The Chicago Controversy

Whole Earth, Spring, 2001 by Alf Siewers

2. Build an institutional framework.

The Chicago controversy has highlighted the lack of institutional networks to educate the public about restoration, thereby reducing the likelihood of public attacks, and, at the same time, being prepared to respond intelligently to such attacks.

Astute environmentalists rightly faulted the Cook County Forest Preserve District for being too weak in its pre-controversy public relations work regarding restoration. They also pointed out that The Nature Conservancy did not come forward strongly enough on the side of restoration once the controversy had begun. Universities, while nationally gradually increasing their commitment to restoration, also failed to provide an effective basis for countering the critics. In fact, a few isolated academics who were critical of restoration techniques in the Chicago area became expert witnesses for the opposition.

Authoritative responses to the restoration controversy by the heads of institutions in the consortium were valuable, but their texts often lacked the passion, personal involvement, and media appeal that characterized those of the critics. The place where that passion appeared effectively on the side of restoration was in the testimony of rank-and-file stewards and volunteers at a series of Cook County public hearings on the issue, speaking not as "expert" allies of government agencies but as citizen scientists.

3. Develop a widely shared restoration ethic that doesn't reflect the scientific ethic.

Animal-rights activists and restorationists share a respect for life and a concern for nature; evangelical Christians and environmentalists both profess a devotion to life-affirming values; and, in Chicago, both critics and supporters of restoration share a love for the region's forest preserves. Likewise, both conservatives and liberals in America share a respect for grassroots volunteerism, for the kind of "public-private partnership" that restoration often exemplifies. But often these parties view one another with deep suspicion, and cite fissures between them that lead to conflict over restoration. At both the philosophical and the practical levels, restorationists have the opportunity to shape an ethic that can inspire a unifying cultural movement.

In some ways, an implicit hostility toward mainstream religion in United States environmentalism is reflective of an older and more mechanical sense of science that was in turn a reaction to earlier forms of conventional Western religion. Today, a new synthesis of religion and science is possible in the kind of cosmology implicit in restoration work, focusing as it does on the active interrelationship between humans and nature. For example, a winter solstice bonfire at the. Somme Woods restoration site north of Chicago (where Steve Packard is steward) featured a saxophonist leading a procession of celebrants to the bonfire, where the program included both music and words from a local Episcopal priest. On a theological level, the concept of pantheism found in Eastern Orthodox theology--the mystical sense of God as both in all and over all--has been used by some writers as a bridge between traditional Christianity and ecological concerns. The accompanying doctrine of synergy highlights cooperation between human and divine wills, a cosmic sense of the role of humanity in nature.