Ecological Restoration

The field of Restoration Ecology began to develop and formalize at about the same time as Environmental Aesthetics. Like Environmental Aesthetics, Restoration Ecology developed organizations, recruited members, established journals, and held conferences, and still does. As an ecologist, I became involved with Restoration Ecology during those years I worked on urban greening and habitat restoration projects. Although my professional work has shifted, I’ve kept track of the restoration folks.

 For example, some interesting restoration is underway with the Los Angeles River in Southern California. From 1914 to 1938 a number of floods caused much devastation and substantial death along the river. In response, in 1940 the US Army Corps of Engineers began to channelize the river pulling it between concrete walls.

Shortly after work began, in 1941 I was born in Los Angeles and for all of my young life frequently drove back and forth across the concrete channel…from homeplace to grandparental place…from the university where I worked to the one where I studied…and finally taking girlfriends to the beautiful beaches (I married one of those lovely California girls 54 years ago).  I’ve watched many films with the cops chasing the cons up and down the concrete channel…actor Arnold Schwarzenegger struggling to save humanity from future machines and, most recently in Fear the Walking Dead as a zombie apocalypse overwhelms Los Angeles.   

I’m now very pleased to see the work underway to restore the Los Angeles River.  And while some may find aesthetic pleasure in a concrete channel I think most of us would rather see rocky rapids, islands of emergent vegetation, and wildlife fill the channel. 


Several of us have formed an Environmental Aesthetics Study Group. Membership is free and by invitation. For an invitation contact springmountain1@att.net.

On Aesthetics

Is it enough to say that a particular place is beautiful and that it projects (or we perceive) aesthetic appeal?  In my work as an ecologist, I analyze biodiversity, and the context in which it exists,  and describe how various aspects of an area function as a system. 

Simply saying of a place that “this is an ecosystem,” isn’t enough. Even qualifying that statement by claiming the place is a ‘wetland ecosystem’ isn’t enough.  Taking it down a step further and announcing that the place is a subset of a wetland ecosystem, for example a Southern Appalachian acidic fen or a desert wet meadow complex may work a bit better toward an acceptable description offering shared meaning.  But even to get this far I use a consensual methodology and terminology developed over decades by others who also call themselves ecologists.

The same need for system, method, and terminology appears to hold true for philosophical field of Aesthetics, including the sub-field of Environmental Aesthetics…the focus of our forum. A number of scholars have suggested an ‘aesthetics of nature’ through which that beautiful scene mentioned above can be placed in a context that allows us to describe it with some degree of consensus.

Over the years, I’ve looked at several proposed aesthetics of nature and  I wonder if any one system can adequately describe the range of beauty of those places in which I work and my response to those places, or the response you or others may have. For the past five years I have conducted fieldwork in the fens of the Blue Ridge Escarpment in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina and in isolated wetlands in the desert lands of the Great Basin of the western United States.  These are two very different regions of the world, very different ecosystems, and very different wetland systems.  And yet, I find beauty in both systems including the pocket-sized patches of damp sand in the Great Basin and the densely vegetated mucky fens of the Escarpment, with their mosses and ferns.  I find beauty not only in their present but also in their past…in their evolutionary development. In fact, I find myself drawn more and more to considering the aesthetic beauty of the evolution of living system….like incredibly colorful and complex fractals evolving on a viewing screen. 

Several of us have formed a study group to address Environmental Aesthetics. For those who are interested, please  contact me at springmountain1@att.net.