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Restoration, Reintroduction, and Repair: Moral Obligations Regarding Ecosystem Identities
- "Ecological restoration aims to repair the damage, assuage the harm, rectify the wrong, and change the course of negative environmental impact. I argue that obligations regarding natural entities provide a motivating moral reason to restore nature. If we wish to use restoration to repair the damage done by human impact, we must direct our restoration efforts at the ecological identities degraded by our wrongdoing. Current efforts to reintroduce the greenback cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki stomias) to their native streams in Colorado provide an in-depth illustration of the ethics of restoration. Reintroduction in this case largely claims success, despite a known genetic misidentification of a large portion of the project's breed stock. Managers currently face a choice of whether to continue the program (and mis-introduction), or change course. Continuing to introduce genetically impure breed stock would be emblematic of restoration practices that often fail to incorporate a full understanding of the environmental problem when defining restoration goals. This example provides a lens for constructing normative criteria for critically examining restoration policy. Investigating past discourse on restoration and using the greenback reintroduction and restoration as a case-study, I demonstrate that restoration is at times obligatory and ought to be directed at repair, rather than at function, value, or character. Restoration broadly ought to prioritize the integrity of the ecological identities to which our actions are aimed, and a new approach is needed in the greenback cutthroat trout case."
- "Restoration, Reintroduction, and Repair: Moral Obligations Regarding Ecosystem Identities"