Ecological restoration is an artistic practice requiring artistic sensibility

Evidence

“This was an exercise in personal forestry. But it was also an exercise in the creation of personal art. I could have been painting a landscape or composing a cycle of songs. The exercise in finding the right distribution of trees feels like revising a poem. Given my lack of technical expertise, I could not reconcile myself to the title of ‘forester,’ but I could live with the idea that I am a writer who works in the forest. And with the forest. A writer who practices the art of forestry and writes in trees. The practice of forestry may be changing, but I am unaware of any instances where proficiency in the arts is sought as a professional qualification by timber companies or schools of forestry. Perhaps that is what we need. Artists as foresters.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1077

Categorization

• XREF: Franz’s ‘artists as foresters’ proposal mirrors Kimmerer’s own method of writing as an act of reciprocity (ch35) and reading the land as a text — directly relevant to the storytelling/interpretation thread running through all four courses. — connects to: Restoring a place requires healing acts beyond mere love of it. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1057; Restoration requires thinking like the whole ecosystem, not just the target species — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1072; Restoration forestry succeeds as intimate gardening rather than technical management — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1070 (+1 more)
• SEED: Essay angle: ‘Why ecological restoration needs artists, not just engineers’ — pairing Franz’s forestry-as-poem with Kimmerer’s claim that a shared language of gratitude can transcend the science-tradition divide (ch39).

Broader Connections

• Restoration requires thinking like the whole ecosystem, not just the target species #expands (0.85) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1072
• Restoration practice is guided by what land means #expands (0.85) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1205
• Restoration forestry succeeds as intimate gardening rather than technical management #expands (0.80) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1070