Care and moral repair: Restoring historical land-caring practices

William Salkeld

Environmental Values, 2026, vol. 35, issue 1, 65-83

Abstract: Do we have an obligation to restore historical land-caring practices as an act of moral repair? Recently, Almassi has put forward ecological restoration as a form of moral repair between humans and the environment. However, this account relies on the anthropocentric notions of ‘trust’ and ‘forgiveness’. In this article, I develop the moral repair justification using the non-anthropocentric terms of ‘flourishing’ and ‘care’. I argue historical land-caring practices involve a moral relationship of mutual dependency between humans and biotic communities, and restoring such practices can be act of moral repair. Using the example of fire-stick farming by the Martu people of the Australian Western Desert, I show that the restoration of historical land-caring satisfies a plurality of environmental ethics.

Keywords: Moral repair; ecological restoration; historical land-caring; flourishing; care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envval:v:35:y:2026:i:1:p:65-83

DOI: 10.1177/09632719251376203

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