ABSTRACT
Give a man a seed and he will grow a tree; teach a man to restore and he will save the planet. But do we restore by growing trees? The carbon-sinkers would have us bring back whole rainforests to reduce global warming as the extra foliage would consume a good deal of carbon dioxide. But these newly planted forests would certainly be different than those that formerly grew on the land. Planting a new forest might restore the earlier function of taking up carbon, but there would be plenty of other functions no longer performed, be they utilitarian or aesthetic. Canopy structures, biodiversity levels, fl ower aromas, and bird behaviors all may well be different in a replacement rainforest, even after the most conscientious of restoration programs. Other characteristics or functions of the new forest, meanwhile, might be enhanced beyond those found in the old forest, satisfying biocentrists or anthropocentrists, to include improved soil retaining, timber growing, wildlife propagating, and scenery viewing. One might set out to “restore a forest” but some functions will be diminished or lost at the same time that others are recovered or multiplied. Deforested forests can never be brought back, if for the simple reason that those forests are now gone. With these limitations in mind, should we plant new forests to be as much as possible like their former counterparts, or else plant designer forests to satisfy our day’s most pressing needs? Should we attempt to re-create forests, or simply create them? Should the past determine our restorative methods, and should the present infl uence our restorative goals? Can we predict the future of restoration?
