Transportation Corridors as Vehicles for Cultural and Ecological Regeneration - Restorative Redevelopment of Devastated Ecocultural Landscapes - page 334

Predictions of the maximum possible extent that the marshes might be reflooded in
relation to the dramatically diminished supply of water available due to upstream
diversions, are less than half the surface area that existed a century ago (France
2007, 2011). This observation, as well as the desires by contemporary marshland
dwellers for increased transportation ease (for health care, selling of crafts, etc.),
necessitates the presence of an extensive network of roads linking the future restored
marsh patches to urban centers.
Roads alter vegetation patterns, impede wildlife movement, produce erosion, and
cause chemical pollution, in addition to a myriad of wetland effects, including sev-
ered connectivity and destruction of wildlife habitat, altered hydrology and nutrient
flows, and widespread contamination (e.g., Salvesen 1994; Zug 1997; Findlay and
Houlahan 1997; Voss and Chardon 1998; France 2003). Therefore, while it might be
possible to run straight roads across the “empty” desert bordered by a few roadside
shrubs for purposes of aesthetics or reduction of blowing sand (as is common prac-
tice in Abu Dhabi) with only minor deleterious ecological effects, wetlands on the
other hand are particularly sensitive to the presence of roads. It makes little sense
then to invest so much in the restoration of the marshes of southern Iraq if their eco-
logical integrity is to be immediately compromised by the widespread construction
of environmentally insensitive roads.
Fortunately, new ways of regarding roads as being ecological entities in their own
right (Forman et al. 2003) and as being designed to be part of, rather than in opposi-
tion to, the landscape, are beginning to take hold. And nowhere has this paradigm
shift, combining ecological sensitivity and landscape architecture, been more suc-
cessfully accomplished than in the award-winning redesign and reconstruction of a
section of U.S. Highway 93 in Montana by Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape
Architects.
Roads are of course cultural constructs that shape and are shaped by human minds
just as much as they are by human hands (e.g., Route 66—the “Mother Road,” the
Appian Way, the Camino de Santiago, etc.). The U.S. Highway 93 story is particularly
relevant to the restorative redevelopment of southern Iraq in that it is a road built not
only for, but also with, the resident dwellers. Engaging indigenous or Native popula-
tions in ecocultural landscape regeneration is an important attribute to the long-term,
sustainable success of such projects (e.g., Kadlecik and Wilson 2008; Senos 2008,
Egan and Howell 2001) and one that should be adopted in southern Iraq.
CASE STUDY—MONTANA'S HIGHWAY 93
Design and planning projects on Native American tribal lands offer opportunities to
integrate cultural values with ecological restoration and thus offer a model for the
ecocultural restorative redevelopment in southern Iraq. U.S. Highway 93 is a high-
way project Jones & Jones worked on in western Montana, on the Flathead Indian
Reservation, the homeland of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT).
The project focused on four major efforts: (1) advocating for Tribal cultural val-
ues as the foundation for design decisions; (2) finding a middle ground between the
stakeholders and formalizing this in a Memorandum of Agreement; (3) developing
design guidelines for stormwater treatment, wildlife crossings, revegetation, corridor