Claiming Reclamation
- John Santoni
- Sep 22
- 2 min read
The term “reclamation” is often used to describe ongoing large scale development projects that aim to restore, sustain, or otherwise improve a section of Earth. Whenever a development company or government embark on a land addition project or a replenishment of lost or eroded earth, it is usually referred to as a reclamation project. This label makes an assumption that there was a loss of something that belonged to us, and it needs to be recovered. This recurring process of loss and “reclamation” seems absurd to me, as I see the “losses” more as constant, naturally occurring phenomena than some sort of confiscation of our assets.
On the Southern California coast, there are many examples of these projects, as billions of dollars are spent trying to preserve real estate properties and infrastructure that was built on land that was once, and will again be, underwater. Sand reclamation on beaches that are now cut off from the natural waterways that would naturally replenish sand to the coast. Homes built on sandstone cliffs, whose crumbling cliffs can be observed in real time. The Pacific Surfliner rail line runs through San Clemente on borrowed time as the ground that supports it gives way and the bluffs above it erode. Some of these projects will temporarily sustain their subjects, but will ultimately end in "managed retreat".
These examples point to how modern western culture has unremembered how to interact harmoniously with our natural world. In ancient cultures, survival depended on respecting and working with the land and all of its inhabitants first hand. Wisdom was passed down through generations that taught children the ways of the natural world, and how to coexist with it. For all its merits, western Christian ideology fails us when it maintains that humans have "dominion" over Earth. This belief system has given permission to undertake unimaginable extractions, constructions and deconstructions, and an overall disregard for future consequences that often seem to come with temporary stopgap solutions.
My hope is that upcoming generations are becoming more aware, and there will be a paradigm shift in how we in modern society view the natural world; not as a separate entity, but one to which we are painfully integrated. We can no longer deny this connection; we are beginning to re-remember.
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