Beyond expertise: Ecological science and the making of socially robust restoration strategies

Summary A distinctive feature of ecological restoration is that the human presence in the natural landscape can be perceived as beneficial and not necessarily as harmful. Consequently, negotiations between heterogeneous actors involved and reactions to developments in different ecosystems become part of the scientific practice of restoration. This paper discusses some implications of restoration practice for the science of ecology in connection with recent debates about a new mode of knowledge production in science. I illustrate how different types of expertise from several backgrounds can be fed into each step of restoration implementation via alternate phases of selection and of corroboration by use to expose it to further observation in order to develop more scientifically and socially robust restoration strategies.

[1]  Daniel H. Janzen,et al.  Gardenification of Wildland Nature and the Human Footprint , 1998 .

[2]  John Ziman,et al.  "Post-Academic Science": Constructing Knowledge with Networks and Norms , 1996 .

[3]  Matthias Gross,et al.  3. Community by Experiment: Recursive Practice in Landscape Design and Ecological Restoration , 2006 .

[4]  M. Schwarz,et al.  Divided We Stand: Re-Defining Politics, Technology, and Social Choice , 1990 .

[5]  M. Gibbons,et al.  Re-Thinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty , 2003 .

[6]  M. Groß,et al.  Realexperimente: Ökologische Gestaltungsprozesse in der Wissensgesellschaft , 2005 .

[7]  E. Higgs,et al.  Nature by Design: People, Natural Process, and Ecological Restoration , 2003 .

[8]  Edward Constant.  Recursive practice and the evolution of technological knowledge , 2000 .

[9]  William R. Jordan.  The Sunflower Forest: Ecological Restoration and the New Communion with Nature , 2003 .

[10]  P. Weingart.  From “Finalization” to “Mode 2”: old wine in new bottles? , 1997 .

[11]  Christian Pohl,et al.  Transdisciplinary collaboration in environmental research , 2005 .

[12]  Peter Friederici,et al.  Ecological Restoration of Southwestern Ponderosa Pine Forests , 2003, Ecological Restoration.

[13]  M. Gross.  New Natures and Old Science: Hands-on Practice and Academic Research in Ecological Restoration , 2002 .

[14]  Reid M. Helford.  Rediscovering the Presettlement Landscape: Making the Oak Savanna Ecosystem “Real” , 1999 .

[15]  S. Funtowicz,et al.  Science for the Post-Normal Age , 1993, Commonplace.

[16]  W. Clark,et al.  Sustainable development of the biosphere , 1988 .

[17]  Richard J. Hobbs,et al.  Restoration Ecology: Repairing the Earth's Ecosystems in the New Millennium , 2001 .

[18]  Robert Dyball,et al.  Social Learning in Environmental Management: Towards a Sustainable Future , 2005 .

[19]  W. Jordan.  Ecological Restoration: Carving a Niche for Humans in the Classic Landscape , 2006 .

[20]  H. M. Collins,et al.  The Third Wave of Science Studies , 2002, Science, Technology, and Society.

[21]  M. Gross.  Inventing Nature: Ecological Restoration by Public Experiments , 2003 .

[22]  J. Ziman.  Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process , 2003 .

[23]  W. Krohn,et al.  Realexperimente: Robustheit und Dynamik ökologischer Gestaltungen in der Wissensgesellschaft , 2003 .

[24]  Harold Maurice Collins,et al.  Interactional expertise as a third kind of knowledge , 2004 .

[25]  W. Jordan.  A New Paradigm , 1991, Restoration & Management Notes.

[26]  Henry Etzkowitz,et al.  The Triple Helix as a model for innovation studies , 1998 .

[27]  R. Bruce Hull,et al.  Beyond Biology: toward a More Public Ecology for Conservation , 2001 .

[28]  C. S. Holling.  Resilience of ecosystems: local surprise and global change. , 1985 .

[29]  Andre F. Clewell,et al.  Ecological restoration: A new frontier for nature conservation and economics , 2006 .

[30]  Wolfgang Tschacher,et al.  Self-Organization and Clinical Psychology: Empirical Approaches to Synergetics in Psychology , 1992 .

[31]  M. Gross,et al.  Ecological restoration as a real-world experiment: designing robust implementation strategies in an urban environment , 2005 .

[32]  C. Elzinga,et al.  Monitoring Plant and Animal Populations , 2001 .

[33]  S. Schwartzman,et al.  The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies , 1994 .