Removing human structures let the land remember being an estuary.

Evidence

When the dikes and dams were removed, the land did remember how to be a salt marsh. Water remembered how it was supposed to distribute itself through tiny drainage channels in the sediment. Insects remembered where they were supposed to lay their eggs. Today the natural curvaceous flow of the river has been restored. … And in this reborn water world, young salmon rest in every curve. The only straight lines are the old boundaries of the dikes, a reminder of how the flow was interrupted and how it was renewed. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 925

Categorization

• XREF: Specular reversal of ch59’s claim that loving relationships can be destroyed while material systems persist — here removing barriers restores ecosystem memory. Ties to ch42 harvesting-crowding mechanism and landscape memory. — connects to: Preservation can kill a place by removing its living use — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 2919; Water heals itself when humans reduce pollutant inputs — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1225
• SHARE: The image of straight dike lines as the only leftovers marking interruption-and-renewal would land with a restoration ecologist.

Broader Connections

• Preservation can kill a place by removing its living use #corroborates (0.85) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 2919
• Water heals itself when humans reduce pollutant inputs #expands (0.72) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1225