Dr. William R. Jordan III

Called by writer Michael Pollan the "leading visionary" of the restoration movement, Dr. Jordan is widely recognized as an intellectual leader in the field of ecological restoration. He was the founding editor of "Ecological Restoration," and a founding member of the Society for Ecological Restoration International. Manager of public outreach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum from 1977-2001, he is now co-director of the Institute for Nature and Culture at DePaul University and director of the New Academy for Nature and Culture, a think tank that explores the relationship between humans and their environment and provides a critical perspective on environmental thinking and practice.

Restoration Ecology: A Synthetic Approach to Ecological Research, which he co-edited, introduced the term "restoration ecology" into the language and provided the foundation for both a new conservation discipline and a new approach to ecological research. 

In The Sunflower Forest: Ecological Restoration and the New Communion with Nature, he made writer Ernest Callenbach wrote, "a convincing argument for an altogether new relations between human beings and the natural environment". 

And in Making Nature Whole: A HIstory of Ecological Restoration (Island Press, August, 2011), he and co-author George Lubick examine the history of the invention, discovery and realization of restoration--a form of land management they argue dates back only to the early decades of the 20th century.

Emphasizing the distinction between what he has termed "ecocentric restoration" and self-interested forms of resource conservation, Jordan has said that "there are basically two forms of land management, ecocentric restoration and all the others. We need both kinds. And we can't have both kinds, and derive their distinctive benefits, unless we distinguish clearly between them."