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Wild by Design: The Rise of Ecological Restoration
An environmental historian delves into the history, science, and philosophy of a paradoxical the century-old quest to design natural places and create wild species.
Environmental restoration is a global pursuit and a major political concern. Governments, nonprofits, private corporations, and other institutions spend billions of dollars each year to remove invasive species, build wetlands, and reintroduce species driven from their habitats. But restoration has not always been so intensively practiced. It began as the pastime of a few wildflower enthusiasts and the first practitioners of the new scientific discipline of ecology.
Restoration has been a touchstone of US environmentalism since the beginning of the twentieth century. Diverging from popular ideas about preservation, which romanticized nature as an Eden to be left untouched by human hands, and conservation, the managed use of natural resources, restoration emerged as a “third way.” Restorationists grappled with the deepest puzzles of human care for life on How to intervene in nature for nature’s own sake? What are the natural baselines that humans should aim to restore? Is it possible to design nature without destroying wildness? Laura J. Martin shows how, over time, amateur and professional ecologists, interest groups, and government agencies coalesced around a mode of environmental management that sought to respect the world-making, and even the decision-making, of other species. At the same time, restoration science reshaped material environments in ways that powerfully influenced what we understand the wild to be.
In Wild by Design , restoration’s past provides vital knowledge for climate change policy. But Martin also offers something more―a meditation on what it means to be wild and a call for ecological restoration that is socially just.
Environmental restoration is a global pursuit and a major political concern. Governments, nonprofits, private corporations, and other institutions spend billions of dollars each year to remove invasive species, build wetlands, and reintroduce species driven from their habitats. But restoration has not always been so intensively practiced. It began as the pastime of a few wildflower enthusiasts and the first practitioners of the new scientific discipline of ecology.
Restoration has been a touchstone of US environmentalism since the beginning of the twentieth century. Diverging from popular ideas about preservation, which romanticized nature as an Eden to be left untouched by human hands, and conservation, the managed use of natural resources, restoration emerged as a “third way.” Restorationists grappled with the deepest puzzles of human care for life on How to intervene in nature for nature’s own sake? What are the natural baselines that humans should aim to restore? Is it possible to design nature without destroying wildness? Laura J. Martin shows how, over time, amateur and professional ecologists, interest groups, and government agencies coalesced around a mode of environmental management that sought to respect the world-making, and even the decision-making, of other species. At the same time, restoration science reshaped material environments in ways that powerfully influenced what we understand the wild to be.
In Wild by Design , restoration’s past provides vital knowledge for climate change policy. But Martin also offers something more―a meditation on what it means to be wild and a call for ecological restoration that is socially just.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published May 17, 2022
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428 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 2, 2023
The UN declared that 2021-2030 would be the decade of ecological restoration. Just one month ago, the nations of the world (with the notable exception of the US) declared at the COP 15 Biodiversity Summit that 30% of the globe would become protected environmental space. This is certainly the century of climate change and environmental management…. But how the hell did we get here?
This is a history book, and the most important one I’ve read in a while. We take environmental management for granted. This book will shatter that image. Restoration is a new and evolving science that will have an enormous impact on the decades to come.
Read this to better orient yourself in the debate for the future of a natural Earth.
This is a history book, and the most important one I’ve read in a while. We take environmental management for granted. This book will shatter that image. Restoration is a new and evolving science that will have an enormous impact on the decades to come.
Read this to better orient yourself in the debate for the future of a natural Earth.
June 12, 2024
Phenomenal. I read a lot of academic texts these days and I wouldn’t recommend a lot of them to people but this one I definitely do recommend to anyone interested in ecology or restoration. Martin runs through the history of restoration in the U.S., articulating that the ecological discipline is thoroughly shaped by U.S. political affairs (like nuclear weapons???? I had no clue) and is not static. But they also come to conclude that there is something in restoration praxis, in this delicate affair between humans and nonhumans, that is meaningful and hopeful.
February 14, 2023
Objective, well researched, and well written. This book has it all for those who enjoy the topics of natural/scientific history.
September 4, 2024
Immensely readable and highly engaging; not just an academic treatise by any stretch.
February 26, 2025
It took me a bit to get through this book, mainly because it is PACKED with so much good information about the history and relationship between the US government and ecological restoration. From the American Bison Association to US Nuclear Testing to George Bush and Florida (lol) to Disney, Martin provides so much interesting information about how these forces shaped the field of ecological restoration today. Shoutout to Iris for posting about this book on Goodreads!!!!
September 27, 2024
The information was thought provoking and highly relevant. The book itself was kind of dry and hard to finish.
October 22, 2024
Profound exploration of the history of ecology in the United States, a text all interested in ecology and restoration should read. Can be a bit hard to get through at times.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews