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ABSTRACT
While increasing urbanization intensifies the need for ecological restoration in densely populated areas, projects implemented in urban settings are often beset with conflicts stemming from a mismatch between traditional restoration practices and social realities. As ecological restoration practitioners seek to protect and remediate urban ecosystems, I contend that the broad set of principles developed by the environmental justice movement can provide an excellent conceptual framework for integrating social ecologies into restoration plans. Successful integration is constrained, however, by a number of challenges both within the Principles of Environmental Justice and ecological restoration theory and practice. Using a case study of New York City's Green Guerillas community gardening program, I show how the principles can begin to be operationalized to provide an effective grounding methodology for the design, development, and implementation of urban restoration projects.
KEYWORDS
community gardening, ecological restoration, environmental justice, social justice, urban ecology, urban restoration
Those involved in ecological restoration are becoming increasingly aware that the success of projects demands heightened attention to the social dimensions of the field (Hobbs et al. 2004). Research in the last decade confirms the importance of community involvement in ecological restoration projects: the positive benefits and values of involvement, the many ways that involvement can shift public perception of restoration projects, and the negative repercussions of proceeding without it (e.g., Bright et al. 2002; Lindig-Cisneros 2000; Shandas and Messer 2008). From inclusive planning processes to public work sessions and education campaigns, bringing social ecologies into the practice and implementation of restoration is imperative.1
While most ecological restoration projects undertaken in the past quarter century have focused on rural and wildland environments, ur- banization trends will increase the demand for restoration and move more projects into heavily populated urban areas (Ingram 2008). When one considers that more than half of the world's population now lives in urban environments (United Nations 2009), the urgency for developing socially successful and equitable processes for urban restoration projects becomes clear (Light 2000a). As restoration practitioners seek to protect remnant resources and remediate polluted ones, the principles developed by the environmental justice movement can provide an excellent conceptual framework for integrating social ecologies into restoration plans.
In this paper, I discuss how the principles of the environmental justice movement might be...