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Restoration Goes Wild: A Reply to Throop and Purdom
Author(s) -
Higgs Eric S.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
restoration ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.214
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1526-100X
pISSN - 1061-2971
DOI - 10.1111/j.1526-100x.2006.00161.x
Subject(s) - wilderness , wildness , meaning (existential) , natural (archaeology) , restoration ecology , environmental ethics , interpretation (philosophy) , preference , aesthetics , epistemology , sociology , ecology , history , philosophy , archaeology , biology , economics , linguistics , microeconomics
Throop and Purdom’s proposal for virtues based restoration is consistent with my concept of focal restoration, but their interpretation conflates focal restoration with participatory restoration. We disagree on the meaning of wilderness and on the appropriate underlying relationship between nature and culture, which affects how each of us regards the role of restoration in so‐called wilderness. I prefer the term “wildness” over wilderness precisely because the former locates the power of meaning in process rather than place. The primary metaphors we used to describe the proper role of restoration differ, too. Throop and Purdom prefer “healing,” whereas my preference is for “design” as a way of acknowledging the moral implications of restoration interventions in natural processes.