BOOK REVIEW
Gretel van Wieren: Restored to Earth: Christianity,Environmental Ethics, and Ecological Restoration
Georgetown University Press, Washington, 2013, 208 + pp
Anna Peterson
Accepted: 24 January 2014 / Published online: 7 February 2014
� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
This book explores the moral, social, and spiritual dimensions of ecological
restoration. Gretel Van Wieren, a religion scholar, builds on the work of both critics
and advocates of restoration to develop a balanced and well-informed approach to a
controversial topic in environmental ethics. Ultimately she finds much value in
restoration, as much for its ability to help build human community as for its
contributions to ecological well-being. Restoration, she summarizes, is ‘‘the attempt
to heal and make the human relationship to nature whole’’ (2).
While she holds a generally positive view of restoration, Van Wieren consistently
faces the ambivalence inherent in human efforts to recreate wild habitats.
Restorationists are faced, as she explains, with ‘‘the simultaneous realities that
they are in some sense making up nature as they go… and that natural processes are
in some sense other than and beyond the human mind’’ (20). By keeping both these
dimensions in mind, Van Wieren presents a balanced account that is positive
without romanticizing restoration’s ecological or social roles.
The often heated debates about ecological restoration, at least within environ-
mental ethics, have focused on the question of nature’s intrinsic value, and
particularly what is and what counts as nature. Some restorationists, particularly
William Jordan, suggest that human perceptions or practices are what make nature
valuable. On the other hand, Holmes Rolston insists that nature’s value comes from
evolutionary and ecological processes beyond humans. He allows that while
restored landscapes can be valuable, they are not as valuable—less ecologically rich
or diverse, less historically significant—as nonmodified wild landscapes.
While Rolston does not oppose restoration in all cases, other environmental
philosophers, notably Eric Katz and Robert Elliot, have argued strongly against
restoration. Elliot calls restoration ‘‘faking nature,’’ while Katz sees it as a ‘‘big lie.’’
Both see it as part of human domination of nature, which they understand as
A. Peterson (&)
University of Florida, POB 117410, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
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J Agric Environ Ethics (2014) 27:347–348
DOI 10.1007/s10806-014-9495-x
necessarily independent of human creation and intervention. Elliot worries, in
addition, that restoration can become a justification for the destruction of nature (58).
On the other side of the debate, a number of practitioners and scholars insist that
restoration exemplifies a positive human intervention in nature, an effort to redress
past wrongs and create both healthier ecosystems and a more constructive human
relationship to nature. William Jordan, Eric Higgs, and Andrew Light have all made
arguments in this vein. Van Wieren ultimately sides with these more positive
evaluations of restoration, believing that ‘‘people may become restored to earth in
and through the process of restoring earth’’ and, even more broadly, that restoration
can provide a model for understanding human relationships to nonhuman nature and
generating better environmental ethics (185).
This is a thoughtful and balanced book, with great value to scholars from a variety
of fields. Its one jarring note, at least in my reading, is the short discussion of hunting,
which occurs in a larger section on the spiritual aspects of restoration. Van Wieren
quotes several authors who argue that hunting is not violence but rather a form of
human kinship with nature. She cites David Petersen’s claim that after he kills a
‘‘gorgeous’’ wild elk, his ‘‘empathy is gut-churning’’ (90). Sport hunting is not
generally considered part of ecological restoration, although ‘‘therapeutic’’ hunting
(especially of nonnative species) is often necessary in large-scale restoration
projects.
It is true that destruction is often part of ecological restoration, especially the
removal of non-native plant and animal species. It is also true, as Van Wieren
argues, that ‘‘negative feelings in relation to the natural world can be… intertwined
with and lead to more positive ones’’ (90). This is an important point, emphasized
strongly by William Jordan as well. However, sport hunting is not ecological
restoration, and the implicit link that Van Wieren implies is troubling. The
quotations from Petersen, in particular, reflect the kind of self-justifying power over
nature that make Katz and Elliot wary of ecological restoration. The foray into
hunting spirituality undermines the book’s larger thesis that despite ambiguities,
restoration ultimately creates positive feelings—respect, love, admiration—toward
nature.
These positive feelings acknowledge both human connections to nature and our
ultimate separation from it. This separation comes from the fact that wild nature has
an existence that is independent of human creativity, intervention, and valuing—or,
as Van Wieren puts it: ‘‘Nature’s true or really real value resides in its inherent
capacities for self-renewal and regeneration, or its prolifically wild generative
character, perhaps even beyond human knowledge’’ (161).
The great strength of Van Wieren’s book is that she recognizes both the
connection and the independence, balancing constructionist and ‘‘essentialist’’
views of nature (which she combines in a ‘‘strategic essentialism’’). This makes
Restored to Earth an excellent introduction to the debates about restoration within
environmental ethics. For people familiar with debates about restoration, the book’s
most important contribution is to emphasize the religious and spiritual dimensions
of restoration and, in particular, the ways restoration is a collective activity that
creates and strengthens human communities at the same time it can contribute to
ecological health.
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