ABSTRACT

This chapter tracks central debates and recent changes within discussions of conservation and restoration, with particular emphasis on critical ethical issues that face the practice of ecological restoration as we enter the climate era. It focuses on three key areas of emergent concern: meanings for restoration, novel ecosystems, and public participation. While the role of religion has not been explicitly considered in these discussions, I argue that it should be, for restoration debates often have unavoidable religious dimensions, lead into religion-like interpretation, or otherwise can be deepened by religious analysis. A final section therefore specifically treats the multiple ways in which religious and spiritual interpretations may play a role in the restoration enterprise. Even as this discussion is largely limited to a consideration of ecological restoration practice in North America, as well as to a treatment of western philosophical and Christian approaches in particular, it does not, of course, necessarily preclude its potential relevance for other contexts and traditions, though it does limit the types of sources that are drawn upon, and, in turn, the sets of the questions that these sources help to form. What this emphasizes is the extent to which the religious views, values, virtues, and norms adopted in other cultures for restoration vary, as do restoration’s meanings more broadly. With this in mind, I conclude that religious communities and traditions may beneficially contribute to public dialogue about human interventions in ecosystems insofar as they are explicitly shaped by ecological beliefs and practices.