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7 2 Consilience of Cultural and Environmental Landscapes.Pdf Landscape and Urban Planning 177 (2018) 148–159 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Landscape and Urban Planning journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landurbplan Perspective Essay Novel ecosystems: A bridging concept for the consilience of cultural T landscape conservation and ecological restoration ⁎ Eric Macdonalda, , Elizabeth G. Kingb a College of Environment and Design, University of Georgia, 285 S. Jackson Street, Athens, GA, 30602, USA b Odum School of Ecology and, Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT Four themes of consilience (white arrows) between cultural landscape conservation and ecological restoration, which are embodied in the novel ecosystems concept. ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: We evaluate the historical, philosophical, and practical relationships between two fields of theory and practice: Restoration ecology cultural landscape conservation and ecological restoration. Each field has distinct intellectual and disciplinary Heritage conservation roots, bodies of theory, norms of practice, institutions, and modes of professional discourse. Yet both aim to Human-nature dichotomy understand and wisely steward environments for the benefit of humans and non-human nature, and both grapple Interdisciplinary collaboration with similar issues inherent in the complex nexus of nature, society, history, and sustainability. Increasingly, the Cultural landscapes thinking and the practices that once clearly distinguished their respective efforts have begun to converge — Pluralism reaching similar conclusions on challenging issues, and thus building consilience. Coincident with this trend toward consilience, the concept of “novel ecosystems” has arisen. Novel ecosystems are ecological assemblages that form self-organizing systems that have no historical precedent. We argue that the novel ecosystems concept is a useful frame through which to expose, articulate, and address many of the philosophical, ethical, and pragmatic challenges and tradeoffs that cultural landscape conservationists and ecological restorationists grapple with today: the fuzzy lines that distinguish humans from nature, the impossibility of going back in time, the resulting problems of defining goals given diversity of potential priorities, and the value of greater social inclusivity in the practice of restoration. We believe novel ecosystems also provide a powerful bridging concept through which we can understand and align with one another's epistemological perspectives, and continue building consilience and collaborations to conserve, steward, and celebrate our cultural and natural heritage and environment. 1. Introduction distinct cultures of scholarship and practice: cultural landscape con- servation and restoration ecology. Our recent collaborative experiences This essay stems from our respective efforts to restore and better have prompted us to contemplate our different perspectives on the steward neglected landscapes, which we have approached from two convergence of history, culture, and nature in landscapes. With ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (E. Macdonald), [email protected] (E.G. King). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2018.04.015 Received 4 August 2017; Received in revised form 27 February 2018; Accepted 29 April 2018 Available online 18 May 2018 0169-2046/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. E. Macdonald, E.G. King Landscape and Urban Planning 177 (2018) 148–159 colleagues and students, we have begun to explore the restoration of landscape, present needs, or intended future function. While CLC three neglected “junkscapes” (Lister, 2006) on our university campus: a prioritizes the aesthetic, spiritual, economic, and other social values stream valley that was the area’s first industrial corridor, an old-growth that inhere within a place, its practitioners also grapple with under- forest that was part of a 1920s youth camp, and a “people’s park” that standing and managing landscapes as ecosystems. In this respect, its during the early 1970s hosted some of the town’s first outdoor rock- practices and discourse increasingly resonate with those of con- and-roll performances. Each site retains obvious cultural vestiges of temporary ER. these earlier periods, along with elements that evoke both deeper and Ecological restoration also seeks to manage human-influenced more recent layers of time. The past and present are also discernible in landscapes with reference to a past, historical condition—a process that the ecological composition, structure, and functions of these land- the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) defines as “assisting the scapes—reconfigured landforms stripped of topsoil, mature native trees recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or de- towering above thickets of non-native vegetation, predator assemblages stroyed” (SER, 2004, p. 3). Degradation, damage, and destruction are of feral and native animal species, and stream channels partially di- normative concepts that describe undesirable states in terms of species verted into underground pipes. In discussing how our own approaches composition, structure, ecosystem functioning, or system resilience. to landscape restoration applied to such places, we concluded that Undesirable states are typically viewed as direct or indirect results of neither our disciplinary training nor the sites themselves offered clear human activity, and the goal of re-establishing a more desirable state is answers to fundamental questions: Which period in a site’s history usually pursued by returning to one that existed historically. ER tends should serve as a benchmark? Assuming that restoring key historical to focus on natural systems at the level of plant communities, ecosys- ecological characteristics or cultural features of these sites is desirable, tems, and landscapes, applying interventions that aim to foster long- how much restoration is even possible? term, self-sustaining recovery. Some theorists distinguish between Our discussions were facilitated by the newly formalized concept of “meliorative” interventions, which aim to improve the value and/or “novel ecosystems” in restoration ecology, which are defined as as- utility of an ecosystem for the benefit of people, and “ecocentric” re- semblages of organisms and abiotic elements that form self-organizing storation, which focuses on “the literal recreation of a previously ex- systems that have no historical precedent. As we explored how this isting ecosystem” and is guided by an ethos of restoring ‘nature for concept pertained to our own approaches to landscape restoration, we nature’s sake’ (Jordan & Lubick, 2011, p. 2). Ecological restoration may noted that the essential themes underlying core debates within our furthermore be distinguished from restoration ecology, which is the fields were strikingly similar, and that during the past two decades both scienti fic field that develops ecological theory, applied knowledge, and the salient challenges and the trajectories of thought seemed to be methodologies to inform and support ecological restoration. Herein, we converging. The novel ecosystems concept helped us frame the pressing use the term ER to encompass a range of approaches that vary in the challenges in our arenas of study and practice, and became a powerful degree to which they aim to restore historic conditions, such as species bridging concept through which we could understand and align with reintroductions (in which components, but not all ecosystem functions one another's epistemological perspectives. are restored) and rehabilitation (in which key functions, but not all In this essay, we trace the evolution of cultural landscape con- historic biotic components are restored). servation and ecological restoration to highlight similar and often parallel stages of development, as well as four key themes that suffuse 2. Conserving cultural landscapes and restoring ecosystems: the discourse and work of each field: (1) the extent to which humans historical parallels may be conceptually separated from non-human nature, (2) the pre- valence and normative views of linear, deterministic change and A number of authors have provided accounts of the historical de- equilibrium versus dynamic complexity in cultural and ecological sys- velopment of both CLC (Buggey, 1998; Goetcheus, Karson, & Carr, tems; (3) questions about the value of “authenticity,” or the degree to 2017; Goetcheus & Mitchell, 2014; Lennon, 2013; Mitchell, 2016; which restored ecosystems or cultural landscapes can and should re- Mitchell, Rössler, & Tricaud, 2009; O’Donnell, 2017; Taylor, 2013), and plicate historic conditions, and (4) the role of expertise and community ER (Allison, 2012; Hall, 2005; Higgs, 2003; Jordan, 2003; Jordan & participation in restoration and conservation. We argue that perspec- Lubick, 2011). Below, we draw upon these and other sources to offer a tives relating to each theme have shifted in recent decades in ways that historical synopsis of these two fields, highlighting their parallel stages generate greater alignment, overlap, and consilience between the two of development, and key similarities and differences with respect to the fields. We posit that the concept of “novel ecosystems” entails these underlying premises of their work. aspects of consilience, and that it may prove useful as a bridging con- cept toward greater integration of the two fields in the future. 2.1. Antecedents and initial foundations (ca. 1900–1930s) We use the
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