Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Compensatory funds were devoted to watershed restoration to repair the damage. The
tribal strategy is to “take care of the land so that the land can, once again take better
care of the people” (Welch and Riley 2001). Their approach to the restoration process
is grounded in the wisdom of their creation stories and powerful cultural metaphors
that remind people to safeguard the life processes that link the human and nonhuman
communities. Elders and knowledge holders were vital participants in the design and
implementation of restoration plans. The techniques used in riparian zone restoration
were derived from traditional land caregiving methods practiced by the people for
millennia, including methods for streambank erosion control methods, selective
burning, and transplanting vegetation (Long, Tecle, and Burnette 2003).
From Function to Fidelity or Evolving Definitions of
Ecological Restoration
Until recently, the many definitions of ecological restoration in the literature were
mostly limited to considerations of ecosystem structure and function in a fairly nar-
row, materialistic sense—reflecting the scientific paradigm (National Research Coun-
cil 1992). The U.S. Forest Service (2010) definition is broadly representative of this
perspective: “Ecological restoration is the process of assisting the recovery of re-
silience and adaptive capacity of ecosystems that have been degraded, damaged or de-
stroyed. Restoration focuses on establishing the composition, structure, pattern and
ecological processes necessary to make terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems sustainable,
resilient and healthy under current and future conditions.” This is mirrored in the ba-
sic definition of ecological restoration provided by the Society for Ecological Restora-
tion: “Ecological restoration is the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem
that has been degraded, damaged or destroyed” (SER Primer 2004).
It is noteworthy that these definitions fail to incorporate human relationship or
cultural resources into restoration goals or practices. Restoration, although a pro-
foundly human endeavor, is conceptualized within a worldview that places human
beings outside of natural systems and prioritizes repair of structure and function above
restoration of relationship. However, a broken relationship with land is at the root of
the ecological degradation that restoration seeks to repair. Restoration of relationship
to land would, therefore, seem to require equivalence, if not a priority focus, as a res-
toration goal.
Coincident with the formulation of the functional definitions of ecological restora-
tion, a definition of restoration was also being formulated from the indigenous world-
view, in which nature is viewed not as a collection of objects but as a community of sub-
jects that includes human beings as members of the democracy of species. Within this
paradigm, colleagues in the Indigenous Environmental Network conceptualized eco-
logical restoration as
inseparable from cultural and spiritual restoration
.
In the past few years, the terms used to define the boundaries of ecological restora-
tion have subtly shifted from a focus primarily on structure and function of ecosystems
to a broader consideration that includes concepts of human relationship to place. In-
deed, the Society for Ecological Restoration has broadened its definition to include
