ABSTRACT
Environmental restoration has emerged as one of the central aims of environmental policy. Restoration raises some of the most challenging questions in environmental philosophy. The goal of restoration is a general pattern of species in characteristic relations to each other and to the abiotic elements of the ecosystem. Sometimes people have preferred turning strip mines into recreational areas; however, for many, restoration continues to be the default option even in cases where human welfare would be increased by creating other ecosystems. It might be argued that biodiversity and ecosystem health would warrant restoration in the appropriate cases if they are complimented with one or more plausible empirical assumptions. Restoration of ecosystems cannot replace the property of wildness, at least not in the short term. However, restoration can approximate the pattern of components and processes that was originally brought about in a more wild fashion.
