Format/Structure

15' presentations (from 6 to 10 presentations)

Long Abstract

In a world of escalating environmental stress, restoration ecology has emerged as a central—and contested—practice of conservation. Since its inception, the field has shifted emphasis from preserving what remains to actively recovering species or ecosystems. These interventions, whether aimed at reversing extinction, reviving habitats, or repairing human–nonhuman relations, are rarely neutral. They are deeply entangled with questions of agency, knowledge, funding, and authority: Who defines ecological baselines and measures success? Whose expertise counts? What political interests shape the choice of species, habitats, and restoration methods?

Restoration now takes many forms: some aim to recover lost species and past assemblages, others to revive ecosystem function, assist migration in the face of climate change, or embrace novel multispecies communities. These practices often push against the conceptual boundaries of classic conservation, challenging notions such as the ecological niche, the baseline, or the distinction between endemic and invasive species.

We invite contributions that examine restoration, including species reintroduction and rewilding initiatives, as situated, contested practices of world-making, where ecological futures are imagined, negotiated, and struggled over. Topics may include: landscape design; moral ecology; temporalities of recovery; climate change adaptation; extinction and de-extinction; political economies and funding structures; the role of scientific, Indigenous, and local knowledge; labor and care in species recovery work; conflicts over territory; and the colonial and postcolonial histories embedded in narratives of return.

This Panel has 19 pending paper proposals.
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