Restoring Layered Landscapes History Ecology and Culture

Former military and industrial sites provide paradigmatic examples of layered landscapes. Many of these sites are not only characterized by natural ecosystems worth preserving and restoring, but also embody significant political, social, and cultural histories. This volume grapples with the challenges of restoring and interpreting such complex sites: What should we aim to restore in such places? How can restoration adequately take the legacies of human use into account? Should traces of the past be left on the landscape, and how can interpretive strategies be creatively employed to make visible the complex legacies of an open pit mine or chemical weapons manufacturing plant?

Restoration aims to create new value, but not always without loss. Restoration often disrupts existing ecosystems, infrastructure, and artifacts. The chapters in this volume consider what restoration can tell us more generally about the relationship between continuity and change, and how the past can and should inform our thinking about the future. These insights, in turn, will help foster a more thoughtful approach to human-environment relations in an era of unprecedented anthropogenic global environmental change.