Ecological Restoration: scientific, philosophical, and sustainability perspectives: a Chicago Wilderness view

The ecological restoration of degraded lands is older as a practice than the disciplines that study it, and that seek to advise its proponents.  These disciplines, however, have an opportunity to refine the work, and to reflect upon the significance of its outcomes in much the way that intellectual engagement with any praxis – agriculture, hunting, or even art, for example – can augment practice.

The ecological evaluation of restorative management identifies best practices, measures progress towards stated targets, and elucidates basic ecological processes from ongoing manipulations of managed landscapes. The social sciences have clarified the way in which restoration emerges from the institutional governing structures, and sought to identify the processes whereby management is either agreed upon, or alternatively provokes, opposition in communities adjacent to restoration sites.  Philosophical reflection on restoration sharpens our understanding of key conceptual terms, like nature, revises our considerations of ethical obligations, and can help restorationists appreciate the full spectrum of values emerging from attempts to “make nature whole.”  The way in which restoration influences well-being and “topophilia” – an abiding love of place – is of interest to environmental psychologists.  Restoration may provide a profound way of getting to know a new place, and awaking practitioners from what I call “toponesia”, a forgetfulness of place.

Using examples from the Chicago Wilderness region I briefly inspect each of these perspectives: restoration from a natural and social sciences, environmental philosophy, and as a sustainability endeavor that can potentially evoke a love for and allegiance to the places that we live.

Draft abstract for panel on "Interdisciplinary Insights for Guiding Future Ecological Restoration and 

Sustainability Efforts." For SER Midwest Great Lakes Chapter Meeting next month (see here)

The Humanities and the Sciences Squabble for Sustainability’s Soul: First Thoughts

Chicago Wilderness is an environmental consortium with a mission to restore biodiversity and improve the quality of life for people living in the Greater Chicago area.  Their vision is to include one third of Chicago and the surrounding areas in an interconnected network of lands and waterways in order to provide a healthy and sustainable region for people and nature.  Although the sustainability goal of the consortium is focused on environmental outcomes, nonetheless there is recognition of the need to integrate this goal with the economic and social developmental plans for the region. Therefore the 260 member institutions of this sustainability oriented organization includes local, state and federal agencies, large conservation organizations, cultural and education institutions, volunteer groups, municipalities, corporations, and faith-based groups.  Together these organizations commit to four key initiatives: restore nature to health, protect green infrastructure, mitigate climate change, and leave no child inside.  Projects are undertaken through four teams:  education, natural resources, science and a sustainability team.  Representation in team leadership and in working groups are drawn from a range of professions: land managers, research social scientists, ecologists, conservation biologists, planners and so forth.  Many, though not all of course, are scientific in nature.  Few, in contrast, are drawn from humanities.  That is not to say that there are no individuals in the consortium with training in humanistic disciplines; indeed many may have.  Rather what I am contending here is that these individuals are not engaged in the work of Chicago Wilderness in their role as humanists, not, at least, in the way that the scientists are engaged in project work qua scientists.    

The sciences and humanities are often depicted as playing complementary roles in imagining a sustainable future.  However, there may be a competitive edge to their proposed usefulness for planning environmental sustainability.  Which provides the more powerful tools; in turn which should be provided with more resources when plans are being developed?

In some circles there is a perception that the sciences have failed in their task of securing the future.  For instance, In The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge, philosopher Bill Vitek and ecologist Wes Jackson interrogate the value of science in facing our current dilemmas.[1]  Their critique of science points to the supposedly unfortunate scientific legacy of the Enlightenment, shaping, as it did, the patterns of thought that facilitated an aggressive exploitation of the Earth’s resources, the large-scale despoliation of habitat, and the loss of diversity both organismic and cultural.  Such a critique can be extended by implicating the sciences in an ongoing complicity with the technological systems that perpetuate environmental problems thus endangering the health of planet and people.  Now Vitek and Jackson are not advocating the humanities as substituting for the sciences in sustainability studies.  Rather they ask: “Why not go with our long suit and have an ignorance based worldview.”  “We are”, they go on to say, “betting that there is an important paradox in all of this: knowledge and insight accumulate faster in the minds of those who hold an ignorance-based worldview…Darting eyes have the potential of seeing more.”  Though, as mentioned, the humanities are not proffered here as the intellectual corner stone of sustainability thinking, whatever else that might be, it certainly ain’t the sciences.  Nonetheless, one might ask whether the resources for designing a sustainable future are not in fact better excavated by the humanistic disciplines rather than dictated by the intellectual traditions of the sciences that created the problems.