LAUSR

Abstract We evaluate the historical, philosophical, and practical relationships between two fields of theory and practice: cultural landscape conservation and ecological restoration. Each field has distinct intellectual and disciplinary roots, bodies of theory, norms of practice, institutions, and modes of professional discourse. Yet both aim to understand and wisely steward environments for the benefit of humans and non-human nature, and both grapple with similar issues inherent in the complex nexus of nature, society, history, and sustainability. Increasingly, the thinking and the practices that once clearly distinguished their respective efforts have begun to converge — reaching similar conclusions on challenging issues, and thus building consilience. Coincident with this trend toward consilience, the concept of “novel ecosystems” has arisen. Novel ecosystems are ecological assemblages that form self-organizing systems that have no historical precedent. We argue that the novel ecosystems concept is a useful frame through which to expose, articulate, and address many of the philosophical, ethical, and pragmatic challenges and tradeoffs that cultural landscape conservationists and ecological restorationists grapple with today: the fuzzy lines that distinguish humans from nature, the impossibility of going back in time, the resulting problems of defining goals given diversity of potential priorities, and the value of greater social inclusivity in the practice of restoration. We believe novel ecosystems also provide a powerful bridging concept through which we can understand and align with one another's epistemological perspectives, and continue building consilience and collaborations to conserve, steward, and celebrate our cultural and natural heritage and environment.