Ecological Restoration 153
tion when it is an attempt to restore or re-create the function of a previously existing eco-
system, a component of that ecosystem, or an ecosystem service provided by a reference
ecosystem (such as habitat for endangered species, recharge of a water supply, etc.). Like
all forms of human intervention with the environment, or environmental management, a
restoration is designed to do something. What makes something a restoration is that it is
an attempt to do something in relation to a set of prescribed boundary conditions: it must
refer to some state that was there before and it must be governed by some intention to
reproduce some discernable function of that prior state. Therefore I would propose the
following: Ecological restoration is a form of environmental intervention that attempts to
re-create some aspect of the prior function of an ecological reference state.
It is not my intention here to offer this suggestion by way of making any broader claims
concerning the philosophical debates over biological or technological functions. But in
addition to the intuitive appeal such a defi nition would ideally have for ordinary everyday
use (which would be necessary for an organization largely composed of practitioners like
the SER) the rich philosophical literature on functions should add to our understanding
and assessment of restorations. Insofar as we can plausibly claim that there are biological
and technological functions restorations will partially unite descriptions of these functions
in practice. The reason is that the designed function of a restoration as an artifact must be
related directly to what we come to understand as the functions, or functional organization,
of their reference biological ecosystems. Note that this claim does not depend on one’s
answer to the issue of whether all ecosystems have functions, or whether all aspects of all
ecosystems can be described as a function of that ecosystem, but rather whether we can
attribute functions to ecosystems that could be replicated for some reason. As such the
defi nition is agnostic on some of the stickier issues concerning biological functions. Res-
torationists are not trying to produce biological entities as such but rather to make some-
thing that reproduces functional attributes of specifi c kinds of systems in nature. To plan
our restorations on our understanding of these attributes does not mean that all aspects of
a restored site can be reduced to the re-creation of functional properties. Designs for res-
torations can include other elements, such as aesthetic components, even while our defi ni-
tion of the practice of restoration is fi rst found in these functional properties.
Because a functional description of restorations would have to focus on the design ele-
ments of restoration, Philip Kitcher’s discussion of function in general as design will be
particularly helpful: “[T]he function of an entity S is what S is designed to do” (Kitcher
1993). But because my assumption is that restorations are indeed artifacts and should not
be otherwise confused as anything else, a more promising route would be to adopt the
ICE account of technological function as described in this volume and elsewhere by
Houkes and Vermaas, which focuses on the role of use plans and design in describing the
functions of artifacts (see Houkes and Vermaas 2004: 65). On this view the functions of
objects are the direct result of the intentions and use plans of designers. This account gives
us the capability of rationally discussing malfunction and other design properties. On this