Restorative Principles Research Articles

A restoration ecology perspective on the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease.

The human gut can be considered an ecosystem comprised of a community of microbes and nonliving components such as food metabolites and food additives. Chronic diseases are increasingly associated with disruption of this ecosystem. The science of restoration ecology was developed to restore degraded ecosystems, but its principles have not been applied widely to gut medicine, including the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). One principle of ecological restoration is that ‘passive’ restoration, which involves removing an ecosystem disturbance, should occur before attempting additional ‘active’ interventions. We discuss evidence that poor diet is principle source of disturbance in IBD, and therefore requires better attention in its research and clinical care. Another restoration principle is that higher biodiversity may improve ecosystem behavior, but this idea has not been tested for its possible importance in donor stool during fecal microbiota transplants. Lay summary: In patients with chronic disease the gut microbiome behaves like a disturbed ecosystem. Principles borrowed from the science of restoration ecology identify a need to better understand the influence of diet on treatment of inflammatory bowel disease and the importance of donor diversity in fecal microbiota transplants.

ARCHITECTURE AND MODERN STATE OF SAMARA BUILDINGS IMPLEMENTED ON SAMPLE PROJECTS

The architecture of the city of Samara of the XIX century, made on exemplary projects. The formation of the architectural environment of the city is investigated. A detailed analysis of the current state of the buildings of Samara, executed on model projects, was carried out. On the example of several monuments, their typical history of reorganizations and changes is considered. On the basis of archival research and analysis of the current state of development, features and decorative solutions of buildings are revealed. The results of the successful study of a successful past, analyze the present, which helps to prepare the basic principles of successful restoration and renovation of historic buildings.

Restorative practices in residence halls at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

This article charts Victoria University of Wellington's progress in implementing restorative practices, including restorative justice as a response to conflicts and rule violations, and proactive measures, including circles as a way to build a positive culture rooted in restorative principles. Survey results indicate positive outcomes including better communication, increased accountability, and a greater emphasis on relationships. Areas for further growth are also identified, including the need for a wider spread understanding of restorative approaches among staff, faculty, and students, the importance of full‐university implementation, and the need for learners to experience a restorative process to understand the impact.

Archaeological Restoration and Heritage Actions in Ollantaytambo

This article is concerned with the history of restoration work carried out over the last 40 years or so in the Inca site of Ollantaytambo, in the Cuzco region of Peru. The information gathered comes mainly from interviews conducted with professionals relevant to the study, as well as from archival work. Rather than dwelling on the appropriateness or not of the technical solutions implemented, from the point of view of international standards and expectations, the focus lies on the underlying reasons that have driven changes in the site´s physical appearance. Factors like restoration principles at work during the various interventions, the role of photography and visibility, the delicate relationship between tangible and intangible heritage, and the influence of tourism in an area visually inspired by the powerful imaginaries of Machu Picchu are explored. Some of the problems identified are associated with processes of puesta en valor, monumentalism, the influence of foreign models, and the role of architect-restorers. It will be argued that the site´s restoration history is problematic in ways that invite critical reassessment and engagement with current international debates on conservation and restoration concepts and practices, like authenticity.

HISTORICAL MEMORY IN URBAN SPACE: PARADOXES OF CHURCH AND POLITICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF NATIONAL HOLY PLACES IN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE

The article gives an analysis of the history of the reconstruction and building of iconic churches of Ukraine and Russia: the Church of the Tithes, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and the St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, which are national shrines. The author offers the method of understanding of socio-political queries and evolution of historical memory embodied in architectural images and restoration ideas. It is substantiated that the process of reconstruction of destroyed temples reflects not so much to the religious renaissance in Eastern Europe, as the interests of the state and politicians in manipulating historical memory. An important factor is the interests of business and the ambitions of the creative intelligentsia. There is a contradiction between the ideology of reproduction as a new construction in the historic sense and the principles of scientific restoration, whose purpose is to preserve the authenticity of the monument as a means of attaching to the past. The newly-created dominants roughly invade the urban landscape that emerged during the twentieth century and causes disillusionment among the public. Similar buildings are regarded as «novodel» and «simulacres» and conflict with the understanding of national history and religious needs. The differences in the process of reproduction of temples in Ukraine and Russia are emphasized at the level of conceptual ideas, interests, expected and real results. They are explained by the difference between Russian political monopoly and Ukrainian social corporatism. The concept of «symmetrical restoration» and the religious-confessional neutrality of places of national memory as a factor of maintaining public peace and tranquillity is proposed and substantiated.

Effects of Forest Roads on Runoff Initiation in Low‐Order Ephemeral Streams

AbstractUnderstanding hydrologic connectivity is essential for managing ephemeral headwater streams where upstream land use influences downstream aquatic habitats. This study relies on a field‐based approach to evaluate how precipitation and roads affect runoff generation in low‐order ephemeral streams of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Logistic regression analyses show that runoff delivery from unroaded catchments agrees with a water storage conceptual model typical for subsurface storm and saturation overland flow‐dominated settings. Without roads, runoff occurs only about 4 times per year in response to 10 and 78 mm of storm rainfall, depending on antecedent precipitation. In contrast, maximum 15‐min rainfall intensities are a better predictor of runoff generation on unpaved roads than are total rainfall and antecedent conditions. Intensities surpassing ~10 mm/hr lead to road runoff, and this occurs about 40 times per year. Road‐influenced streams represent an intermediate setting for which runoff generation depends on storm and antecedent rainfall, as well as the road surface area captured by drains and flow path distance. In our focus area, roads can provoke streams to deliver runoff to coral bearing waters 10 to 13 times every year as a response to 9.3‐ to 50‐mm storms, depending on antecedent rainfall and road drain characteristics. These results highlight the sensitivity of road connectivity to specific road drain characteristics and display the potential for connectivity as a guiding watershed restoration principle.

“The kids do a better job of it than we do”: a Canadian case study of teachers addressing the hypocritical application of restorative justice in their school

Restorative justice (RJ) has become increasingly accepted in schools worldwide as an effective way to build, maintain and repair student relationships and to deal with student conflict, harm and behavioural issues. It is rare, however, to find schools that utilise RJ to deal with adult relational and behavioural issues. Drawing on a case study in a Canadian school, this paper explores this hypocritical application of RJ, when teachers are not called to practice what they are teaching. The teachers in the school studied named the hypocritical application and openly struggled with it. I argue that the act of grappling with the inequity resulted in a deepened experience of RJ for both teachers and students. By naming and addressing their hypocritical actions, the teachers, paradoxically, acted in a restorative manner, modelling restorative principles and ensuring that RJ was made more comprehensible and relevant to students.

Rural Governance against Eucalyptus Expansion in Galicia (NW Iberian Peninsula)

Researchers, planners, and decision makers admit the need to take into account the social conflicts inherent to invasive species management in order to minimize controversy. These conflicts are mainly based on differences in values systems, thus causing antithetical policies in environmental management. On the topic of Eucalyptus plantations, this paper studies two cases in Galicia, a region under an emerging social fight between advocates and opponents: firstly, we analyze a local community that is progressively eradicating Eucalyptus through the principles of ecological restoration; and secondly, a planning initiative led by a local government with a common goal. In order to set the spatial and social dimensions of the conflict, the methodological approach is based on the components of cognitive hierarchy theory and risk perception theory. The results are discussed with the purpose of examining to what extent the case studies imply a new model of rural governance, and in this respect, are transferrable to other situations. We conclude that institutional non-interference in Eucalyptus management facilitates the emergence of diverse new governance practices in the local scale but endures the conflict in its regional dimension.

Environmental Restoration in Hydropower Development—Lessons from Norway

Hydropower is expanding globally and is regarded a key measure for mitigating climate change, but it also results in major environmental degradation, both at local scale and more widely. We can learn lessons about how restoration can be used to alleviate these problems from failures and successes in countries with a long history of hydropower development, such as Norway. Here, hydropower projects grew larger over time, and in the 1960s, the emerging environmentalist movement started to challenge hydropower developments because of their negative impacts on the environment. The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate then appointed a landscape architect who became very influential, particularly due to his skills in aesthetics and photo documentation. He developed principles for designing self-sustaining environments which he called “living nature”, and in particular proposed methods of restoring barren, unattractive, alpine spoil heaps. Later, restoration methods and goals have changed in response to new insights and the changing goals of ecological restoration. Here, we present current best practice for the alpine biome and sum up general lessons in three points: restoration can represent a sustainable, ‘third way’ in the conflict between conservation and development; including a wider group of professionals may improve restoration goals and methods, and effective use of visual communication can be a good way of gaining support for new restoration principles.

Finding Life in Literacy

By the second decade of the 21st century, mentally ill youth who committed suicide and sometimes killed others before they killed themselves received considerable attention in the media of the United States. In none of the accounts of these individuals did their literacy lives come up for consideration. This case study details the role of literacy in the life of a young woman who suffered a traumatic brain injury in her teens. As she aged, she tried suicide multiple times, escalating from cries for help to jumping in front of a moving train. Thereafter, she lived in a care facility with half a dozen elderly residents suffering from various neurological and physical disabilities. Following several months of adaptation, she returned to her childhood love of children’s books and gradually escalated her reading of national newspapers and adult nonfiction works aloud for other residents. During meals and visits from the grandchildren of residents, she read children’s books or poems, and she recorded in her own writings responses to these readings and created short poems. Adaptation to the reality that for the remainder of her life, she would live in such a facility came rapidly and without regression to depression once she found that residents needed and wanted her as their “library,” conversationalist, and inspiration. Four principles of literacy retention and restoration in an individual’s life follow from this case.

The legacies of the Sokoto Caliphate in contemporary Nigeria

AbstractContemporary Nigeria is a product of multiple historical experiences dating back to the antiquities. The nation's uncommon diversity of language, culture, and religion are mostly encapsulated in the foundation and continuing relevance of the Sokoto Caliphate, an Islamic polity founded on the principles of reform and restoration by Usman Dan Fodio in 1804. In this article, I explore how this immense geographical entity of intercontinental resonance was governed, and the lessons of history that Nigeria can draw from its success and tribulation.

Optimization of the land use with considering of the landscape structure of the territory on the test sites

The large-scale landscape maps necessity in developing projects and proposals for agriculture, forestry land-use and erosion protection were justified. Natural conditions of land-use in Babyno community in Stara Syniava district in Khmelnytsk region were described and analyses of the land structure were made. Accordingly, the land structure is characterised by ecologically destabilising lands, including arable lands, lands that were withdrawn from agriculture production and forestry (outbuildings, houses, roads, quarries, exterior use lands) are prevailing. They are covered 89.7 % (in particular, arable lands – 87.3 %) of total community lands. And, vice versa, ecologically stabilising lands (gardens, pastures, grasslands, shrubs, forest belts, forests, swamps, water covered lands) are covered a small percentage – 8.96 of the total research area. Therefore, soil erosion is covered 87.3 % of the total area − a significant percentage. Soil erosion caused decreasing of soil fertility and yields of agriculture. The average weighted losses of humus in the arable horizon of soils (0−30 cm) compared with full-profile standard analogues are 1.1 %. The first step of developing sustainable ecological landscape systems was justified by using a principle of land resource restoration and strengthening of their self-regulation through increasing the area of ecologically stabilised lands by low productivity lands and by their location with taking into consideration a complex morphological structure of landscape systems. Landscape systems of research area were classified by genesis and type of their economic use. Arable lands should cover no more than 45.4 % of the total community area. In particular, 2.6 % is recommended to use for field grain-steam tilled crop rotations and cultivating all agriculture crops of this zone by using intensive agriculture systems and the widespread introduction of their ecological links; 27.8 % is recommended to use for field grain-steam tilled crop rotations and cultivating all agriculture crops of this zone by using ecological systems of agriculture provided soil cultivation, sowing and caring for crops according to the elevation line directions. 15.0 % − for field grain-grass or grass-grain soil protected crop rotations with the total exclusion of row crops. 51.2 % of total community land area should be covered by perennial plants (1.6 %), grasslands (0.9 %), shrubs and forest belts (0.05 %), forests (27.1 %), swamps (0.21 %), lands covered by water (0.54 %). Other 3.4 % are covered by outbuildings and houses (1.2 %), roads (1.1 %), open-casts (0.2 %) and exterior use lands (0.9 %). The results of research helped to justify the rules of the rational use of land area in Babyno community and its analysis suggests that land area of the heavily dissected hills of the forest-steppe stabilising land should occupy at least 50−55 %. Conversely, destabilising – no more than 50−45 % (particularly arable land – 40−45 %). Key words: optimization of the land use, soil erosion, lands, landscape systems.

Principles of Wetland Creation and Restoration: Reflections

This is the second in a series for articles prepared for WSP to address what, from my perspective, have become principles of wetland creation and restoration that have evolved after working in this field for more than 40 years. Before moving into the case study presented in this offering, I would like to address another fundamental principle that relates to planning and improving outcomes. This principle centers on the obvious, that wetlands are complex ecosystems, and these ecosystems are often driven by physical and chemical processes that in some circumstances supersede or override purely biological aspects of a particular site. Further, due to specialized training, education and experiences, in the past, practitioners and researchers may have been inclined to concentrate their efforts in much narrower problem-solving parameters (their comfort zone) rather than actively embracing multiple aspects of a much larger and interwoven web of functional drivers.

Principles of Wetland Creation and Restoration: Reflections

This is the second in a series for articles prepared for WSP to address what, from my perspective, have become principles of wetland creation and restoration that have evolved after working in this field for more than 40 years. Before moving into the case study presented in this offering, I would like to address another fundamental principle that relates to planning and improving outcomes. This principle centers on the obvious, that wetlands are complex ecosystems, and these ecosystems are often driven by physical and chemical processes that in some circumstances supersede or override purely biological aspects of a particular site. Further, due to specialized training, education and experiences, in the past, practitioners and researchers may have been inclined to concentrate their efforts in much narrower problem-solving parameters (their comfort zone) rather than actively embracing multiple aspects of a much larger and interwoven web of functional drivers.

Justice, Reciprocity and the Internalisation of Punishment in Victims of Crime

This paper is published as part of special issue on the theme of ‘justice without retribution’. Any attempt to consider how justice may be achieved without retribution has to begin with a consideration of what we mean by justice. The most powerful pleas for justice usually come from those who feel that they have been harmed by the wrongful acts of others. This paper will explore this intuition about justice and will argue that it arises from the central importance of reciprocity, in the form of equity, balance and fairness, in human relationships. This is expressed in our image of justice, one of whose core symbols is a set of scales. I will use a clinical case to illustrate what can happen when criminal harm is not followed by any form of restitution. In this case, the punitive impulse was internalised in the victim and turned against herself in the form of deliberate self harm and, ultimately, death by suicide. I will argue that human relationships largely consist of reciprocal acts of good or harm and that we constantly strive for a balanced reciprocity in our relationships with others. This theme has been played out throughout human history in personal relationships, social customs, legal systems, religion and culture. It is also seen in higher primates. When someone is a victim of wrongful harm, there is a need to take measures to restore the balance which has been lost. I will attempt to draw a distinction between retributivism as the term is usually understood and the application of the principle of reciprocity in criminal justice. This distinction is one that has found expression in what has become known as ‘restorative justice’ as opposed to conventional justice. There are two cardinal features of restorative justice in this context. The first is that it brings offender and victim into a relationship with the aim of repairing the harm that has been caused. The second is that it gives the offender the opportunity to give something back to his victim. I will conclude that our responses to criminal wrong-doing should be based on restorative principles and that punishment can sometimes be part of the process by which moral harm is made good.

The evolution of Society for Ecological Restoration's principles and standards—counter‐response to Gann et al.

In response to our recent article (Higgs et al. 2018) in these pages, George Gann and his coauthors defended the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) International Standards, clarified several points, and introduced some new perspectives. We offer this counter‐response to address some of these perspectives. More than anything, our aims are in sharpening the field of restoration in a time of rapid scaling‐up of interest and effort, and support further constructive dialogue going forward. Our perspective remains that there is an important distinction needed between “Standards” and “Principles” that is largely unheeded by Gann et al. (2018). We encourage SER to consider in future iterations of its senior policy document to lean on principles first, and then to issue advice on standards that meet the needs of diverse conditions and social, economic, and political realities.

Concepts, Challenges, and Emerging Themes of Restoration Ecology

Concepts, Challenges, and Emerging Themes of Restoration Ecology

Principles of Wetland Creation and Restoration: Reflections

Through working for over 40 years as an applied wetland scientist on various projects for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Air Force, and for the private sector, I have learned much about wetland construction and restoration and wish to share some of my experiences with others through a series of articles in Wetland Science & Practice. This is the first of the series which addresses basic elements of planning and design and presents the first of five case studies of wetland construction projects. The series highlights key aspects of project planning and uses the case studies to show real world results. It is not intended to be a how-to treatise but hopefully provides readers with perspective on the challenges involved in this practice.

The emergence of the social‐ecological restoration concept

Many ecosystems in the world are the result of a close interaction between local people and their environment, which are currently recognized as social‐ecological systems (SoES). Natural catastrophes or long‐standing social and political turmoil can degrade these SoES to a point where human societies are no longer autonomous and their supporting ecosystems are highly degraded. Here, we focus on the special case of the restoration of SoES that we call social‐ecological restoration (SoER), which is characterized as a restoration process that cannot avoid simultaneously dealing with ecological and social issues. In practice, SoER is analogous in many ways to the general principles of ecological restoration, but it differs in three key aspects: (1) the first actions may be initially intended for human groups that need to recover minimum living standards; (2) the SoER process would often be part of a healing process for local people where cultural values of ecosystems play an essential role; and (3) there is a strong dependency on external economic inputs, as the people belonging to the SoES may be incapable of reorganizing themselves on their own and supporting ecosystems can no longer self‐recover. Although it might not be desirable or necessary to call all restoration projects with a social component an SoER, the use of this concept may help in defining early restoration targets that may prevent conflicts among users in the long term. From the perspective of other disciplines, SoER would be more appropriately perceived as programs of “social‐ecological recovery” in the long term.

A criteria and indicators monitoring framework for food forestry embedded in the principles of ecological restoration.

Food forestry is a burgeoning practice in North America, representing a strong multifunctional approach that combines agriculture, forestry, and ecological restoration. The Galiano Conservancy Association (GCA), a community conservation, restoration, and educational organization on Galiano Island, British Columbia in Canada, recently has created two food forests on their protected forested lands: one with primarily non-native species and the other comprising native species. These projects, aimed at food production, education, and promotion of local food security and sustainability, are also intended to contribute to the overall ecological integrity of the landscape. Monitoring is essential for assessing how effectively a project is meeting its goal and thus informing its adaptive management. Yet, presently, there are no comprehensive monitoring frameworks for food forestry available. To fill this need, this study developed a generic Criteria and Indicators (C&I) monitoring framework for food forestry, embedded in ecological restoration principles, by employing qualitative content analysis of 61 literature resources and semi-structured interviews with 16 experts in the fields of food forestry and ecological restoration. The generic C&I framework comprises 14 criteria, 39 indicators, and 109 measures and is intended to guide a comprehensive and systematic assessment for food forest projects. The GCA adapted the generic C&I framework to develop a customized monitoring framework. The Galiano C&I monitoring framework has comprehensive suite of monitoring parameters, which are collectively address multiple values and goals.