Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 5
Inclusive Urban Ecological Restoration
in Toronto, Canada
ALLEGRA NEWMAN
High Park is one of the largest green spaces within the city of Toronto, and it attracts
people from all over the city with its beautiful lawns, attractive gardens, and oak sa-
vanna and pond restoration. Walking through the park on a sunny, summer day you
encounter the diversity that is the city of Toronto—a city where about 50 percent of
the residents are people who immigrated to Canada within the last ten years (Toronto
Community Foundation 2004). In 2007, a park planning exercise was led by the park
management and the volunteer park council to decide the direction of future park de-
velopment, and specifically what role ecological restoration would play. Seventy peo-
ple met on a Saturday morning to discuss the future of the park and gather input from
various interest groups, including dog walkers, gardeners, cyclists, and restorationists.
All seventy participants were white and seemingly of western European ancestry. They
certainly did not reflect the diversity of the park's users. Looking around the room, I
questioned why diverse cultures were not engaged in this process even though they
had direct interest in what happened in the park.
This experience was the beginning of a research project in which I examined eco-
logical restoration work in Toronto and looked at why certain voices, specifically those
of racialized people,
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were not being heard in the planning and decision-making pro-
cesses. In this chapter, I examine why inclusive ecological restoration is important,
critically analyze how Toronto organizations working on urban ecological restoration
projects are moving toward being more inclusive, and investigate the challenges to
and opportunities available for creating a more inclusive practice.
What Is Inclusive Ecological Restoration?
It is well known that urban ecological restoration is an important facet of ecological
restoration and that it has its own unique challenges and opportunities (Kilvington et
al. 1998; Gobster 2001). These challenges occur because there is a greater interaction
between many people and the environment being restored in urban areas and, subse-
quently, a greater possibility of conflicting values and ideas about nature. Hull and
Robertson (2000) see the battle over competing values as a competition where “some
