Coined in 1990 by Canadian biophysicist and geneticist Robert Haynes, ecopoiesis is the intentional and artificial development of a sustainable ecosystem in an environment which is otherwise lifeless, such as the act of terraforming a barren planet like Mars. The word is combined from the Greek roots oîkos, “house, living space" + poiéō, “to make.” The latter root can be found in terms like mythopoiesis, the creation of myths.
While Haynes originally intended ecopoiesis to refer to the construction of ecosystems on other worlds, examples can be found on Earth, if we broaden the definition to mean any lifeless territory that is artificially made to support life. The deliberate sinking of large ships into the ocean to create artificial reefs, such as the retired USS Spiegel Grove, sunk into the ocean off Key Largo in June 2002, qualifies as ecopoiesis in any area where the ocean was not providing sufficient shelter and other resources for biodiversity. A similar event, whalefall, the descent of a whale corpse to the ocean floor, would not be considered ecopoiesis, as it takes place naturally without human interference, and without human control over where a whale corpse will fall.
Similarly, the deliberate construction of a botanical garden or the installation of a dam on a river both constitute small-scale ecopoeisis, as many gardens are constructed with soil, greenhouses, and other materials and structures brought from outside the land where the garden is built, and would not have sustained plant life otherwise in the local terrain and climate. A terrarium, aquarium, or other artificial indoors animal enclosure might be considered ecopoiesis, but Haynes likely intended some level of self-sufficiency in the resulting ecosystem, and a terrarium is generally not self-supporting.
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