Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 16
Jobs and Community in Humboldt
County, California
J. MARK BAKER AND LENYA N. QUINN-DAVIDSON
During the last three decades, ecological restoration has grown from a locally rooted,
community-based movement into a widespread practice, diverse in meaning, applica-
tion, and scale. During this period, restoration has become institutionalized as an im-
portant activity within a multitude of national, state, and local government agencies
and programs. Restoration now represents a legitimate form of scientific inquiry and
scholarship, supported by university research and teaching programs, professional as-
sociations, and journals. Perhaps most important, private and public sector funding
for landscape-scale and other restoration efforts has steadily increased. Yet the phe-
nomenal growth of the restoration movement, along with the increasing legitimacy
accorded particular forms of restoration, has raised the stakes of debates about restora-
tion's purpose and rationale. Growing demand and esteem for restoration have illu-
minated its dynamic meaning—it ranges from a site for the productive engagement of
communities and environments to a science-based practice that allows for the effi-
cient and large-scale restitution of damaged ecosystems.
Restoration has many meanings and applications, the fundamental values and
goals of which vary greatly. It is this subjectivity that has time and again compelled
restorationists to identify elements of “good” restoration. For Eric Higgs (1997), “good
restoration” involves ethical, social, cultural, and political considerations in addition
to ecological fidelity. William Jordan (2003) similarly stresses a vision of restoration
that integrates both ecology and community in the creation of new environmental
and social values. These conceptions offer a powerful restoration ideology, yet as res-
toration ecology and practice grow more complex, so does the process of integrating
science and culture. Higgs (2005) argues that as restoration expands there is an inher-
ent tendency for it to conform to our society's dominant forms of rationality, which
emphasize efficiency and technocratic forms of expertise and knowledge. The danger
of this shift toward a more narrow reading of the meaning and purpose of restoration,
as Higgs and others persuasively demonstrate, is the potential loss of the broader soci-
ocultural values and benefits that restoration could provide, and the undermining of
its ability to engage people in activities that simultaneously produce healthier wa-
tersheds and communities. Higgs also alerts us to the concern that the increasing
