This has led to the nation wide restoration movement, and a view that it is our responsibility to repair function to these ecosystems that we have ignorantly damaged. Secondly, recent extreme wildfires have become a major issue. National attention has focused on this phenomenon. These factors helped create the Ecological Restoration Institute. Researchers there study how our interaction with the landscape has created these catastrophic fires, and how we can work to prevent them in the future.
Restoration seems particularly new to the west.
Everyone at the ERI seemed very excited about what they are doing. You could tell everyone there felt they were at the forefront of their field. And they are. But here at the U of I, you don't get those excited feelings. Restorationists are no less enthusiastic, but we here seem to lack that hungry dog look of someone delving into a new scientific frontier.