The current multidimensional environmental crisis seems to lead us to a world of ecosystemic manipulation. Promoted by policymakers, Nature-based Solutions (NBS) and linked mechanisms such as Catchment Systems Engineering (CSE) have been considered by some scholars as ecological alternatives in the regeneration of degraded environments.[1] However, these initiatives have received strong critics due to their irreflexive understanding of what comprises a natural solution and their poor attention to cultural and biological diversity within their postulated. Focusing on plants as one of the key non-human actors in ecological regeneration, this paper contributes to this ongoing debate from a theoretical perspective.[2] Specifically, this research proposes a close analysis of the role of time in the process of vegetal regeneration. By assuming vegetal time as an unequivocal part of the plant’s agency, this paper contrasts the long-term classic trajectory for ecological succession (i.e., from pioneer to climax species) with the accelerated experts-designed interventions on ecosystems present in NBS. In doing so, this paper shows how human-designed ecosystems make part of an expansion of capitalism dynamics towards emergent levels of organic systems (from genetically modified organisms to ecosystems) on the ground of time efficiency and productivity.[3] This work addresses the dilemma entailed by the use of a slow strategy of natural regeneration (e.g., rewilding) to tackle the accelerated ecosystemic degradation, on the one hand, and the use of rapid ecological solutions based on the same market logic that has provoked land degradation and a sizable loss of biodiversity on the other.
Mots clés : Ecological regeneration|Degraded environments|Plants’ agency|Rewilding|Nature-Based Solutions
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