Episode 113: Laura J. Martin- Wild By Design

Laura J. Martin is a prize-winning author, historian, and ecologist who studies how people shape the habitats of other species. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Scientific American, Slate, and The Atlantic. In this episode of Nature Revisited, Laura discusses her book Wild by Design: The Rise of Ecological Restoration, which delves into the history, science, and philosophy of designing natural places and creating wild species. Over time, ecologists, interest groups, and government agencies have coalesced around a mode of environmental management that seeks to respect the world-making and decision-making of other species, but is it possible to design nature without destroying wildness? Laura asks us what it means to be wild and calls for ecological restoration that is socially just.