ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION: PRINCIPLES, VALUES AND STRUCTURE OF AN EMERGING PROFESSION by Andrew F. Clewell and James Aronson
Reviewed by Kelly Heber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Virtual field trips to see ecological restoration make this a special book.
Ecological Restoration: Principles, Values and Structure of an Emerging Profession, by Andrew F. Clewell and James Aronson, Island Press, 2nd edition, 2013
The premise behind this exhaustive account of the practice of ecological restoration is to illustrate the Pandey (2002) concept of “holistic ecological restoration” in great detail. Restoration in this context focuses as much on socioeconomic considerations as it does ecological concerns. As is true in most interdisciplinary efforts of this sort, sustainability and biodiversity conservation are bundled with restoration in a complex fashion, creating somewhat uneven results. Though careful, detailed, and thorough, this volume seems at times to be trying to do too many things. A number of the key concepts mentioned probably warrant primers of their own. Hints of this problem surface in the early sections which offer a seemingly unending list of potential members of a target audience for the book that could, in effect, include anybody. Efforts to appeal to such a wide audience blur the focus. Any hope of an integrated examination of the socioeconomic and biophysical steps crucial to restoration is lost.
The authors note that their intent is not to provide a comprehensive review of scholarship in the field, but they ignore decades of careful scholarship that might have helped to ground what they call “an emerging profession.” All that being said, the book has a number of redeeming qualities, especially the “Virtual Field Trips” or illustrated case examinations of specific restorations. These are different from other practice-oriented restoration presentations in other texts in terms of the range of ecosystems covered and the variety of case locations, which span the globe. I would use this text in an introductory course on ecosystem-based management or sustainable development.
