December 2010 ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION 28:4 • 403
Ecological Restoration Vol. 28, No. 4, 2010
ISSN 1522-4740 E-ISSN 1543-4079
©2010 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.
EDITORIAL
Short Goodbye, Long Horizon
I
t is with regret that I am announcing the end of my
tenure as editor of Ecological Restoration. After found-
ing the journal and providing almost 30 years of sup-
port, the University of Wisconsin–Arboretum has been
compelled in part by fnancial challenges to close the edi-
torial ofces. As I write this, the University of Wisconsin
Press has identifed Steven N. Handel at the Center for
Urban Restoration Ecology at Rutgers, the State Univer-
sity of New Jersey, as ER’s next editor, which promises an
exciting future for this journal. All current and prospective
authors please note that Associate Editor Christina Reyes
will provide critical editorial continuity in the short term.
After only three years as editor of Ecological Restoration I
can say the job has taught me a tremendous amount, and
perhaps only now am I feeling even partially qualifed to
competently editorialize on this broad, multifaceted, and
rapidly expanding endeavor. I am indebted to the members
of the journal’s Advisory Board for their friendship and
steady support, and for sharing their expertise. I have also
enjoyed working with all of you who have submitted to the
journal, and who represent a fascinating mix of scientifc
and philosophical orientations, united by a common desire
to improve the world’s environment. Editing Ecological
Restoration has been an exciting experience, and looking
ahead, I remain keenly interested in how the felds of
restoration will develop.
I have found new work, and for the next three years will
be involved in research on emerging collaborations between
scientists and artists. Intertwined with arguments such as
C.P. Snow’s (1956) insistence on a fundamental disparity
between the “two cultures” of the sciences and the humani-
ties, there have been many other attempts to argue for and
foster a creative unity of the arts and the sciences, E.O.
Wilson’s Consilience (1998) being a more recent example.
In preparing for this new research project and reading
about new collaborations, I recognize the excitement gener-
ated by this kind of work: a bursting of disciplinary banks
and a mixing of wildly diferent ideas as people not only
communicate across intellectual divides, but feed new ways
of thinking and new tools by opening up the innovation
process to be more collaborative at a fundamental level.
Ecological restoration is a beautiful case study for art–sci-
ence interdisciplinarity. I know ecological restoration will
remain an enterprise to watch—driven as it is by both the
urgency of environmental demise and the inspiration and
desire aforded by human–nature connections.
In the frst editorial for this journal, published in 1981 by
the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, William R. Jordan
III wrote that the journal founders viewed this publication
as “a new forum . . . [that] will help identify restoration and
management as a new discipline in its own right—an art,
and perhaps a science, borrowing from other disciplines,
but distinct from them in having its own aims . . . and
concerned with the development of ideas and techniques
peculiarly its own.” How right he was!
In this fnal issue for 2010, we are pleased to present
a mix of articles representative of the diverse, distinctive
ecological restoration efort. Along with articles on envi-
ronmental policy—both U.S. and European—this issue
of the journal ofers pieces on urban ecological restora-
tion in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, art-inspired restoration in
Nebraska, and invasive species control in Spain. You can
also read about tamarisk control in the Grand Canyon,
dragonfies and vegetation structure in the U.S. prairie
pothole region, and restoring natural capital in the West-
ern Ghats of India. Enjoy, and best of luck to you in your
restoration endeavors!
Mrill Ingram
Editor
References
Jordan, W.R., III. 1981. Restoration and Management Notes:
A Beginning. Restoration & Management Notes 1:2.
Snow, C.P. 1956. Te two cultures. New Statesman and Nation
October 6:413–414.
Wilson, E.O. 1998. Consilience: Te Unity of Knowledge. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf.