I ended my last article with a series of questions I’m sitting with at this point in my exploration of ecological restoration. Of those, I’m currently most interested in the question:
- How do different cultures and worldviews see the role of humans in ecological restoration?
This article explains why this question matters to me and presents a couple examples that start to answer the question.
The “why?”
I believe that our views profoundly affect how we think, speak, and act in the world. As a result, I believe that the way humans view their role in ecological restoration plays a big part in how that restoration is practiced. That’s why the question I posed feels important at this stage in my journey: because understanding the different types of roles that are out there for ecological restoration practitioners at the outset will help me be more intentional and navigate the type of practitioner I could become.
Two Sources, Same Signal
To show that this question is real–that multiple views on practicing ecological restoration do indeed exist–I present some examples from two scientific publications I’ve recently revisited. Both papers touch on how environmental management is thought about and practiced in their respective indigenous communities.
Source 1: “Cultural Foundations for Ecological Restoration on the White Mountain Apache Reservation”
In a 2003 paper by Long, Tecle, and Burnette–mentioned in my very first article in this series of exploring ecological restoration–the authors describe some contrasts between ecological restoration approaches of White Mountain Apache (from the American Southwest) and some ecologists.
In Apache culture, they say, the restoration practitioner acts in service to the land, letting the land take the lead in its healing. The practitioner’s role is initially to observe and listen, to ask the land if it wants to be actively restored. If the land wants human assistance, the practitioner works with the land in an iterative process: making some changes, stepping away, and coming back later to see how the land responded. The end goal of what the land should look like and how it should function is not dictated by the practitioner; that is left up to nature, with the human listening and serving the land’s needs. If the land does not want human intervention, the human leaves it alone to let mother nature heal herself.
The authors briefly touch on a contrasting restoration approach taken by some ecologists: attempting to force the land into a different state by manipulating ecological variables. This is quite different from the Apache approach of asking permission from the land and acting in its service.
Source 2: “Anishnaabe Aki: an indigenous perspective on the global threat of invasive species”
The second source comes from a different part of Turtle Island (i.e., North America), but the signal is similar. Reo and Ogden’s 2018 paper (DOI link; full article link) takes a look at some worldviews of the Anishnaabe people from the Great Lakes region.
The focus of this paper is not ecological restoration but rather the related topic of invasive species. Still, it touches on views related to environmental management. And since the paper presents a comparison between an indigenous and a scientific view similar to the comparison in the first paper, I think it’s worth briefly mentioning here.
I think the comparison is best summed up in this quote attributed to Kathy LeBlanc, an Anishnaabe elder and cultural leader interviewed as part of the research for this paper:
“we’re supposed to respect all of nature. To me having respect for nature is respecting the fact that it knows how to balance itself and stop trying to introduce different things to fix this and fix that like [the Michigan Dept of Natural Resources] did with those gypsy moths. Respect nature and it will balance. I mean everything has its cycles, leave it alone for gosh sakes. Let it do its thing and quit playing God”.
As with the White Mountain Apache example, what I see here is the approach taken by some ecologists–of continually trying to manipulate the environment towards a specific outcome–contrasted against a view held by an indigenous person of letting nature be in charge.
Closing Thoughts
These two examples begin to answer the question I opened with. Different views of the role of humans in ecological restoration do exist. Understanding these roles feels important at this stage in my development in ecological restoration. So I will keep asking.
A note on perspective: what I’ve written here about indigenous and Western approaches reflects my current understanding as a non-indigenous person trained in Western science. The two papers I draw on represent specific communities and individuals, not indigenous people as a whole. I take what’s presented as general tendencies rather than definitive or universal truths. My understanding is evolving, and I welcome feedback.
AI RESPONSIBILITY RUBRIC
This rubric shows human vs AI contribution across stages of developing the article.
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CONCEPT/PLANNING
Human 80% | AI 20%
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AI: Claude Sonnet 4.6
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
RESEARCH/VERIFICATION
Human 100% | AI 0%
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AI: Claude Sonnet 4.6
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WRITING
Human 80% | AI 20%
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AI: Claude Sonnet 4.6
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EDITING/REFINEMENT
Human 55% | AI 45%
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AI: Claude Sonnet 4.6
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RATIONALE
-CONCEPT/PLANNING: Taylan generated the topic, the central question, the two sources, and all personal insights. Claude organized thoughts, ran the pre-draft checkpoint, flagged scope creep, and identified what belonged in this article vs. future ones.
-RESEARCH/VERIFICATION: Taylan did all reading and rereading of source material independently. Claude had no access to the papers and contributed no independent research or fact-checking.
-WRITING: Taylan wrote the full draft. Claude contributed a bridging phrase between sources, a tightened closing paragraph, and a revised footnote — roughly three short passages out of the whole.
-EDITING/REFINEMENT: Claude ran systematic proofreading passes across grammar, flow, logical consistency, and conciseness. Taylan made all final decisions on what to accept, reject, or modify.