William R. Jordan III

March 17, 2022 Global Earth Repair

Ecological Restoration Journal – Madison, Wisconsin USA

William “Bill” Jordan is an American botanist and journalist who has played a leading role in the development and critique of ecological restoration as a means of developing an environmentalism that is philosophically more coherent, psychologically more productive, politically more robust, and ecologically more effective. His critique has had a significant influence on environmentalism in the United States and abroad. He has been called the first person to write consistently about the interplay between humans and nature within the context of ecological restoration, the “most influential” writer on restoration, and a world leader in the field. His strategies uniquely revolve around viewing humanity’s relationship with Nature as a “performing art,” and his work as the basis for a “new communion” with the Earth.

Jordan worked for 24 years at the University of Wisconsin’s Arboretum in Madison. This was the site of early attempts to recreate historic ecological communities, such as tallgrass prairies and maple forests, an effort led by the famed conservationist Aldo Leopold. In 1981 he founded and served as editor of the Ecological Restoration Journal (originally entitled Restoration & Management Notes), which is hosted by the University of Wisconsin Press, and was the first journal to deal exclusively with the subject of “restoration ecology.” He was also a founding member of the Society of Ecological Restoration (SER).

Jordan argues that the lack of such shared rituals, typical of modern societies, is the crucial factor that is limiting progress toward realization of a sound ethic of relationship between humans at large and the rest of nature. Considering ecological restoration from this perspective, Jordan proposes its development as a modern version of the “world renewal” rituals, characteristic of many traditional and indigenous societies. Acknowledging the difficulty, uncertainty, and ultimately even the impossibility of restoration, he sees these qualities as essential to the value of restoration as an encounter with human limitations.

“All traditional societies that have succeeded in managing resources well over time, have done it in part through religious or ritual representation of resource management.”