RGS-IBG 2015 CFP: Ecological Restoration in the Anthropocene
Ecological restoration refers to ‘the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged or destroyed’ (SER, 2004, 3), with recovery understood as ‘intentional activity that initiates or accelerates the recovery of an ecosystem with respect to its health, integrity and sustainability’ (SER 2004, 1). A dovetailing of ecological restoration and geography is evident in an emergent ‘restoration geographies’ (cf. Smith, 2013, Havlick & Doyle, 2009; also Eden 2002, Eden et al. 2000, 1999, Cowell 1997) where critique is refocused on the place of geographies and the geographical in ecological restoration – on the interplay between nature and culture, space and place, scale and context in restoring/restored nature.
This session explores how changing social experiences, engagement, values and expectations (whether cultural, economic, political, technological) are used to articulate ecological restoration issues in the Anthropocene. Such consideration can reveal new geographic opportunities – as well as challenges – to better understanding and addressing environmental impacts and ecosystem changes.
We invite paper submissions from a broad array of geographers, including historical and cultural geographers, political ecologists, economic geographers, geomorphologists, and others that address applied and theoretical work relating to ecological restoration in the Anthropocene. Themes and questions may address, but are not limited to, the following:
What might be the place and function of ecological restoration in the Anthropocene?
What might the concept of the ‘Anthropocene’ contribute to a reading of ecological restoration theory and praxis?
Does ecological restoration destabilise or reinforce particular types of nature-society relations?
What sort of values might ecological restoration be based upon, or seek to engender?
How might a theo-ethics of ‘redemption’ shape ecological restoration sensibilities?
How do ecological restoration discourses speak to wider debates around ecological, social, and economic value? Might they be subsumed within, or critically resist gentrification or wider environmental economic ideas (e.g. ‘natural capital’)?
How are socio-ecological aesthetics, ethics, and morality revealed by rewilding strategies?