Environmental Restoration

Historical Roots

Although the practice of environmental restoration may seem to be a very modern phenomenon, the roots of the concept run deep in North American geography. In the preface of Man and Nature, one of the most influential works in the history of American environmental thought, George Perkins Marsh expressed the hope that his book would begin to point the way toward understanding three fundamental points about the environmental function of the world around us. First, humans are a significant force at work changing the physical environment of the Earth. Second, many of these anthropogenic changes represent dangerous threats to the organic and inorganic worlds. Last, Marsh wanted to point out that people have the ability to act in the best interest of nature to redress past wrongs and enhance environmental conditions. He pointed to the importance of the restoration of disturbed harmonies and the material improvement of waste and exhausted regions. When Marsh heralded the significance of human agency in forcing environmental change and landscape degradation, he also provided reassurance that people could act as a force to [Page 992]repair this damage. In a sense, Marsh is the originator of the modern concept of environmental restoration.

The rate of research investigations in environmental restoration has blossomed in recent decades. Prior to 1990, restoration was not a significant focus of explicit investigations, whereas currently, more than 1,000 articles are published each year that include keywords associated with environmental restoration across disciplines. This growth is seen by many to be symptomatic of the future of environmental management and applied environmental science. Like the biologist Edward Wilson, some have referred to the 21st century as the Era of Restoration or the Century of Restoring the Earth. Many of these investigations tend to be interdisciplinary, but specific subject area clusters where scholarly interest is highest can be identified. Areas in which the majority of academic research is being conducted include ecology, environmental science and toxicology, water resources, marine and freshwater biology, and forestry. Work in geography normally falls under one of these broad research umbrellas.

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