Today environmental restoration is a global pursuit. Governments, nonprofits, and corporations spend billions of dollars each year to remove invasive species, build wetlands, and reintroduce species driven from their habitats.
In Wild by Design, Laura J. Martin uncovers the origins of restoration science and policy. She explores how restorationists struggled with the problem of caring for biodiversity without romanticizing nature as an untouched Eden. Could humans intervene in nature for nature’s own sake? What natural baselines should be restored? Was it possible to design nature without destroying wildness? In illuminating restoration’s past, Wild by Design not only provides vital lessons for our future in a changing climate—it makes an urgent call for environmental restoration that is socially just.
“An outstandingly well-researched and deeply thoughtful account … An essential read for anyone who wants to understand the implications of our interventions.”—John Dupré, Los Angeles Review of Books
“Ecological restoration at its best, Martin writes, is ‘an optimistic collaboration with nonhuman species’ that achieves a measure of justice for both humans and the ecosystems they depend on.” —Michelle Nijhuis, The New York Review of Books
“Can we repair the ecological damage that we’ve done? As Laura Martin observes, no question today could be more pressing, or more uncertain. Wild by Design is a fascinating book—far-reaching, deeply researched, and probing.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future
“By showing how much wildness has already been designed over the past century, and under what assumptions, Martin enables us to plan better designs of our own, to conceive of restoration as “an optimistic collaboration” among humans and other species. Those acting on the ecological emergencies we face should look back on the stories told by this important book.” —Emily Pawley, Science
“A brilliant intervention in the history of conservation that charts changes in ecological understanding of how landscapes rebound from disaster. In following the roots of restoration ecology, Martin explores how naturalness can be cultivated rather than found, providing us with seeds of hope in an age of climate despair.”—Erika Lorraine Milam, author of Creatures of Cain: The Hunt for Human Nature in Cold War America
“This is a superb book. Laura Martin’s research takes us where no restoration literature has gone before, asking, ‘Who gets to decide where and how wildlife management occurs?’ Martin tackles this question with unmatched clarity and insight, illuminating the crucial discussions we must have to secure a future with thriving natural species and spaces.”—Peter Kareiva, President and CEO, Aquarium of the Pacific
“What does it mean to care for a wild species? In this provocative and fascinating book, Laura Martin grapples with this question by examining the boundaries of human intervention and wildness. As we face a rapidly changing planet, Martin’s clear-sighted, intelligent analysis offers hope that by recognizing the complex history of restoration, we can make way for its promising future.”—Nancy Langston, author of Climate Ghosts
“With astute and thought-provoking insights and graceful prose, this book arrives at a timely moment, as the twentieth century’s two dominant modes of environmental management, conservation and preservation, are being supplemented by techniques of ecological restoration… The book stands out as a portrayal of ecological restoration as an active scientific and social pursuit that offers a meaningful and needed sense of hope.”—Jeffrey K. Stine, H-Net Reviews
