"What I find particularly depressing about the “native species only” argument is that it ends up denying the inevitability of ecological change. Its underlying assumption is that the plant and animal communities that existed in North America before the Europeans arrived can and should be preserved. The fact that this pre-Columbian environment no longer exists—and cannot be recreated—does not seem to matter. Many landscape professionals have a strong desire to restore habitats to the way they used to be, even after the original conditions that produced these assemblages of plants and animals have long since disappeared. To deny the inevitability of ecological change or to pass moral judgment on it is to deny the reality of organic evolution."

From this issue of the Harvard Design Magazine.