Nature Restoration: Avoiding Technological Fixes, Dealing with Moral Conflicts

Abstract

Today, preservation conflicts often no longer deal with the question whether nature needs to be preserved, but with how one needs to go about pr eserving it. In this new type of conflict, preservationists see themselves pitted against loca l inhabitants who contest the preservation goals for a given area. In such instances, preserva tionists tend to defend their position by withdrawing into a technical discourse about biodiv ersity preservation. By presenting the case of heathland restoration in the Low Countries, we w ant to examine how preservationists might reformulate their position so as to highlight the m oral concern at the heart of their practice. In order to do so, we will use a broadly hermeneutical approach to ethics which focusses on stories and narratives as expressions of moral self -understanding in need of interpretation and elaboration. As such, our paper is an example of wh at a Rolstonian ‘ethics of storied residence’ might look like in practice.