The philosophies of conservation and preservation have been part of fabric of the environmental movement for over a century, dating back to the divergent views of John Muir, a preservationist, and Gifford Pinchot, a conservationist. To Muir, nature had a right to exist on its own, and an inherent value to humanity just by its existence. Pinchot believed that limited consumption of wild nature could be compatible with the protection of the overall fabric of life.

The outcome of the debate between these two iconic leaders was the formation of the U.S. National Park system, where extractive use was prohibited, and the much larger National Forest system, where logging an other commercial removal of nature has been allowed.

While both philosophies have their merits, the fight between advocates on either side intensified in the last half of the 1900's. The explosive increase in the commercial use of nature faced  scrutiny from the field "conservation biology" which began to demonstrate in large scale scientific studies that excessive consumption of nature is causing an unravelling of the web of life around the globe - the global extinction crisis.

The implications of conservation biology are now so widely understood by economic leaders and policy-makers around the world that a new "restoration economy" has emerged in an effort to undo the damage of industrial-scale removal of nature for commercial purposes. The Restoration Economy, written by Storm Cunningham, gives a sense of the vast commercial business projects that are emerging from this mega-trend.

In the 1990's, famed environmental advocate David Brower introduced a concept he called "CPR for the planet" - conservation, preservation, and restoration. By adding the notion or "context" of Ecological Restoration, Brower helped shape in words the basis of a powerful economic engine.

By way of comparison, let's look at the housing market.  For many years "old" houses in America were considered by economic leaders to be nothing more than eyesores. Then, the urban restoration movement took hold - a new appreciation for the original beauty and design led to the increased economic value of formerly downtrodden neighborhoods. Now, the same thing is happening with ecosystems, and the same rules apply:

• Save as much as you can of the old
• Replicate as much of the original system as possible and interweave that with the original fragments to create a larger functional fabric
  

The economic imperative for ecosystem restoration has created a new and inspiring breed of for-profit companies, such as TreeBanking featured in the video above. The fact that a company like TreeBanking is now an economic engine for healthy people and ecosystems serves to increase the economic value of leaving as much original nature alone as possible.

As others follow TreeBanking's example, the renewed understanding that human health and ecosystem health are inseparably linked can expand the green economy far beyond what is possible via a narrow focus on alternative energy and green consumer products.

Getting more and more companies like TreeBanking launched is my personal mission. To learn more about how that can be accomplished rapidly, please read my last article, On Beyond Kiva.