Restoring Walden Woods and the Idyll of Thoreau II: A Recent Historical Tracing of Changing and Renegotiated Restoration Goals

Abstract

Narratives of environmental restoration are subject to continual renegotiation and mediation by different groups and contexts. They are constrained by a combination of geo-political, socio-cultural, ecological, economic, legal, and moral-emotional influences. In this study, I focus on the case of Walden Woods (Massachusetts, U.S.) to provide empirical evidence of the evolution and historical portrayal of environmental restoration narratives, and the nature-society interaction and management of socio-ecological systems. Through a temporal examination of restoration narratives at Walden Woods, I provide evidence on the social mechanisms for restoration and the manifestations of ‘restored nature.’ The ‘who’, ‘where’, and degree of myth creation and selection (after Hall 2005) is critiqued to highlight changes and shifts in restoration practice. I compare changing restoration narratives across three sites in Walden Woods: 1) shoreline restoration at Walden Pond (1960s–1990s); 2) restoration of the former Town of Concord landfill (1990s–2000s); and 3) the creation of Thoreau’s Path on Brister’s Hill (2000s). Here, ‘what would Thoreau want?’ is a guiding restoration goal for practitioners. A key issue for this study is the limits to myth creation, grounded in the context and materiality of nature, and how it shapes practice.