Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
anthropogenic, humans and the landscapes they inhabit all over the planet have co-
evolved. Indeed, coevolution might be a useful way to think about the relationship
between humans and ecosystems that we should strive for through ecological restora-
tion. It implies the possibility and necessity of evolving new human values and behav-
iors in our relationship to the landscapes we inhabit.
Second, humans don't have some generic impact on these landscapes; we imprint
them with remarkable detail, reflecting specific values, preferences, needs and con-
straints, just as their conditions affect human culture. Extensive theories and data sup-
port biological bases of landscape preference (Daniel and Vining 1983; Bourassa
1991; Kellert and Wilson 1995). But shared cultural values, perceptions, and cogni-
tive processes are also at work in landscape preferences (Kaplan and Kaplan 1989;
Gobster 1999). Landscapes themselves are enduring reflections of cultural values.
Furthermore, because they embody unexamined cultural conventions, they are also
resistant cultural artifacts, reflecting past values and beliefs (Nassauer 1995). Every-
where that Europeans settled throughout the New World, they imposed their values
on the landscape in attempts to fashion it into something useful and familiar. Gener-
ations later, the cultural values and practices of early European settlers can be de-
tected in the conditions of the landscapes they inhabited. For example, in Wisconsin
the woodlots of second- and third-generation German Americans display the “tidi-
ness” of the woodlots of their ancestors in Germany (Bliss 1992). Norwegian Ameri-
can woodlots suggest the frugality of their immigrant forbearers, while the open-
canopied hardwood stands of eastern European settlers reflect their primary use as
sheep pasture. In the glacial outwash landscape of northern Wisconsin, Finnish
Americans re-created the “system of fields and forests” they had known in their home
country. Each of these immigrant groups held tightly to their cultural definitions of
what constituted a resource and what constituted an obstacle to overcome (Bliss
1992). Thus, we should be cautious in discussions of baseline or reference conditions
when we generalize how humans have impacted the land. We should ask, Which hu-
mans? At what point in history? In response to what values, needs, or constraints?
Third, determining target conditions for restoration, then, necessarily involves
consideration of the behavior and culture that created or maintained the desired eco-
logical condition. Target conditions inescapably reflect and privilege particular pat-
terns of human activity, and the associated values and constraints, over others. Begin-
ning with the claim that an ecosystem is in need of conservation or restoration, one is
engaging in choices based upon (often competing) human values, preferences, and
cognitive constructs about naturalness (Hull, Robertson, and Kendra 2001), biodiver-
sity (Takacs 1996), wilderness (Cronon 1995), wildlife (Scarce 1999), sustainable de-
velopment (Peterson 1997; Peterson et al. 1997), restoration (Gobster and Hull 2000),
stewardship (Peterson and Horton 1995), and whether humans are a part of or sepa-
rate from nature (Katz 2000). Decisions about which ecosystems to restore might be
considered as a sort of triage. Some landscapes have been so thoroughly transformed
by intense human use over extended periods of time that the social as well as the bio-
logical challenges of restoration are overwhelming. In some such landscapes, strong
