The first principle, nature as model, consists in taking nature as model for human designs. The second principle, nature as measure, holds that there are ecological standards against which the “rightness” of these designs should be evaluated. And the third principle, nature as mentor, holds that nature is not so much something about which we should learn as something from which we should learn. Lastly, the principle of nature as physis consists in the interpretation of nature as self‐producing, that is to say as applying to beings that bring themselves into and maintain themselves in existence, including, at least in some cases, by repairing or healing themselves (Dicks 2016). Biomimicry, it follows, is also an organizing concept in the sense that these four principles may be applied to any given applied field of biomimicry – industrial production, industrial systems, agriculture, architecture, urbanism, and so on – thus structuring the basic theoretical framework of that field.
Figure 2.1 The philosophical framework of biomimicry.
Source: Based on Dicks, H. (2016). The philosophy of biomimicry. Philosophy & Technology 29(3): 223–243.
It is not hard to see that ecological restoration may be understood as a type of biomimicry (Merchant 1986). Restoration ecology has almost always assumed that some sort of model ecosystem is required and that the restored ecosystem will ultimately be an imitation of this model (Jordan 1985; Turner 1987, 1994; Jordan et al. 1988). Moreover, just as in biomimicry, ecological standards have been put forward as criteria against which biomimetic designs and innovations are to be evaluated, so the same is very often true in ecological restoration (Ewel 1987; Brinson and Rheinhardt 1996), river restoration included (Giller 2005; Palmer et al. 2005). Likewise, just as biomimicry sees nature not as an object of human knowledge, something about which we may learn things, but as a source of knowledge, from which we may learn important lessons about how to do things, so the same is often also the case in restoration ecology. In observing the process of ecological succession in nature, for example, we may learn not just certain facts about how ecosystems regenerate themselves but also how we might go about restoring them (Dobson et al. 1997). River restorationists, for example, may learn how to emulate processes of natural succession in their choice of the vegetation planted on riverbanks, with fast‐growing pioneer species used initially to stabilize the soil and slower‐growing but more ecologically enriching species used later on (Wilke 1994).2 Lastly, the question of what nature is, including the question of what ecosystems are and what rivers are, is also of fundamental importance to restoration ecology. If, for example, we see nature in terms of self‐production (physis) then this will likely underpin a view of restoration efforts in terms of helping degraded ecosystems repair and maintain themselves, in which case the role of the restorationist will be analogous not to that of a craftsman or builder but rather to that of a doctor, enabling a patient to heal themselves and thus regain their former autonomy.
Seeing ecological restoration as just one field encompassed by the broader organizing concept of biomimicry provides a coherent response to many of the problems posed by restorationism in general, and river restoration in particular. We noted earlier that restorationism claims to go beyond preservationism in that it considers the human impact on nature to be potentially positive, in that it overcomes the traditional separation between humans and nature, in that it makes for a wider range of possible human interactions with nature, and in that it provides greater scope for future environmental activity. All of this is true a fortiori of biomimicry. In biomimicry, it is not just restoration efforts that may have a positive impact on nature but other fields of human activity as well, from agriculture and industry to architecture and urbanism. As Mathews points out, the aim of biomimicry “is not so much to reduce our impact as to make that impact generative for nature” (Mathews 2011, pp. 366–367). This in turn may give rise to a world that is much less segregated even than the one implied by restorationism, which, in its advocacy of restoring degraded nature, has little to say about how it is that we should go about conducting the basic activities by and through which human civilization sustains itself. Further, in taking nature as model, measure, and mentor not just for restoration activities but also for farming, industry, architecture, urbanism, and so on, the scope for meaningful interactions with nature increases significantly. And finally, precisely because so much of the earth is now taken up with these activities, their transformation in accordance with the biomimetic principles of nature as model, measure, and mentor provides much greater scope for environmental activity than does restoration alone.
Seeing restoration as but one type of biomimicry also allows one to address the three challenges of river restoration outlined in Section 2.2. In particular, by seeing such human activities as farming, industrial production, and urbanization as modeled on nature, many of the problems faced by river restorationists could also be addressed, for the generalization of natural models would completely transform – in a manner highly complementary to the work of dedicated river restorationists – the workings of those parts of the catchment area that are settled and used by humans. Taking nature as model for a city, for example, could lead to the generalization of permeable soils which allow water to infiltrate directly, as opposed to being channeled through a sewer system (Chocat 2013). And taking nature as model for agriculture, as is the case in the pioneering experiments of Jackson (2011), could involve much higher levels of nutrient cycling and soil retention, as well as the replacement of synthetic pesticides by bio‐inspired alternatives (natural predators, genetic diversity, etc.), thus allowing much higher‐quality water to flow from the farm to the river. In all these cases, however, human activity goes far beyond the limited scope of restoration work, at least as usually conceived. Taking a forest as model for a city, for example, could involve designing or retrofitting buildings such that they play similar ecological and hydrological roles to trees, including facilitating stormwater infiltration, evapotranspiration, and soil stabilization. The result would not, however, be a restored forest, but rather a “city like a forest” (Braungart and McDonough 2009), which, precisely because of its similarity to a forest, could potentially play a beneficial role in the overall hydrological regime of the river basin to which it belongs.3 Further, the availability of a new environmental paradigm – imitationism – applicable not just to restoration work but also to other fields of human activity, including agriculture, industry, and urbanism, could potentially help produce the shared beliefs and values necessary for multiple stakeholders to work together in a coherent and complementary manner. If civil engineers, designers, planners, and so on, also take imitating nature as a starting point then their values and objectives would likely dovetail much more easily with those of river restorationists than would otherwise be the case.
Adopting imitationism as a new environmental paradigm would in turn involve the adoption of a new ethical principle: nature as measure. As I argue elsewhere (Dicks 2017b), the key feature of this principle is the idea that, unlike in traditional environmental ethics, nature is not seen as an object of ethics, something toward which human subjects have duties and obligations, as is the case when ecological restoration is seen as a form of “restitution” (Taylor 1986; Basl 2010), righting past wrongs committed toward nature, but rather as a source of ethics, something whose inner workings may be translated into a set of normative, ethical constraints on how we humans should carry out our various activities. From this perspective, the attempt to locate standards in nature for judging the success of restoration projects is already to adopt a specific approach within environmental ethics, and, in our case, a specific restoration ethic, for it is to make the assumption that the restoration efforts should be evaluated against nature’s ecological standards. This approach may in turn be integrated into broader biomimicry objectives, as is the case regarding the proposal of Pedersen Zari (2017) for the transformation of the city of Wellington in New Zealand according to ecological standards derived