Restoring landscapes and communities: Insights from critical, urban, and plant ecology

Humans shape the world through policies, practices, and behavior that create environmental heterogeneity. Political and critical ecology offer frameworks for understanding how societies have historically and currently used power, policies, and practices to shape environmental landscapes and conditions, ultimately influencing the ecology and evolution of biodiversity. We suggest that integrating political and critical ecology can enhance our understanding of anthropogenic influences, such as luxury effects and legacy effects, including redlining-a form of structural racism implemented in the United States. Here, we review the consequences of legacy and luxury effects on urban ecosystems, with a focus on their impact on the fauna and flora. We propose that legacy and luxury effects can have independent and interdependent influences on ecological diversity, abundance, biological invasions, and pollution exposure. Although these effects can persist, environmental remediation may provide a pathway to restorative justice. We also discuss Plantago, herbaceous plants with the potential to mitigate the impacts of cadmium, a notorious environmental contaminant whose disposition parallels redlining patterns. Phytoremediation can contribute to biofuels, biofoundries, and the green economy, offering solutions to restore affected communities. By applying political and critical ecology lenses, we can identify socio-ecological mechanisms that affect humans and the environment. These insights can inform the development of green infrastructure to help remediate adverse effects. Ideally, these approaches provide pathways to address historical injustices, enhance equity, and restore ecological landscapes.