What is Restoration?
Abstract
When the Museum Fire blazed the lush and rugged ponderosa forest of Flagstaff into charred matchsticks, it left a decimated blank slate. Mia and I saw the painting that ensued from this blank canvas - a monoculture of a tall, thick stemmed, fuzzy leafed non native plant called mullein. While seeing this recent fire site brought emotions of despair welling to my throat, I had to remind myself of the older fire sites we’d visited - beautiful meadow mosaics made of many different species of flowers and grasses. Even though these fire sites weren’t restored to their original forest glory, there was a new type of beauty to behold.
Climate change has already sparked changes we cannot reverse. But this fire we call climate change does not mean there is no hope for restoration - planting new seeds could give us a world that we can still find beauty in - maybe a new, open, and inspiring type of beauty.
Full Story
Mia and I rolled our bikes up to the Museum fire site - the most recent fire site we’d visited so far - and looked at each other in surprise. The Museum Fire had roared across the area by Mount Elden in Flagstaff in 2019. I’d ridden my bike by this spot many times, but I’d been too concentrated (and too winded) on the 1,500 ft vertical road climb that awaited me to process the surroundings.
A field of mullein, like a cake dotted with candles, was stretched out before us at the foot of the mountain. When mullein grows in its first year, it is a small clump of fuzzy leaves on the ground, spreading in a circle from its root. It almost looks cute, and it's hard not to feel your heart soften in joy when you feel its fuzzy leaves brush against your fingertips.
But, a monoculture of towering stalks, some waving their leaves above our heads, was intimidating.
There wasn’t much space for anything else to grow, because I was sure the mullein was sucking up most of the resources at this site. Mia and I picked our way through the field of mullein, noting a few other plants that are popping their way out of the soil. A few grasses, lots of non native tumbleweed, but not many splashes of other flower species.
The other fire sites we’d visited were wildfires that happened 20, 30 years ago. Those sites were often expansive meadows, dotted with the soft seed heads of grasses swaying in the wind, and polkadots of purple, red, and yellow from the different flowers thriving in the rocky soil.
But, both these old and new fire sites used to be forests. Now, some of the sites are fields of non native plants and some are beautiful meadows. None are back to the forest state they were beforehand,and most of them didn’t even have any tree seedlings reaching their spindly needles toward the sky. This observation left me wondering, what even is restoration?
This debate is common among scientists. Is restoration bringing an ecosystem back exactly to the way it was in the past, a clone? Or can there be a new stable, thriving state that may look different than the ecosystem of the past? If this is the case, how do we decide which state this is?
Then, of course, there is the debate of how to restore the ecosystem with the amount of money available (usually very limited).
We are less than a week away from COP27. I know many people were left feeling disappointed after COP26 last year - a lot of talk and not much action toward the restoration we need for the world.
In the airport in Phoenix, the jets blasting their engines against the background of the jagged mountain peaks. I’m preparing to leave for COP27, and I’m wondering, what does a restored state look like on planet Earth? Climate change is already taking its toll on many parts of the world, from the farmers in rural areas, to the blistering city streets of Phoenix, to the skiers in tourist ski towns.
Maybe the earth will never be the same as we had before. The fire called climate change has already sparked, and is beginning to ravage through the forest, leaving the trees standing as black charred toothpicks. This loss of the forest, however, doesn’t mean there can’t be a meadow filled with life after the fire.
When I go to COP27, I plan to search for blooms of hope amidst the depressing fires. It’s okay to acknowledge the emotions - fear, depression, anxiety - rising from the smoke of this fire called climate change. But, if we fall into a despaired spirit of inaction, this is when the non natives plants take over, leaving us an even more daunting task. The action of restoration, of planting new seeds, even toward a different state of the planet, is what will keep the hope alive that a beautiful planet can stay thriving.
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