In discussions of climate change mitigations and solutions, there is much talk of returning to a baseline, or restoring an ecosystem to its “natural” or “virgin” state. In answering what exactly this state would look like, there are many fingers pointed towards a pre-Industrial Revolution world as one to restore. As an answer to Anthropogenic climate change, this seems like a clear-cut answer, but complications start to arise. What should we do with species that have now naturalized in a new place? What do we do when we cannot remember what this “natural” ecosystem once looked like? What about the myriad of ways humans have been shaping the planet before industry?
We transsexuals are often told that our lives involve a rebirth, but that doesn’t necessarily echo lived reality. We are told that we start a blank canvas anew the moment we first push the plunger of hormones into our bodies. We are told that we must shed all remnants of our old skin to be able to wear our new clothes. We are told to be ashamed of the past, to hide it in photo albums.
           To restore an ecosystem to a natural state, one must impose their definition of this natural state upon the land. It’s easy to plead to “restore” our bodies to some natal sense of correctness, but what are we restoring? If we are acting as both Frankenstein and his monster, whose wishes do we follow? When we tear up our baseline ecosystem of flesh, the restoration effort for our own bodies can become subversive, occupying a form sewn without this reference.
           Faced with a rush to find an impossible reference ecosystem to restore, many conservationists choose to accept the naturalized non-native species and the changes to the landscape we cannot undo, trying to find a way to a land that is sustainable for humans and the nature we are a part of. Reframing conservation efforts as a regeneration for the future instead of a total rebirth towards a past broadens the horizons of the future ecologies on Earth.
           Regeneration, instead of rebirth, allows us to retain our histories, to carry them with us as we head into the future. A transition of regeneration shifts the change of our landscapes of flesh from something that is done to you by a foreign force to something you do to yourself for your own future.
           So, in this world where our future is uncertain, do not give into a rebirth that strips you of your path, wipes your slate clean. Keep that past tucked close to your beating heart as you go through a regeneration for the future.