Includes bibliographical references (pages 487-499) and index.

Plots, five prairies, reflooding a delta -- The cranes are flying again -- From Necedah to Zaragoza via St. Louis: a restoration learning curve -- Greening the rainbow nation: saving the world on a single budget? -- Awkward questions from the windy city: why restore? to what? for whom? -- Keeping nature out? restoring the cultural landscape of the cinque terre -- The last of the woods laid low? fragile green shoots in Irish forests -- Future shock: "novel ecosystems" and climate change shake restoration's -- Foundations -- Dreamtime in Gondwanaland -- Restoration on a grand scale: finding a home for 350,000 species -- Killing for conservation: the grim precondition for restoration in New Zealand -- The Mayan men (and women) who can (re)make the rain forest -- Making the black deserts bloom: bog restoration on the brink of extinction -- Walk like a chameleon: three trends, one story -- Conclusions: why restore?. Paddy Woodworth has spent years traveling the globe and talking with people--scientists, politicians, and ordinary citizens--who are working on the front lines of the battle against environmental degradation. At sites ranging from Mexico to New Zealand and Chicago to Cape Town, Woodworth shows us the striking successes (and a few humbling failures) of groups that are attempting to use cutting-edge science to restore blighted, polluted, and otherwise troubled landscapes to states of ecological health--and, in some of the most controversial cases, to particular moments in historical time, before widespread human intervention. His firsthand field reports and interviews with participants reveal the promise, power, and limitations of restoration. --from publisher description