Jonathan Prior (University of Edinburgh, Institute of Geography) gives us insight in the ecological restauration of landscapes. The previous decades there has been a slow adoption of ecological restoration principles within the built (urban) environment. During his lecture ‘Ecological restoration, urban nature, and the reclamation of public spaces’ Prior wants to guide us in the methods and underlaying values (esthetic, social and political) of the recovery of damaged ecosystems and habitats.

Ecological restoration is the practice of assisting the recovery of damaged ecosystems, habitats or landscapes, to a point in time before the degradation occurred. Ecological restoration can therefore be conceived of as both a spatial and temporal human intervention within non-human nature.

Since the ‘mainstreaming’ of ecological restoration over the last 30 years or so, there has been a slow adoption of ecological restoration principles within the built (urban) environment. Using examples from Europe and North America, in this presentation I want to reveal the types of values that play a role in the construction of ecological restoration policy in urban environments, including aesthetic, ecological, and social values, as well as the notion of the public good. Further, I will look at how these values – sometimes competing, sometimes harmonious – need to be considered within urban green space projects, so as to ensure that they are socially as well as ecologically sustainable.

The lecture is followed by an introduction to the OpenGreens database, by Danielle Roberts and Annemie Maes.

lectures @ okno, thursday june 16 – 8pm