Marcus Hall

The changing role of history in restoration ecology

In the face of rapid environmental and cultural change, orthodox concepts in restoration ecology such as historical fidelity are being challenged. Here we re-examine the diverse roles played by historical knowledge in restoration, and argue that these roles remain vitally important. As such, historical knowledge will be critical in shaping restoration ecology in the future. Perhaps the most crucial role in shifting from the present version of restoration ecology (“v1.0”) to a newer formulation (“v2.0”) is the value of historical knowledge in guiding scientific interpretation, recognizing key ecological legacies, and influencing the choices available to practitioners of ecosystem intervention under conditions of open-ended and rapid change.

Using the past to understand the present land use and land cover

Landscapes must be understood as dynamic time-dependent entities rather than static associscapes, oral, written, (carto-)graphic and ecological sources can be used. Combinations of these sources usually provide reliable historical information, if based on a critical analysis of the quality and background of the data, including cross-checking information from the different data sources. The general public, planners, politicians, land managers, ecological modelers, and restoration ecologists are just some of the potential users of landscape history.

Extracting Culture or Injecting Nature? Rewilding in Transatlantic Perspective

In this chapter, Marcus Hall argues that ecological (or environmental) restoration, as the project of repairing damaged ecosystems, is now a worldwide pursuit that poses a range of practical and theoretical challenges. Not only do restorers seek a keen biological knowledge of every ecosystem they hope to restore, they must also settle on restorative goals that are both reasonable and appropriate. Choosing a goal that aims to reproduce an earlier, pre-degraded state can seem arbitrary for some ecosystems, or irrelevant for others, as there are many pre-degraded states, be they pre-industrial, pre-agricultural, pre-Columbian, or pre-human. This chapter focuses on the practice of ‘rewilding’ on both sides of the Atlantic, aiming to see how it is being practiced differently according to needs, assumptions, and values. A series of historical comparisons across the Atlantic serves as a way to emphasize that rewilding usually means very different things for Europeans and Americans. It is concluded that rewilders generally aim to bring back wilderness in America, whereas they hope to bring back wildness in Europe.

Restoring the Countryside: George Perkins Marsh and the Italian Land Ethic (1861-1882)

G.P. Marsh wrote his monumental Man and Nature (1864) almost entirely in Italy, where he drew heavily from Italian insights and Italian landscapes. While warning about the human propensity to degrade nature, he also maintained hope in the human ability to restore nature. In Italy, as in the United States, Marshs writings helped stimulate discussion leading to major new land-use policies; generally preservationist measures in the U.S. and restorationist measures in Italy. The novelty and urgency of Marshs messages depended upon contrasting Old and New World traditions of land management.

The Provincial Nature of George Perkins Marsh

While many of Marshs novel conservation insights were universal and true for citizens of all countries, his key warnings about degradation were characteristically American having been interpreted, produced, and packaged by an American for Americans. The contrasts he saw between American and Mediterranean lands allowed Marsh to formulate and then support his thesis that humans not only modified but damaged the earth. This paper suggests that Marshs warn ings about degradation depended upon Americas rising infatuation with its wild continent: not until a nation could view wildland as healthy and beneficent could one of its citizens suggest that enlightened humans often degraded it. For those accustomed to tamed, gardened land, as in southern Europe, non-human forces inflicted the worst land damage. Marsh ushered in a new paradigm of environmental damage that placed blame on culture rather than nature.