alberta, who has made all the difference in
wrestling with historical documents and interpretations. More recently, Sandy
Campbell, a librarian at the University of Alberta with a keen interest in the
Jasper region, and David Cruden, a professor of geology in the Departments of

Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Civil Engineering, have joined the project
as collaborators.
12. F. N. Egerton’s 1973 article, “Changing Concepts of the Balance of Nature,”
Quarterly Review of Biology 48 (1973): 322–350, first encouraged me to think
of shifting meanings in ecology. J. J. Kay’s “A Nonequilibrium Thermody-
namics Framework for Discussing Ecosystem Integrity,” Environmental Man-
agement 15, no. 4 (1991): 483–495, helped push my thinking in ecology toward
new systems theories emanating from chemistry and physics. J. Wu and O. L.
Loucks’s “From Balance of Nature to Hierarchical Patch Dynamics: A Paradigm
Shift in Ecology,” Quarterly Review of Biology 70 (1995) 439–466, describes a
distinctive paradigm shift in ecology.
13. Quote by Wally Covington, a restoration ecologist who is reconstructing
earlier conditions involving ponderosa pine in the Flagstaff, Arizona, area; see
his “Flagstaff Searches for its Forests’ Futu”, High Country News, March 1,
1999, 8.
14. M. Hall, “American Nature, Italian Culture: Restoring the Land in Two
Continents,” unpublished doctoral dissertation, Institute for Environmental
Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 329.
15. This example comes from my article “What Is Good Ecological
Restoration?”, Conservation Biology 11, no. 2 (1997): 338–348. In the case of
the Old State House restoration in Boston, the challenge was in knowing
whether to return it to eighteenth-century provincial condition, or to reflect the
sequential changes made under different ideological and historical conditions
(the answer, in 1991, was the latter).
16. Juliet Schor’s The Overspent American (New York: Basic Books, 1999) is a
persuasive argument for decreasing the pace of life, reducing work hours, and
lowering material expectations. After all, many studies indicate that in the United
States the maximum aggregate happiness was achieved in the late 1950s.
17. E. O. Wilson, Biophilia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).
18. M. Hall, “American Nature, Italian Culture,” 4.
19. J. O’Neill, “Time, Narrative and Environmental Politics,” in R. Glottlieb,
ed., Ecological Community (London: Routledge, 1997), 15.
20. Tim Ingold, “The Temporality of Landscape,” World Archaeology 25, no.
2 (1993): 153.
21. See Barry Lopez, “Story at Anakutuvuk Pass: At the Junction of Landscape
and Narrative,” Harper’s, October 1984, 31–39. A distinction between land-
scape and inscape was explored by the Canadian ecologist Pierre Dansereau in
Inscape and Landscape (Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1973).
Earlier, Gerald Manley Hopkins used the term inscape to refer to “the inward
quality of objects and events, as they are perceived by the joined observation and
introspection of a poet, who in turn embodies them in unique poetic forms.” C.
Hugh Holman, A Handbook to Literature, Third Edition, (Indianapolis: The

Odyssey Press, 1972).
22. Of course, not everyone is sanguine about what happens when a place
develops too much significance. In his book Jungling in Jasper (Ottawa: Graphic
Publishers, 1929), L. J. Burpee describes the perspective of one park warden
from the 1920s: “ ‘I wouldn’t exchange the peace of this Tonquin Valley for all
the luxuries of your noisy cities. As a matter of fact, there are always some people
up here in the summer. What I’m afraid of is that it will become too popular,
when it becomes known what a gorgeous place it is, and then they’ll be build-
ing a motor road up here, and perhaps a hotel’ ” (p. 196).
23. Hugh Brody’s Maps and Dreams: Indians and the British Columbia
Frontier (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 1981) describes the way landscapes
are named and the transformation of oral tradition into mapped representation.
24. This is the gist of the argument made by Frederick Turner in his essay
“Cultivating the American Garden: Toward a Secular View of Nature,” Harper’s,
August 1986, 45–52. He suggests that we grow to appreciate nature not by
turning outward to take in wildness but by seeing wildness in our own places,
specifically gardens.
25. J. O’Neill and A. Holland, “Two Approaches to Biodiversity Value,” in D.
Posey, ed., Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity (London: UNEP, 1999).
26. Ibid.
27. The problem, of course, is that such value is often trumped by the short-
term gains to be made from resource extraction. The Special Places program in
Alberta was largely a failure because of a disagreement over just how much value
rare landscapes have in the face of economic development. For a provocative
account of these and related environmental debates in Alberta, see Ian Urquhart,
Assault on the Rockies (Edmonton: Rowan Books, 1998).
28. Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (New York: Zone Books, 1994).
29. The idea of fakery is important to restorationists, still stung by Australian
philosopher Robert Eliot’s original proposal that restoration is not much more
than fakery: “Faking Nature,” Inquiry 25 (1982): 81–93. His argument is
extended and considerably more conciliatory in his book Faking Nature: The
Ethics of Environmental Restoration (London: Routledge, 1997).
30. We return to this theme in chapter 5 of the present book. It is articulated
in greater detail in A. Light and E. S. Higgs, “The Politics of Ecological
Restoration,” Environmental Ethics 18 (1996): 227–247, as well as in A.
Light, “Restoration, the Value of Participation, and the Risks of Professional-
ization,” in P. H. Gobster and R. B. Hull, eds., Restoring Nature: Perspectives
from the Social Sciences and Humanities (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2000),
49–70.
31. Briony Penn, “Leeks, Racing Pigeons, and Valley of the Bears,” Alternatives
25, no. 2 (1999): 12–13.
32. P. S. White and J. L. Walker, “Approximating Nature’s Variation: Selecting

and Using Reference Information in Restoration Ecology,” Restoration Ecology
5, no. 4 (1997): 338–349 (quote on 338).
33. Exclosures are typically fenced areas that prevent certain ecological func-
tions, such as herbivory by ungulates, from taking place.
34. Try as we might, monitoring is just not very rewarding. Of course, regular
and reliable monitoring is critical to measuring and understanding the fate of a
restoration project, but it is expensive and involves commitments that are often
longer range than the institutions responsible for the restoration and follow-up
work. Everyone wants good monitoring data, but few stay around to collect it.
35. G. E. Likens and F. H. Bormann, Biogeochemistry of a Forested Ecosystem
(New York: Springer-Verlag, 1995).
36. For twenty-two years under David Schindler’s direction, and still going
strong, colleagues at the Freshwater Institute in Winnipeg, Manitoba (the closest
major center to the ELA), associates from around the world, and dozens of
graduate students continued work on myriad projects. Schindler is referred to
affectionately as the “Indiana Jones” of ecology, as much for his science as for
his remarkable exploits. The Royal Swedish Academy of Science awarded him
the first Stockholm Water Prize in 1991 for his contributions to understanding
eutrophication and acidification that led to policy changes in North America and
Europe. Since moving to the University of Alberta in 1989, he has shifted most
of his ecological research to the Rocky Mountains, in Banff and Jasper National
Parks. The mountains of western Alberta gained what the boreal lake district of
northwestern Ontario lost (Schindler does maintain long-term projects at the
Experimental Lakes Area).
37. D. W. Schindler, K. G. Beaty, E. J. Fee, D. R. Cruikshank, E. D. DeBruyn,
D. L. Findlay, G. A. Linsey, J. A. Shearer, M. P. Stainton, and M. A. Turner,
“Effects of Climatic Warming on Lakes of the Central Boreal Forest,” Science
250 (1990) 967–970; D. W. Schindler, S. E. Bayley, B. R. Parker, K. G.
Beaty, D. R. Cruikshank, E. J. Fee, E. U. Schindler, and M. P. Stainton, “The
Effects of Climatic Warming on the Properties of Boreal Lakes and Streams
at the Experimental Lakes Area, Northwestern Ontario,” Limnology and
Oceanography 41 (1996): 1004–1017.
38. D. W. Schindler, “Eutrophication and Recovery in Experimental Lakes:
Implications for Lake Management,” Science 184 (1974): 897–899.
39. D. W. Schindler, K. H. Mills, D. F. Malley, D. L. Findlay, J. A. Shearer,
I. J. Davies, M. A. Turner, G. A. Linsey, and D. R. Cruikshank, “Long-Term
Ecosystem Stress: The Effects of Years of Experimental Acidification on a Small
Lake,” Science 228 (1985): 1395–1401; D. W. Schindler, M. A. Turner, M. P.
Stainton, and G. A. Linsey, “Natural Sources of Acid Neutralizing Capacity in
Low Alkalinity Lakes of the Precambrian Shield,” Science 232 (1986): 844–847.
40. For several years, the Experimental Lakes Area in Canada—one of the
longest-running (thirty years of intensive data collection) and arguably one of
the most productive aquatic and ecological research facilities in the world—was
threatened with closure under severe government cuts. Scientists were marshaled
and politicians were lobbied, but the story has had a happy ending, so far. The
problem lies in convincing people that collecting long-term information is impor-
tant to provide an understanding of reference conditions and to furnish data that
may or may not be critical to future, as-yet-unknown studies. Once this is accom-
plished, there is also a need to defend long-term research against the threats of
short-term crisis or “hot” research.
41. White and Walker, “Approximating Nature’s Variation”; W. R. Jordan III,
M. E. Gilpin, and J. D. Aber, Restoration Ecology: A Synthetic Approach to
Ecological Research (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); the
introduction to Egan and Howell, The Historical Ecology Handbook.
42. White and Walker, “Approximating Nature’s Variation,” 338.
43. Egan and Howell agree: “We prefer this term for two reasons: (1) it recog-
nizes that Native Americans influenced ecosystems at various scales in many,
although not all, areas where present-day restoration activities take place; and
(2) it avoids the use of the word natural, which has been rightly attacked as being
too ambiguous” (The Historical Ecology Handbook, 7).
44. C. Crumley, ed., Historical Ecology: Cultural Knowledge and Changing
Landscapes (Sante Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1994).
46. Further information is available at ·www.archbold-station.orgÒ.
48. Planning for the unexpected is a major theme of Daniel Botkin’s Discordant
Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Oxford
49. The phrase “approximating ecological variation” is interchanged with
“Approximating Nature’s Variation,” which is used in the title of White and
Walker’s article.
51. It is refreshing that in The Historical Ecology Handbook, Egan and Howell
embrace ecological and cultural considerations. Fully half of their collection
comprises essays emphasizing social scientific and humanistic methods.
52. M. Wackernagel and W. E. Rees, Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing
Human Impact on the Earth (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers,
1996).
53. E. S. Higgs, A. Light, and D. Strong, Technology and the Good Life?
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
Chapter 5
Portions of this chapter are adapted from E. S. Higgs, “Nature by Design,” in

E. S. Higgs, A. Light, and D. Strong, eds., Technology and the Good Life?,
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 195–212; and from E. S. Higgs,

“What Is Good Ecological Restoration?”, Conservation Biology 11, no. 2
(1997): 338–348.
1. The case for a reassessment of our understanding of wilderness has been made
from several sides. See, for example, T. C. Blackburn and K. Anderson, eds.,
Before the Wilderness: Environmental Management by Native Californians
(Menlo Park, CA: Ballena, 1993); W. Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground: Toward
Reinventing Nature (New York: Norton, 1995); M. Soulé, and G. Lease, eds.,
Reinventing Nature? Responses to Postmodern Deconstruction (Washington,
DC: Island Press, 1995); G. P. Nabhan, Cultures of Habitat: On Nature, Culture,
and Story (Washington, DC: Counterpoint Press, 1997).
2. See C. Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies (New
York: Basic Books, 1984).
3. C. Taylor, Malaise of Modernity: The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1992).
4. L. Winner, The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High
Technology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).
5. Examples of English language books in philosophy of technology include A.
Feenberg, Critical Theory of Technology, New York: Oxford University Press,
1991; D. Ihde, Technology and the Lifeworld, Bloomington: University of
Indiana Press, 1990; and C. Mitcham, Thinking Through Technology: The Path
Between Engineering and Philosophy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1994. An overview of recent trends in philosophy of technology as refracted
through the writings of Albert Borgmann, is E. S. Higgs, A. Light, and D. Strong,
eds., Technology and the Good Life, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, following a campaign of bombing
in the United States and before his arrest, convinced the New York Times and
the Washington Post to publish the complete text of his millennial screed against
technology. It is posted on many Internet sites. The Unabomber has become a
symbol of contemporary radical anger against the pace and effects of technol-
ogy. A sharp contrast in terms of background is Bill Joy, founder and chief
scientist at Sun Microsystems. Joy’s recent message is dreary and portends a
troubling future: the combination of robotics, nanotechnology, and genetic
engineering, all capable of self-replication, may surpass and eliminate
humanity. See W. Joy, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” Wired 8 (2000):
238–262.
6. Borgmann is a conservative communitarian, which means that he identifies
community as the political and moral locus of society. He finds good philo-
sophical company in Charles Taylor, who has argued that liberalism has
produced a fractured, divisive society rooted too much in the satisfaction of indi-
vidual desires.
7. E. S. Higgs, “The Landscape Evolution Model: A Case for a Paradigmatic
View of Technology,” Technology in Society 12 (1990): 479–505.
8. D. Strong, Crazy Mountains: Learning from Wilderness to Weigh Technol-

ogy (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995), 86.
9. U. Franklin, The Real World of Technology, rev. ed. (Toronto: House of
Anansi Press, 1999), 2–3.
10. Central to Borgmann’s theory of the device paradigm is the idea that our
knowledge systems support the scientific model of induction and deduction at
the expense of testimonial (storied) and patterned knowledge. The conundrum
introduced is this: if contemporary society is suffused with scientific thinking,
but understanding technology requires a different, paradigmatic approach to
knowledge, then technology is obscured by dominant knowledge systems. This
is coupled with the increasing ubiquitousness of technology: the more pervasive
it is, the less likely we are to acknowledge its deeper features. Technology
becomes the “air” we breathe.
11. David Strong has introduced the term correlational coexistence to describe
the intimate, focal relations that exist between a person and a thing. He writes
that “things are rich in their capacity to reciprocate each and every tie to the
world. To try to sort out what is ‘in the thing’ and what is ‘from the culture,’
for instance, is to mistake this correspondence between the thing and its world.
Rather, things must be equal to that world in order to bear that world” (Crazy
Mountains, 69; original emphasis).
12. The issue of what things are focal is a difficult one. Some would argue that
a laptop computer, for example, is focal for someone who is attentive to it and
relies on it for work-related purposes. This may be the case, although my expe-
rience is that bonds seem weak or at least ephemeral between people and com-
puting machinery; each new gadget is greeted eagerly and old ones typically are
easily disposed of. There are no categorical judgments separating focal things
from nonfocal devices, but certain traits obviously contribute to focality: trans-
parency of operation, robust characteristics, elegance of function, and beauty.
13. L. Winner, Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in
Political Thought (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977), 229.
14. J. R. Saul, The Unconscious Civilization (Toronto: CBC, 1995); N. Postman,
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (New York: Knopf, 1992).
15. A. Borgmann, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 51.
16. W. Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong
Nature,” in W. Cronon ed., Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature
(New York: Norton, 1995), 69–70.
17. M. Soulé, “The Social Siege of Nature,” in M. Soulé and G. Lease, eds.,
DC: Island Press, 1995).
18. See J. Rouse, “What Are Cultural Studies of Scientific Knowledge?” Con-
figurations 1 (1992): 1–22.
19. For example, see N. J. Turner, M. B. Ignace, and R. Ignace, “Traditional

Ecological Knowledge and Wisdom of Aboriginal Peoples in British Columbia,”
Ecological Applications, 10 (2000): 1275–1287; M. M. R. Freeman, “Indige-
nous Knowledge,” Northern Perspectives 20, no. 1 (1992): 9–12; F. Berkes,
Sacred Ecology: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Resource Management
(Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis, 1999).
20. Fortunately, this has been corrected by the work of many environmental
historians in the last two decades, notably William Cronon, Richard White, and
Donald Worster.
21. D. Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and
the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” in D. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and
Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), 187.
22. K. Hayles, “Search for Common Ground,” in M. Soulé and G. Lease, eds.,
DC: Island Press, 1995), 61.
23. Borgmann treats nature and wilderness in several places, notably the chapter
“The Challenge of Nature” in his 1984 book Technology and the Character of
Contemporary Life (pp. 182–195), and his 1995 article “The Nature of Reality
and the Reality of Nature,” in M. Soulé and G. Lease, eds., Reinventing Nature?
Responses to Postmodern Deconstruction (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1995),
31–45.
24. These themes are addressed by Borgmann in Holding on to Reality: The
Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1999), and Crossing the Postmodern Divide (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1992).
25. J. Cypher and E. S. Higgs, “Colonizing the Imagination: Disney’s Wilder-
ness Lodge,” Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 8, no. 4 (1997): 107–130.
26. T. Friend, “Please Don’t Oil the Animatronic Warthog,” Outside 23 (1998):
100–108.
27 E. S. Higgs, “A Quantity of Engaging Work to Be Done: Restoration and
Morality in a Technological Culture,” Restoration and Management Notes 9
(1991): 97–104.
28. R. Fisher and W. Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving
In (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981).
29 See my discussion of the Kissimmee restoration in chapter 2, as well as a
special 1995 issue of Restoration Ecology (vol 3, no. 3) guest edited by C. Dahm.
30. J. Perry, “Greening Corporate Environments: Authorship and Politics in
Restoration,” Restoration and Management Notes 12 (1994): 145–147.
31. See E. S. Higgs, “The Ethics of Mitigation,” Restoration and Management
Notes 11 (1993): 138–143.
32. J. Harris, “Certification for Responsible Restoration,” Restoration and
Management Notes 15 (1994): 5.
33. W. Berry, “The Futility of Global Thinking,” Harper’s, September 1989, 22.
34. A. Light and E. S. Higgs, “The Politics of Ecological Restoration,” Envi-
ronmental Ethics 18 (1996): 227–247. Our aim in this article was to show the
significance of political relationship in restoration as well as to argue how the
politics of restoration could work against democratic principles and processes.
Light, whose main interest is environmental political philosophy and ethics, has
continued to work on these themes.
35. A. Light, “Restoration, the Value of Participation, and the Risks of Profes-
sionalization,” in P. H. Gobster and R. B. Hull, eds., Restoring Nature:
Perspectives from the Social Sciences and Humanities (Washington,
DC: Island Press, 2000), 163–184 (quote, on 164).
36. A special section of Restoration and Management Notes (vol. 15, no. 1,
1997), “The Chicago Wilderness and Its Critics,” featured articles by L. Ross,
D. Shore, and P. Gobster on the project and backlash from critics.
37. A. Light, “Restoration, the Value of Participation, and the Risks of
Professionalization,” 173.
38. W. Jordan, “Loss of Innocence,” Restoration and Management Notes 15
(1997): 3–4; F. Turner, “Bloody Columbus: Restoration and the Transvaluation
of Shame into Beauty,” Restoration and Management Notes 10 (1992): 70–74.
39. A. Light and E. S. Higgs, “The Politics of Ecological Restoration.”
40. A. Borgmann, “The Nature of Reality and the Reality of Nature”; N.
Evernden, The Social Creation of Nature (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
41. L. Marx, “Does Pastoralism Have a Future?”, in J. Hunt, ed., The Pastoral
Landscape (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1992), 212.
42. R. Eliot, “Faking Nature,” Inquiry 25 (1982): 81–93. Eliot has moderated
his position: see his Faking Nature: The Ethics of Environmental Restoration
(London: Routledge, 1997).
43. Eliot, Faking Nature, 1997.
44. Katz has stirred considerable controversy with several essays. See E. Katz,
“The Problem of Ecological Restoration,” Environmental Ethics 18 (1996):
222–224; “The Big Lie: Human Restoration of Nature,” Research in Philoso-
phy and Technology 12 (1992): 231–243; “Restoration and Redesign: The
Ethical Significance of Human Intervention in Nature,” Restoration and
Management Notes 9 (1991): 90–96.
45. Light and Higgs, “The Politics of Ecological Restoration.”
46. These arguments have created a minor sensation in environmental philoso-
phy as various commentators have weighed in with opinions on the value of
restoration. Philosophers have offered provocative challenges that warrant reflec-
tion. However, for the most part Katz and Eliot, in particular, have avoided direct
communication with restorationists. Their work remains distant and has scarcely
touched the main development of restoration theory and practice. A few
philosophers, Donald Scherer, William Throop, Alastair Gunn and Andrew Light
for example, have made forays into restoration practice, which bodes well for
enlivening restoration and environmental philosophy. This is as much a discipli-
nary matter as a reflection on restoration. There is a divide in contemporary
environmental philosophy between those who engage in internal debates
largely about attitudes toward nature, and those who advocate a more practical
approach. Eliot, who has modified his earlier position, points out that we ought
to be worried about restoration becoming an end in itself, distracting us
from more significant aims. He feels the instrumental qualities of restoration are
troublesome and point toward the commodification of practice. I agree, but is it
appropriate to deny the validity of restoration, or to avoid debate about the aims
of the field? When we underestimate the diversity of contemporary restoration
practices and the power of ecological processes, the possibility of a genuinely
liberatory type of restoration is sidelined.
47. B. Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers
through Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).
48. For an earlier formulation, see my essay “What Is Good Ecological Restora-
tion?”, Conservation Biology 11, no. 2 (1997): 338–348.
Chapter 6
1. There are two species of edible blue camas, Camassia quamash (common
camas) and Camassia leichtlinii (great camas) harvested locally. C. quamash was
what we harvested on Discovery Island.
2. Chris Arnett, The Terror of the Coast: Land Alienation and Colonial War on
Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, 1849–1863 (Burnaby, BC: Talonbooks,
1999). The cultural and linguistic diversity of First Nations in the region was
and is remarkable. The Songhees First Nation (Lekwungen people) is typically
related to Coast Salish peoples of the Georgia Strait region. The Georgia Strait
runs between Vancouver Island and the continental mainland, straddling the
present national border between Canada and the United States. The Strait com-
prises an archipelago of islands and complex inlets along Vancouver Island and
the continental mainland that together form an extraordinary variety of marine
and terrestrial ecological conditions. Maps that show present-day cultural
and linguistic subdivisions need to zoom in to the areas around present-day
Vancouver, Seattle, and Victoria to show the richness. Versions of such maps can
be found in the latest revision, 1997, of Wilson Duff’s now-classic work, The
Indian History of British Columbia: The Impact of the White Man (Victoria:
Royal British Columbia Museum, 1992). On the southern tip of Vancouver
Island reside (from west to east) the T’Sou-ke, Esquimault, Songhees, and Saanich
First Nations. The latter three communicate variations of Northern Straits Salish,
with the Songhees speaking a dialect known as Lekwungaynung. This diversity
persists in the wake of more than a century and a half of intensive colonization,
and the cultural resurgence in recent decades has given new life to the languages
and cultural practices.
3. M. Asch, ed., Aboriginal and Treaty Rights in Canada: Essays on Law, Equity,
and Respect for Difference (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997).
4. Arnett, The Terror of the Coast, 7.
5. Personal communication from Cheryl Bryce, October 2000.
6. Several other root vegetables were important in the past, including chocolate
lily (Fritillaria lanceolata), Hooker’s onion (Allium acuminatum), springbank
clover (Trifolium wormskjoldii), bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum), and Pacific
silverweed (Potentilla pacificum).
7. N. J. Turner, M. B. Ignace, and R. Ignace, “Traditional Ecological Knowledge
and Wisdom of Aboriginal Peoples in British Columbia,” Ecological Applica-
tions 10 (2000): 1275–1287.
8. Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) boughs are used in pit cooking by Inte-
rior First Nations in British Columbia, but not on the coast as far as Nancy
Turner was aware. Turner learned how to pit cook coastal style from Mrs. Ida
Jones of Pacheedaht First Nation near Port Renfrew. Ida Jones had pit cooked
as a young woman. On Discovery Island that day, Turner had looked instead for
the more usual plant, salal (Gaultheria shallon), and sword fern (Polystichum
munitum), but none could be found nearby. This is perhaps another reason for
undertaking restoration of traditional plants.
9. A. W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe,
900–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
10. J. D. Soule and J. K. Piper, Farming in Nature’s Image: An Ecological
Approach to Agriculture (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1992); W. Jackson, New
Roots for Agriculture (Lincoln; University of Nebraska Press, 1985).
11. J. Cairns, Jr., “Ecosocietal Restoration: Reestablishing Humanity’s Rela-
tionship with Natural Systems,” Environment 37 (1995): 4–33; D. H. Janzen,
“Tropical Ecological and Biocultural Restoration,” Science 239 (1988):
243–244; W. Jordan III, “ ‘Sunflower Forest’: Ecological Restoration as the Basis
for a New Environmental Paradigm,” in A. D. Baldwin, J. de Luce, and C.
Pletsch, eds., Beyond Preservation: Restoring and Inventing Landscapes
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994); S. Mills, In Service of the
Wild: Restoring and Reinhabiting Damaged Land (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995);
D. Rogers-Martinez, “The Sinkyone Intertribal Park Project,” Restoration and
Management Notes 10, no. 1 (1992): 64–69.
12. E. S. Higgs, “Expanding the Scope of Restoration Ecology,” Restoration
Ecology 2 (1994): 137–146.
13. H. Hammond, Seeing the Forest among the Trees: The Case for Wholistic
Forest Use (Vancouver: Polestar, 1991).
14. W. K. Stevens, Miracle under the Oaks: The Revival of Nature in America
(New York: Pocket Books, 1995).
15. J. Cypher and E. S. Higgs, “Packaged Tours: Themed Experience and Nature
Presentation in Parks and Museums,” Museums Review 23 (1997): 28–32.
16. The surge of environmental history provides us with a rich trove of mate-
rial from which to understand changing environmental values. I have been influ-
enced especially by William Cronon’s Changes on the Land: Indians, Colonists,
and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983), and by his
later, book, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York:
Norton, 1991). Also see C. J. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature
and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eigh-
teenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967); M. Oelschlaeger,
The Idea of Wilderness (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991); R. White,
Land Use, Environment, and Social Change: The Shaping of Island County,
Washington (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1980); D. Worster, Nature’s
Economy: The Roots of Ecology (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1977).
17. Among the best scholarly accounts of this, although less accessible than
some, is Hans Peter Duerr’s Dreamtime: Concerning the Boundary between
Wilderness and Civilization (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985).
18. J. Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); L.
Margulis and D. Sagan, What Is Life? (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995).
For an excellent review and summary, see M. Midgely, Gaia: The Next Big Idea
(London, Demos, 2001).
19. A. Borgmann, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 3.
20. A. Borgmann, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life, 42.
21. A. Borgmann, “The Nature of Reality and the Reality of Nature,” in M.
Soulé and G. Lease, eds., Reinventing Nature? Responses to Postmodern Decon-
struction (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1995), 37.
22. S. Mills, In Service of the Wild, 207.
23. G. P. Nabhan, Cultures of Habitat: On Nature, Culture, and Story
(Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1997), 87.
24. William Jordan’s forthcoming book, The Sunflower Forest: Ecological
Restoration and the New Communion with Nature (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2003), argues for restoration as a form of communion with
nature and delves deeply into religious and spiritual metaphors and practices for
restoration.
25. S. Christy, “A Local Festival,” Restoration and Management Notes 12
(1994): 123.
26. K. M. Holland, “Restoration Rituals: Transforming Workday Tasks into
Inspirational Rites,” Restoration and Management Notes 12 (1994): 123.
27. Holland, “Restoration Rituals,” 122.
28. B. Briggs, “Help Wanted: Scientists-Shamans and Eco-Rituals,” Restoration
and Management Notes 12 (1994): 124.
29. Lisa Meekison’s graduate research focused on the artworks of Barbara

Westfall, an environmental artist who lives in Wisconsin and conjoins her efforts
with various restoration projects. One project, conducted at the Curtis Prairie,
involved the girdling of aspen trees that encroached on a restored prairie. See L.
Meekison, “Change on the Land: Ritual and Celebration in Ecological Restora-
tion,” unpublished master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of
Alberta, 1995; B. Westfall, “Personal Politics: Ecological Restoration as Human-
Scale and Community-Based,” Restoration and Management Notes 12 (1994):
148–151.
30. A more thorough statement of this argument is found in L. Meekison and
E. S. Higgs, “The Rites of Spring (and Other Seasons): The Ritualizing of
Restoration,” Restoration and Management Notes 16 (1998): 73–81. This article
incorporates distinctions between ritual, rite, performance, and focal practice,
terms that are often confused.
31. Jordan, “ ‘Sunflower Forest’,” 21.
33. J. Kirby, “Gardening with J. Crew: The Political Economy of Restoration
Ecology,” in: A. D. Baldwin, J. de Luce, and C. Pletsch, eds., Beyond Preserva-
tion: Restoring and Inventing Landscapes (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1994), 238.
35. We attended a workshop organized by Steve Windhager in Denton, Texas,
in June 1994, which brought together two dozen people interested in the phi-
losophy of restoration, including Gene Hargrove, Bill Jordan, Frederick Turner,
Max Oelschlaeger, and Gary Varner.
36. A. Light and E. S. Higgs, “The Politics of Ecological Restoration,” Envi-
ronmental Ethics 18 (1996): 227–248.
37. A. Light, “Restoration, the Value of Participation, and the Risks of Profes-
sionalization,” in P. H. Gobster and R. B. Hull, eds., Restoring Nature: Per-
spectives from the Social Sciences and Humanities (Washington, DC: Island
Press, 2000), 49–70.
38. I have chosen to emphasize technology as the decisive malaise of the con-
temporary era, although many other forces also warrant trenchant criticisms.
Most obvious is the rich literature emanating from nineteenth-century social
critics of the emerging system of capitalism, notably the works of Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels. Extensive critical appraisal has resulted in a growing under-
standing of class inequality, patriarchy, heterosexism, and many other patholo-
gies of domination. All of these are relevant in understanding the domination of
nature, a point made clearly by Murray Bookchin in The Ecology of Freedom,
and all of them must be invoked if we are to comprehend the totality of the
present crisis. However, I find the device paradigm compelling because it is
informed by a pragmatism that reaches across a range of ideological positions.
One need not be a strident politico to make sense of the diagnoses, and the pre-
scriptions are provocative.
39. Borgmann’s quiet politics of technology, especially his associated economic
reforms, may prove inadequate against hyperreality. I think that more active
resistance to the device paradigm is required. The opening I see is the interest in
local and bioregional economies coupled with the development of a critical eco-
logical politics in North America. Is there a theory of political resistance, more
radical than what he proposes in Technology and the Character of Contempo-
rary Life, that would be compatible with Borgmann’s political beliefs? Is there a
coherent political economic theory that would protect and elevate personal and
communal focal practices and resist more effectively the corrosion of choice
through manufactured consent? Can we shield and support focal restoration?
40. G. P. Nabhan, “Cultural Parallax: The Wilderness Concept in Crisis,” in G.
P. Nabhan, Cultures of Habitat: On Nature, Culture, and Story (Washington,
DC: Counterpoint, 1997), 159–160.
41. E. S. Higgs, “The Landscape Evolution Model: A Case for a Paradigmatic
View of Technology,” Technology in Society 12 (1990): 479–505.
Chapter 7
1. R. Cox, Adventures on the Columbia River, Including the Narrative of a

Various Tribes of Indians Hitherto Unknown: Together with a Journey across
the American Continent, 2 vols. (London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley,
1831), 202–203.
2. A comprehensive synthesis of ecological principles in design is now avail-
able: B. Johnson and K. Hill, Ecology and Design: Frameworks for Learning
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002). This book includes contributions by
leading North American ecologists and designers—Anne Whiston Spirn, Richard
Forman, James Karr, Carl Steinitz, and Michael Hough, to name a few.
3. The remarks were made at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Adam
Joseph Lewis Center in September 1998. The text of Orr’s speech and other
information about the Center are available at Oberlin College’s Web site,
·www.oberlin.eduÒ.
4. An especially compelling article is provided by William McDonough (who
was a primary consultant on the Adam Joseph Lewis Center project) and Michael
Braungart, founders of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry; see their “The
Next Industrial Revolution,” Atlantic Monthly, 1998, 282.
5. R. Buchanan, “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking,” Design Issues 8
(1992): 5–21.
6. Most of Central Park was contrived, including such well-known natural fea-
tures as The Ramble. The site was cleared in some places to exposed bedrock
and then recreated according to detailed plans. See F. L. Olmsted, Civilizing

American Cities: A Selection of Frederick Law Olmsted’s Writings on City Land-
scapes, ed. S. B. Sutton (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971).
7. The genius of the restoration plan reflects the original park-design genius:
Andropogon Associates of Philadelphia, one of the most revered ecological
design firms, undertook the restoration design. Leslie Sauer, a principal of Andro-
pogon, served the Society for Ecological Restoration as a member of the board,
and is widely known for her creative design interventions.
8. L. Haworth, “Orwell, the Planning Profession, and Autonomy,” Environ-
ments 16 (1984): 10–15.
9. Firms such as Sapient in the United States and Siegelgale in England integrate
traditional services of advertising, marketing, and industrial and product design
to create a new approach to corporate identification, product innovation, and
branding.
10. Buchanan, “Wicked Problems,” 9.
13. Richard Buchanan’s work has been heavily influenced by the American prag-
matist philosopher, John Dewey, and also by Buchanan’s teacher at the Univer-
sity of Chicago, the noted philosopher Richard McKeon. The Dewey passage is
quoted in Buchanan, “Wicked Problems,” 5.
14. The phrase “wicked designs” is used by Buchanan and adapted from earlier
work by Horst Rittel, a designer, and Karl Popper, a philosopher. Wicked prob-
lems are a “class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the
information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with
conflicting values, and where the ramifications in the whole system are thor-
oughly confusing” (C. W. Churchman, quoted in Buchanan, “Wicked Problems,”
14).
15. “If a Building Could Be Like a Tree: An Interview with Architect William
McDonnough,” Orion Afield 5 (2001): 21.
16. A. Feenberg, Critical Theory of Technology (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1991).
18. This scheme and its implications for ecological restoration emerged in a con-
versation with Richard Buchanan, April 10, 2001.
19. A. Borgmann, “The Depth of Design,” in R. Buchanan and V. Margolin,
eds., Discovering Design: Explorations in Design Studies (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1995), 17.
20. Think also of David Strong’s idea of “correlational coexistence” that I
described in chapter 5.
21. A. Borgmann, “The Depth of Design,” 18.
320 Notes to Page 287
22. I take a liberal meaning of science to include not only orthodox scientific
work conducted by professional scientists, but also the systematic observations
and wisdom that come from people who live close to the land, such as natural-
ists who have intensive knowledge or First Nations people who live at least in
part by traditional ecological knowledge. For a good discussion of traditional
ecological knowledge, see N. J. Turner, M. B. Ignace, and R. Ignace, “Traditional
Ecological Knowledge and Wisdom of Aboriginal Peoples in British Columbia,”
Ecological Applications 10 (2000): 1275–1287; A. Fienup-Riordan, “Yaqulget
Quaillun Pilartat (What the Birds Do): Yup’ik Eskimo Understanding of Geese
and Those Who Study Them,” Arctic 52 no. 1 (1999): 1–22; M. M. R. Freeman,
“Indigenous Knowledge,” Northern Perspectives 20, no. 1 (1992): 9–12.
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Index
Aber, John, 80, 129 Banff National Park, 9, 17, 27–28,

Aboriginal peoples 117, 136
Cree, 23 Banff-Bow Valley Study, 17, 27
G’itxsan, 200 Bayley, Suzanne, 17
Iroquois, 23 Beckwith, Brenda, 231–233
land management practices, Berger, John, 80
169–170 Berry, Wendell, 94, 210
Lekwungen (Songhees), 226–236, Biophilia, 145
254, 262–263 Black River (Ohio), 6
Sinkyone, 109, 237 Bodaly, David, 230
Snake Indians, 23 Bookchin, Murray, 120, 184
Snuneymuxw (Nanaimo) First Borgmann, Albert, 180, 185, 189,
Nation, 230 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 200,
Stoney, 23 202, 203, 241, 243, 245–246, 257,
Abrod nature reserve (Slovak 258, 259, 281–282
Republic), 70 Botkin, Daniel, 40
Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Boundary definition of ecological
Environmental Studies (Oberlin restoration, 76, 77
College, Ohio), 272, 279 Bradford, Wes, 17
Adams family, 266 Bradshaw, Tony, 80
Adbusters, 280 Bridgland, Morrison Parsons,
Angermeier, Paul, 122, 124 133–135, 140
Apostol, Dean, 102–103, 105 Bridgland Repeat Photography
Archbold Biological Station (Lake project, 132–144, 151, 162–163,
Placid, Florida), 61, 164 177
Aronson, James, 123 Bried, Gordon, 26
Assisted recovery, 112–116 Brower, David, 2, 217, 218,
Athabasca River and Valley, 16, 22, 219–220
24, 29, 45, 136, 149, 152, 167, Bruce County (Ontario, Canada), 3
170–173, 181–182, 187, 266, Bryce, Cheryl, 228, 233, 235–236,
287 262, 263
Auroville (India), 247 Buchanan, Richard, 274, 277–278,
Autogenic restoration, 112–115 281
336 Index
Burns Bog (Delta, British Columbia), Dahm, Clifford, 67

6 DAPHNE Foundation (Slovak
Republic), 69
Cairns, John, Jr., 80, 108, 237 Definitions (of ecological restoration),
Calvert, Kathy, 16 38, 41, 77, 81, 94–130
Cape Florida Project, 61, 214 Bradshaw and Chadwick, 108, 122
Carmanagh Valley (Vancouver Cairns, 108
Island), 150 dictionary (Oxford English), 96
Celebration City, 52–54, 60 Janzen, 108
Certification, 209, 211–214 SER 1990, 107
Chalifoux, Suzette, 23 SER 1996, 109, 118, 122
Chomsky, Noam, 258 SER 2002, 110
Clewell, Andy, 103 U.S. National Research Council, 108
Cohen, Abner, 252–253 Design, 4, 5, 13, 14, 95, 270–285
Colonization of the imagination, focal design, 282
51–52, 203, 241 of human experience, 283–284
Commodification, 188–195, 214, human versus ecologically centered,
248 279–280, 281, 284
of nature, 203–206 risks of, 285
of practice, 206–214 and technological culture, 280–281
of restoration, 208, 219, 222 wild design, 5, 14, 95, 271,
Communitas, 252 277–285
Comparative perspectives on Designer ecosystems, 60
ecological restoration, 87, 88–89 Device paradigm, 185–186, 191–193,
Conservation, 12 206, 222, 223, 241, 243, 248–249,
Conservation biology, 97 257–259, 260, 263
Correlational coexistence, 246 availability, 189
Covington, Wallace, 142 and economic reform, 258–259
Cox, Ross, 24, 266 and manufactured consent,
Critics of restoration, 2, 11–12, 258–259
217–220 Deville, Edward, 133
Cronon, William, 56, 57 Dewey, John, 278–279
Crumley, Carole, 164 Discovery Island (British Columbia),
Cultural dimensions of restoration, 226–236, 254, 262–263
8, 72, 76, 86, 88–89, 106, Disney Corporation, 10, 12, 21,
109, 119–122, 126, 222, 45–54, 60, 187, 195, 203–205,
226–263 216, 223, 249. See also Wilderness
Culture, Ecology, and Restoration Lodge
project, 20, 24, 136 Dominion Land Survey, 133,
Curtis, John, 5, 82, 103 135–136
Curtis Prairie (University of Dorney, Robert, 5, 7, 73, 74, 152
Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum), Dust Bowl, 78
13, 78–79, 102–103, 116, 247,
250 Ecocultural restoration, 236, 238,
Cypher, Jennifer, 45–59, 104, 187, 239–240, 243
203 Ecological health, 115, 123–124
Index 337
Ecological integrity, 4, 10, 95, 101, Georgian Bay (Ontario, Canada), 3

110, 122–124, 126, 141, 203, 205, Gilpin, Michael, 80
206, 220, 226 Gourley, Edith, 171
Ecological Monitoring and Graber, David, 29
Assessment Network (Canada), Greene, Henry, 5, 82
159 Guziova, Zuzana, 69
Ecological restoration
versus environmental restoration, Hall, Marcus, 83–84, 85–87, 89,
93 142, 146
versus restoration ecology, 81, 93 Haraway, Donna, 201
Egan, David, 164 Harris, Jim, 106
Ehrenfeld, Joan, 81 Hartz Mountain (Secaucus, New
Eisner, Michael, 53 Jersey), 7
Eliot, Robert, 218, 219–220 Harvard Forest (Massachusetts), 159,
Environmental restoration 160
versus ecological restoration, 93, Haworth, Larry, 185, 276
98–99 Hayles, Katherine, 201
Experimental Lakes Area (Ontario, Henry House, 167
Canada), 159–161 Herman, Edward, 258
Hiassen, Carl, 62
Fassett, Norman, 78 Historical continuity, 147, 154, 156
Feenberg, Andrew, 280 Historical fidelity, 4, 10, 95, 101,
Fidelity (ecological), 127–128 124, 126–128, 131–177, 206, 220,
Finlay family, 266 226
Fire, anthropogenic, 24, 39–40, 42, Historical range of variability, 119
55, 61, 103, 116, 118, 172, 182, Historicity, 10–11, 132, 147, 156
239 History of restoration, 77–92
Fisher, R., 207 Hobbs, Richard, 87, 94, 123
Fitzhugh, 136 Holland, Alan, 153, 154
Fleming, Sandford, 25 Holland, K. M., 249
Focal design, 282 House, Freeman, 121, 123, 209,
Focal practices and things, 4, 95, 247
185–186, 190–191, 194–195, Howell, Evelyn, 164
241–245, 248–249, 251, 254–259, Hubbard Brook (New Hampshire),
263, 275, 281–284 159, 160
Focal restoration, 4, 12, 181, 223, Hudson’s Bay Company, 23
225–259 Hyatt, A. E., 134
Foreground and background,
192–193 Icefield Interpretive Center, 51
Franklin, Ursula, 189–190 Indigenous Peoples’ Restoration
Freak landscapes, 35–40, 55 Network, 107, 236
Friend, Tad, 205 Ingold, Tim, 148–149, 158
Frost, Robert, 3 Institute for Regional Conservation,
61
Gaia hypothesis, 240 Intentionality, 4, 14, 104, 271–277
Gann, George, 61 and design, 273–274, 279, 285
338 Index
Jackson, Laura, 104 paradigmatic, 200

Janzen, Daniel, 108, 237 scientific, 196–199
Jasper Forest Reserve, 136 subjective, 199
Jasper National Park, 7, 9, 10, testimonial, 200
16–46, 54, 57, 132–142, 151, traditional ecological knowledge and
170–173, 181, 197, 201, 238–239, wisdom, 200–201
266–270, 282, 287
and agriculture, subsistence, 36, 170 Lake Forest Preserve (Illinois), 249
and bears, 16–18, 35 Lake Huron, 3, 153
and beaver, 171–172 Lambert, Marilyn, 231
and elk populations, 33–35 Landscape, understanding of, 22
and fire, 33, 172 and history, 22
and fish stocking, 31, 36 Landscape evolution, 259–263, 270
herbivory, 172 Latour, Bruno, 220
and hunting, 31, 33, 269 Lease, Gary, 42
Jasper Park Lodge, 43, 136 Leopold, Aldo, 5, 78, 82, 247
Jasper townsite, 35, 266 Lewis, Henry, 24
and logging, 33 Light, Andrew, 210–213, 218, 255,
management of, 28–29, 40–41, 256
54–55 Liminality, 251–252
and mining, 35 Long Term Ecological Research
and predator control, 31 program (U.S.), 159
pressures on, 27–31 Lopez, Barry, 149
and trapping, 36, 140, 144, 170 Lopoukhine, Nik, 68, 104
wildlife restoration, 172
Joachim family, 266 MacLaren, Ian, 20, 55
Jordan III, William, 79, 80, 84, 99, Management, ongoing need for,
123, 129, 186, 209, 215, 237, 248, 116–118
250, 251, 253, 254 Marsh, George Perkins, 88
Martinez, Dennis, 107, 108, 109,
Karr, James, 122, 124 121, 125, 236–238
Katz, Eric, 218–220 Marx, Leo, 216
Kay, James, 122 Mattole watershed (California), 247
Keystone concepts (of ecological McDonough, William, 279–280
restoration), 4, 14. See also McHarg, Ian, 13, 90, 271
Ecological integrity; Focal practices McKibben, Bill, 113
and things; Historical fidelity; Wild McMahon, Jim, 60
design Meekison, Lisa, 250
Kirby, Jack, 253 Mengotti, Franscesco, 88
Kissimmee River (Florida Everglades), Métis peoples, 23, 25, 36, 140, 144,
10, 11, 63, 64–68, 87, 126, 207 172, 266
Knowledge, forms of, 196–201, 262 Michalenko, Greg, 75
constructivism, 201 Mills, Stephanie, 42, 56, 83, 101,
cultural contingency, 201 121, 123, 209, 237, 247
cultural memory, 262 Mitigation, 97, 207, 209, 220
ecological history, 262 no net loss policies, 209, 220
Index 339
Moberly, Edward, 24 and technology, 45, 55–56

Moberly, Walter, 23, 266 and wilderness, 10, 20–21, 25,
Morava River wet meadows (Slovak 41–43, 46, 54, 143–144, 181–182,
Republic), 10, 64, 68–73, 87, 126, 196, 215
239 Perry, Jonathan, 207
Morris, Joan, 230 Phototopographic surveying,
Mowing, 70, 71, 72 133–134
Murcia, Carolina, 87 Pit cooking, 227, 228, 232, 233–234,
Murphy, Peter, 24 244–245
Myerhoff, Barbara, 252–253 Place, 148–154
culturalistic representation, 149, 158
Nabhan, Gary, 248, 260 and dwelling, 149
Naturalistic explanation, 148–149 and historicity, 156
Naveh, Zev, 87 and landscape, 148–149
Niering, Bill, 79 and space, 148–149
Noble, David, 13 Portman, Dale, 16
North Branch Prairie (Chicago), 13, Process and product, 103–104,
90, 213, 239 110–111, 125, 193
Norton, D. A., 94, 123 Prospect Park (Brooklyn), 6, 13,
Nostalgia, 143, 145, 156 275–277
Olmsted, Frederick Law, 13–14, 83, Railways

90, 275–276 Canadian National, 22, 25
O’Neil, John, 146, 153, 154 Canadian Northern, 25, 136
Orion Society, 61 Grand Trunk Pacific, 25, 26, 136
Orr, David, 56, 272 Rarity, 155
Oxford, Mike, 103 Reclamation, 95, 97, 99–100
Recovery, 101, 112, 114
Palisade Centre, 16–18, 22, 27, 136, Reference conditions, 11, 95, 119,
167, 171, 181, 265 136–137, 158–177
Participation (community approximation, 167
involvement and volunteerism), 4, baseline, 162–163
121, 122, 209–214, 226, 242, benchmark, 163
255–259, 260 and climate change, 174–175
community focal practice, 258 historical ecology, 164
democratic capacity, inherent, 211, and human activity, 169–170
255–256 and incompleteness, 175
Penn, Briony, 157 reference information (sources and
Perceptions of nature. See also problems with), 158–159,
Colonization of the imagination 162–163, 166–168, 173–177
constructivism, 44–45 research questions, 169
and Disney, 45–46, 49–52, 203–205 uncertainty, 175
essentialism, 45 variability (natural, historical,
hyperreality, 195, 203, 204, 215 spatial), 163–165
respect, 239–240 and whole-ecosystem studies,
restorationism, 216, 217 161–162
340 Index
Regeneration, 101, 129 North Branch Prairie (Chicago), 13,

Rehabilitation, 95, 99, 100, 105 90, 213, 239
Reinhabitation, 101 Prospect Park (Brooklyn), 6, 13,
Remediation, 99, 100 275–277
Reparation, 12 Robert Starbird Dorney Ecology
Repeat photography projects Garden (University of Waterloo),
Hastings and Turner (Arizona), 137 10, 64, 73–77, 90, 152, 248
Higgs and Rhemtulla (Jasper Sinkyone Intertribal Park
National Park), 132–144 (California), 109, 237–238
Meagher, Mary and Houston, Swan Creek (Victoria), 148
Douglas, (Yellowstone), 139 Woodhorn Colliery Museum
Webb, Robert, et al. (Colorado (England), 157
River), 139 Revegetation, 99, 100–101
Repeat photography techniques, Reverse adaptation, 193
137–141 Rhemtulla, Jeanine, 17, 33, 132,
Restauration, 97 136–142, 177
Restoration and Management Notes, Ritual, 226, 249–255
79, 83 and focal practice, 251, 254–255
Restoration as conversation, 285–287 and performance, 251
Restoration Ecology, 79, 80 versus rite, 251
Restorationism, 216 Roberts, Edith, 83
Restoration projects Robert Starbird Dorney Ecology
in agroecosystems, 9 Garden (University of Waterloo),
Archbold Biological Station (Lake 10, 64, 73–77, 90, 152, 248
Placid, Florida), 61, 164 Rocky Mountains, 4
Auroville (India), 247 Rymer, Russ, 52, 54
Black River (Ohio), 6
Burns Bog (Delta, British Columbia), Saul, John Ralston, 194
6 Schama, Simon, 22
Cape Florida Project, 61, 214 Schindler, David, 159–161
Curtis Prairie (University of Seffer, Jan, 71
Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum), Sinkyone Intertribal Park (California),
13, 78–79, 102–103, 116, 247, 109, 237–238
250 Snyder, Gary, 58
Discovery Island (British Columbia), Society for Ecological Restoration
226–236, 254, 262–263 (SER), 1, 2, 7, 8, 10, 45, 59, 61,
Hartz Mountain (Secaucus, New 68, 78, 79, 82, 90, 96, 99, 102,
Jersey), 7 107, 129, 187, 208, 217, 236
Kissimmee River (Florida Soulé, Michael, 42, 196
Everglades), 10, 11, 63, 64–68, 87, Sperry, Theodore, 5, 78, 82, 103,
126, 207 116
Lake Forest Preserve (Illinois), 249 Stanova, Viera, 71
Mattole watershed (California), Stevens, William, 90
247 Stoltmann, Randy, 150
Morava River (Slovak Republic), 10, Straka, Peter, 69
64, 68–73, 87, 126, 239 Strong, David, 57, 188–189, 246
Index 341
Sustainable cultural practices, Westfall, Barbara, 250

119–122 Wheeler, A. O., 133
Swan Creek (Victoria), 148 White, Cliff, 36
Swift, Lewis, 16, 23, 25, 26, 266 White, Peter, 158, 163, 165, 169,
Synthetic ecology, 129 173
White, Richard, 41
Taxonomy (of ecological restoration), Wilby, Arnold C., 16, 26
97–101 Wild design, 5, 14, 95, 271, 277–285
Taylor, Charles, 184 Wilderness Lodge (Orlando, Florida),
Technological restoration, 3, 12, 186, 10, 12, 21, 45–52, 54, 60, 156,
225–226, 241, 242–243 187, 195, 204, 223, 249. See also
Technology, 182–195 Disney Corporation
and enrichment, 188–189 Wildlands Project, 20, 114
and focal practice, 185–186, Wildness, 58
190–191, 194–195 Willeke, Gene, 253
and focal things, 190–191 Wilson, Alexander, 45, 186, 208
and liberation, 188–189 Wilson, E. O., 145
Thompson, David, 23 Winner, Langdon, 185, 193
Time depth, 154–155, 156 Winterhalder, Keith, 110
Tonquin Valley (Jasper National Wong, Anne, 276
Park), 151, 154 Woodhorn Colliery Museum
Toth, Lou, 66 (England), 157
Traditional ecological knowledge and
wisdom, 200–201 Yellowhead highway, 22–23, 25, 181,
Tree of Life native plant nursery, 199 266, 269
Turner, Edith, 250 Yellowstone to Yukon project, 2, 20,
Turner, Frederick, 215, 250 269
Turner, Nancy, 227, 231, 233, 236
Turner, Victor, 250, 251–252
Typologies of restoration, 81–85
University of Waterloo, 5
University of Wisconsin Arboretum,
5, 78, 82–83
Ury, W., 207
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 64–65
Van Gennep, Arnold, 252

Variability (historical and natural
range of), 163–165
Vaux, Calvert, 275–276
Walker, Joan, 158, 163, 165, 169,

173
Wallace, Rod, 137
Westervelt, Kelly, 61, 214

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Nature by Design

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The MIT Press

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

QH541.15.R45 H54 2003

3 What Is Ecological Restoration? 93

7 Nature by Design 265

1.1 Map of Jasper National Park 19

Bodaly, Cheryl Bryce, Kim Chambers, Wendy Cocksedge, Patricia

Staff at MIT Press were a pleasure to work with, and I appreciate in

Many environmental books begin with a desperate attempt to convince

or participating in a prescribed fire that returns an old process to the

nature? Does it not follow that even well-conceived restoration projects

I worry that we confuse grandeur with accomplishment and that we

them. In advocating design I am proposing wild design, the kind that

My interest in ecological restoration was sparked during my first year as

Transience has been part of my life, living south of Vancouver, north

heading through philosophy and environmental planning until arriving,

understand how ecological restoration might serve as a model for man-

ence, and scientific knowledge. Once removed, however, from the

Outline of the Book

wilderness is a filter for our understanding of nature. Together these

to prominence from a few paragraphs to a section and finally to a full-

for preservation and conservation and we will end up destroying ecosys-

projects. I am calling for an amalgam of two quite different approaches.

Olmsted’s design, and the underlying character of the ecosystems, will

“Wilderness is not so much preserved as created.”

The Bear in the Kitchen

beliefs about wilderness: places without people. Second, we are running

The Palisade Centre, an environmental research and education facility

Archeological and paleoecological evidence, of which much more is

obviously the eviction in 1910, three years following the creation of

park-wide research on long-term human influence. The Palisade Centre,

with producing future management recommendations, which it did in

as natural regulation, a deliberate hands-off policy that allows natural

However, the maintenance of natural structures and processes is

One of the most dramatic and talked-about influences is fire suppres-

The combined weight of human influences presses us to consider how

interventions are both necessary and inevitable. It was Cliff White, a

increasing about the extent and qualities of human activities in so-

helpful concept in a dynamic landscape and does it serve as a basis for

roughly with this historical frequency. This is an attractive option, for

Restoring an Idea or a Place?

Those entrusted with the care of wilderness parks—park wardens, main-

Setting appropriate goals is predicated on a creative fusion of scien-

always depend on value judgments no matter how much we cloak

lated southern Ontario, where nature was always something to drive to

The constructedness of reality was plainly evident in the bear-in-the-

and contingent. The divide is vast between essentialism—the view that

themselves? The restoration of damaged ecosystems in a national park

The Wilderness Lodge is a four-star hotel set in the growing entertain-

The attention to detail is exquisite. Food served in the Whispering

playing off the significance of wilderness parks. A complicated tale is told

Colonizing the Imagination

The Disney version of wilderness rests on a complete fabrication not only

reinforce ideologies especially supportive of capitalism and consumption.

and fed by consumer impulses, reinforced by exposure to other aspects

is the wave of the future for communities, as Michael Eisner believes,

Celebration City may appear to those of us who eschew such total

But what does it mean to be “like” a town instead of being a town?

real park experience. Might the combination of privatization and themed

One Wilderness or Two?

In the decades ahead, people will be increasingly preoccupied with elec-