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Ecological restoration, the attempt to guide damaged ecosystems back to a previous, usually healthier or more natural, condition, is rapidly gaining recognition as one of the most promising approaches to conservation. In this book, William R. Jordan III, who coined the term "restoration ecology," and who is widely respected as an intellectual leader in the field, outlines a vision for a restoration-based environmentalism that has emerged from his work over twenty-five years.
Drawing on a provocative range of thinkers, from anthropologists Victor Turner, Roy Rappaport, and Mary Douglas to literary critics Frederick Turner, Leo Marx, and R.W.B. Lewis, Jordan explores the promise of restoration, both as a way of reversing environmental damage and as a context for negotiating our relationship with nature.
Exploring restoration not only as a technology but also as an experience and a performing art, Jordan claims that it is the indispensable key to conservation. At the same time, he argues, restoration is valuable because it provides a context for confronting the most troubling aspects of our relationship with nature. For this reason, it offers a way past the essentially sentimental idea of nature that environmental thinkers have taken for granted since the time of Emerson and Muir.
Introduction
1. Weeding Key Biscayne
2. The Challenge of Reinhabitation
3. Paradigms of Community
4. Awareness: Restoration as a Way of Seeing, and as Work and Play
5. The Exchange: Restoration as Repayment and the Gift of Ecological Immortality
6. Value and Make-Believe: A Primer on Performance
7. Sacrifice and Celebration: Restoration as a Performing Art
8. Conservation and Community: Restoration, the Environment, and Environmentalism
Notes
Selected Readings
Index
William R. Jordan III is Director of the New Academy for Nature and Culture and Co-director of DePaul University's Institute for Nature and Culture. He was senior editor of "Restoration Ecology: A Synthetic Approach to Ecological Research" and was founding editor of the journal "Ecological Restoration" and a founding member of the Society for Ecological Restoration.
Elevating ecological restoration beyond the basic technical aspects to encompass ethical and social considerations, Jordan forges an ambitious model for solving the environmental challenges that threaten native habitats.
- Booklist
"Like all enduring popular movements, environmentalism has been propelled by seminal thinkers and action figures. A century ago John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt got the ball rolling with their ardent championing of wilderness preserves and wildlife protection. Fifty years later Rachel Carson's Silent Spring helped expand the movement to include pollution and public health issues. Then there are the many and varied stars, from Aldo Leopold to David Brower to E. O. Wilson, whose legendary achievements have rallied millions to nature's cause. At some point, William Jordan, the intellectual leader of a relatively new but influential discipline-ecological restoration-is likely to join this pantheon."
- Audubon Magazine
"Argues that [ecological restoration is] vital to the preservation of the Earth's ecosystems, and to ourselves.... Thanks to Jordan's compelling and wide-ranging argument, we learn that [restoration] also is central to the project of being human."
- Orion
"Elevating ecological restoration beyond the basic technical aspets to encompass ethical and social considerations, Jordan forges an ambitious model for solving the environmental challenges that threaten native habitats."-Booklist
"This profoundly provocative and challenging book proposes nothing less than to change the focus of the American and indeed global environmental movement from `defense' to `offense.' It offers a bold, positive replacement for the thinking that has underlain the conservation and preservation movements from their beginnings. In fact, it makes a convincing argument for an altogether new relation between human beings and the natural environment."
- Ernest Callenbach, author of "Ecotopia"
"In this remarkable book, Bill Jordan, the preeminent philosopher of ecological restoration, essays nothing less than mooting the distinction between nature and culture. An argument so brilliant that it's a work of art, 'The Sunflower Forest' envisions evolution, ecosystems, and human action as integral, dynamic, and harmonious. Sage, erudite, and original, 'The Sunflower Forest' is bound to provoke and inspire."
- Stephanie Mills, author of "In Service of the Wild: Restoring and Reinhabiting Damaged Land"
"In a world where Nature is on the defensive and natural habitats shrink by the minute, ecological restoration offers the only hope for many species and ecosystems. As Bill Jordan explains in his wonderful new book, our taking the offensive to reclaim damaged lands, also restores our spirits."
- Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Chair of Conservation Ecology, Duke University
"'The Sunflower Forest' is a highly original, thoughtful, and provocative argument for restoration as a new environmental paradigm. Jordan is a serious intellectual. The book captivated me-it could be the 'must read' book of the year."
- Max Oelschlaeger, Ecological Restoration Institute, Northern Arizona University
