Restoring Layered Landscapes

'Restoring Layered Landscapes' explores ecological restoration in complex landscapes, where ecosystems intertwine with important sociopolitical meanings.

Restoring Disturbed Landscapes is a hands-on guide for individuals and groups seeking to improve the functional capacity of landscapes. Abundantly illustrated with photos and figures, Restoring Disturbed Landscapes is an engaging and accessible work designed specifically for restoration practitioners with limited training or experience in the field. It uses a five-step adaptive procedure to tell restorationists where to start, what information they need to acquire, and how to apply this information to their specific situations. Cosponsored by the Society for Ecological Restoration International and Island Press, this series offers a foundation of practical knowledge and scientific insight that will help ecological restoration become the powerful reparative and healing tool that the world needs

The theory of preservation assumes that humans are different from and opposed to the rest of nature. The contributors to "Beyond preservation", on the other hand, explore their belief that humans are inextricably entwined with nature and therefore have an unavoidable impact on the entire ecosystem. The comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach employed by the editors addresses the possibilities of and problems with the restoration of damaged landscapes and even the invention of new ones. William R. Jordan III, a botanist by training, is committed to ecological restoration, and in the keynote essay he advocates the premises on which his theory is based. Poet and essayist Frederick Turner is fascinated with the construction of new landscapes and proposes a more rather than less ambitious human effort to shape nature. Turner contributes an essay that, together with Jordan's, serves as a cornerstone of the volume. Both Turner and Jordan urge us to use our intelligence and our creative faculties to manage nature by restoring damaged landscapes and creating mutually beneficial relationships among all species. The lead essays are followed by a series of broadly interdisciplinary critiques that confront a host of contemporary issues having to do with our attempts to preserve or restore landscapes. Individual essays address the theoretical issues entailed in restoration; examine case studies of the application of restoration/reclamation/preservation theory and techniques; and finally, reflect on the implications and consequences of environmental restoration. Taken together, these essays are as important for the questions they raise as for their individual assessments of Jordan's and Turner's programmatic statements. A. Dwight Baldwin, Jr., is Professor of Geology at Miami University. Judith De Luce is Professor of Classics, affiliate in women's studies, and fellow in the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University. Carl Pletsch is Associate Professor of History at Miami University.

Companion to Environmental Studies presents a comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the key issues, debates, concepts, approaches and questions that together define environmental studies today. The intellectually wide-ranging volume covers approaches in environmental science all the way through to humanistic and post-natural perspectives on the biophysical world. Though many academic disciplines have incorporated studying the environment as part of their curriculum, only in recent years has it become central to the social sciences and humanities rather than mainly the geosciences. ‘The environment’ is now a keyword in everything from fisheries science to international relations to philosophical ethics to cultural studies. The Companion brings these subject areas, and their distinctive perspectives and contributions, together in one accessible volume. Over 150 short chapters written by leading international experts provide concise, authoritative and easy-to-use summaries of all the major and emerging topics dominating the field, while the seven part introductions situate and provide context for section entries. A gateway to deeper understanding is provided via further reading and links to online resources. Companion to Environmental Studies offers an essential one-stop reference to university students, academics, policy makers and others keenly interested in ‘the environmental question’, the answer to which will define the coming century.

This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the history, theory, and current practices of rewilding. Rewilding offers a transformational paradigm shift in conservation thinking, and as such is increasingly of interest to academics, policymakers, and practitioners. However, as a rapidly emerging area of conservation, the term has often been defined and used in a variety of different ways (both temporally and spatially). There is, therefore, the need for a comprehensive assessment of this field, and the Routledge Handbook of Rewilding fills this lacuna. The handbook is organised into four sections to reflect key areas of rewilding theory, practice, and debate: the evolution of rewilding, theoretical and practical underpinnings, applications and impacts, and the ethics and philosophy of rewilding. Drawing on a range of international case studies the handbook addresses many of the key issues, including land acquisition and longer-term planning, transitioning from restoration (human-led, nature enabled) to rewilding (nature-led, human enabled), and the role of political and social transformational change. Led by an editorial team who have extensive experience researching and practising rewilding, this handbook is essential reading for students, academics and practitioners interested in rewilding, ecological restoration, natural resource management and conservation.

An exploration of the Green Belt conservation project between the former East and West Germanies and its relationship to emergent ecosystems, trauma, and memorialization. The first book-length scholarly treatment of Germany’s largest conservation project, the Green Belt, Mnemonic Ecologies by Sonja Pieck presents a new interdisciplinary approach: that effective restoration and conservation of wounded land must merge ecology with memory. Since the Cold War’s end in 1989, German conservationists have transformed the once-militarized border between East and West Germany into an extensive protected area. Yet as forests, meadows, and wetlands replace fences, minefields, and guard towers, ecological recovery must reckon with the pain of the borderlands’ brutal past. The lessons gained by conservationists here, Pieck argues, have profound practical and ethical implications far beyond Germany. Can conservation help heal both ecological and societal wounds? How might conservation honor difficult socioecological pasts? Deeply researched and evocatively written, this beautiful, interdisciplinary investigation into the legacy of war and nature’s resurgence blends environmental history, ethics, geography, and politics with ecology and memory studies. Amid our rampant biodiversity crisis, Mnemonic Ecologies shows why conservation must include humanized landscapes in its purview, thus helping to craft a new conservation ethos that is collaborative, empathetic, and more sensitive to the connections between humans and the places they inhabit.

After its bestselling first edition from 1993, the "Landscape Restoration Handbook" returns with many new features and enhancements. Updated and expanded information includes a new chapter on ecological restoration types; an appendix on ecological restoration resources (professionals, organizations, natural heritage programs, web sites); and an appendix on regulatory considerations for wetland restoration.

Forest landscape restoration (FLR) is a planned process that aims to regain ecological integrity and enhance human wellbeing in deforested or degraded landscapes. The aim of this book is to better understand the need to take human and institutional factors, as well as the more obvious biophysical, into consideration in FLR.