Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
other similar and larger events at recent SER and Ecological Society of America con-
ferences. Martinez has also published several articles (Martinez 1998, 2003; Senos et
al. 2006) and served as the coeditor with Jesse Ford for a special issue about traditional
ecological knowledge in
Ecological Applications
(Ford and Martinez 2000). Other
leaders in the effort to marry ecological restoration with indigenous interests have
come from academia and include M. Kat Anderson (2001, 2006; Anderson and
Blackburn 1993; Anderson and Barbour 2003), Robin Kimmerer (1998, 2000, 2002;
Kimmerer and Lake 2001), Nancy Turner (1995, 2005; Turner and Deur 2005), and
Thom Alcoze (2003; Alcoze and Hurteau 2001). Their work has been especially im-
portant in connecting with indigenous peoples in their regions and in inspiring young
scholars, including indigenous students, to continue the work they have started. Spe-
cial journal issues about the topic—the December 2003 issue of
Ecological Restora-
tion
(Egan and Anderson 2003) and a 2004 issue of
Ecology and Society
(Folke
2004)—along with conferences of the Society of Ethnobiology and the International
Society of Ethnobiology, have also served to open this topic to positive discussions and
action.
These efforts are aimed at restoring cultural landscapes—an approach that can
work nearly anywhere, although there are those, especially in Europe, who believe
that their cultural landscapes have too much history to ever be restored. As various
projects in England, the Netherlands, and Spain demonstrate, that really depends on
the people involved. If there is an interest in the “old ways,” then restoration of cul-
tural landscapes, and the cultural activities that support them (e.g., mowing of mead-
ows, restoration of fens), can produce successful restoration projects.
Design Arts
Ecological restoration has strong ties to the design arts, especially landscape architec-
ture (Egan 1990). The foundation of this relationship extends back to the late nine-
teenth century in the United States: Frederick Law Olmsted's work to restore Boston's
Back Bay Fens in 1878, and the subsequent use of native plants by landscape archi-
tects such as Jens Jensen, Ossian Simonds, Elsa Rehmann, Frank Waugh, and others
during the decades prior to World War II (Grese 1992). Various writers have also
made the case for even earlier or contemporaneous efforts of the design arts to restore
areas in other parts of the world (Matsui 1996; Whited 1996; Hall 1997, 2005; Ig-
natieva 2005).
In his topic
Nature by Design
(2003), Eric Higgs states so clearly, “As restoration-
ists we are involved in the design of ecosystems and places whether we like it or not”
(71), and with nods to writings by landscape planners such as Ian McHarg (
Design
with Nature
, 1969) and Philip Lewis (
Tomorrow by Design: A Regional Design Process
for Sustainability
, 1996), Higgs encourages restorationists to “take design to another
level, a more explicit one, in which we acknowledge human agency in restoration.
More than this,
we need to acknowledge that restoration is fundamentally a design
practice
” (274, emphasis in original). Higgs sees “good” design as striking a balance
between historic authenticity and contemporary needs, between science and art:
