Too often, the environmental discourse has failed to include and uplift the very communities on the frontlines of environmental justice movements. Despite the undeniable fact that Indigenous communities are among the most affected by climate devastation, Indigenous science is nowhere to be found in mainstream environmental policy. And while holistic land, water, and forest management practices born from millennia of Indigenous knowledge systems have much to teach all of us, Indigenous science has long been ignored, otherized, or perceived as “soft”—the product of a systematic, centuries-long campaign of racism, colonialism, extractive capitalism, and delegitimization.

Too often, the environmental discourse has failed to include and uplift the very communities on the frontlines of environmental justice movements. Despite the undeniable fact that Indigenous communities are among the most affected by climate devastation, Indigenous science is nowhere to be found in mainstream environmental policy. And while holistic land, water, and forest management practices born from millennia of Indigenous knowledge systems have much to teach all of us, Indigenous science has long been ignored, otherized, or perceived as “soft”—the product of a systematic, centuries-long campaign of racism, colonialism, extractive capitalism, and delegitimization.

Here, Jessica Hernandez—Maya Ch’orti’ and Zapotec environmental scientist and founder of environmental agency Piña Soul—introduces and contextualizes Indigenous environmental knowledge and proposes a vision of land stewardship that heals rather than displaces, that generates rather than destroys. She breaks down the failures of Western-defined conservatism and shares alternatives, citing the restoration work of urban Indigenous people in Seattle; her family’s fight against ecoterrorism in Latin America; and holistic land management approaches of Indigenous groups across the continent.

Through case studies, historical overviews, and stories that center the voices and lived experiences of Indigenous Latin American women and land protectors, Hernandez makes the case that if we’re to recover the health of our planet—for everyone—we need to stop the eco-colonialism ravaging Indigenous lands and restore our relationship with Earth to one of harmony and respect.

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Unprecedented in its focus and scope, this collection addresses nearly every aspect of indigenous food sovereignty, from revitalizing ancestral gardens and traditional ways of hunting, gathering, and seed saving to the difficult realities of racism, treaty abrogation, tribal sociopolitical factionalism, and the entrenched beliefs that processed foods are superior to traditional tribal fare. The contributors include scholar-activists in the fields of ethnobotany, history, anthropology, nutrition, insect ecology, biology, marine environmentalism, and federal Indian law, as well as indigenous seed savers and keepers, cooks, farmers, spearfishers, and community activists. After identifying the challenges involved in revitalizing and maintaining traditional food systems, these writers offer advice and encouragement to those concerned about tribal health, environmental destruction, loss of species habitat, and governmental food control.

Edited by Devon A. Mihesuah and Elizabeth Hoover, with a foreword by Winona LaDuke. Devon Mihesuah joins us on the podcast to talk about Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States as well as the newly published revision of her award-winning book, Recovering Our Ancestors’ Gardens: Indigenous Recipes and Guide to Diet and Fitness.

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By Karen B. Moore

Dr. Robin Wall-Kimmerer

“Stunned.” That was the reaction of Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer upon learning her book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants, was No. 14 on the New York Times Paperback Nonfiction Best Sellers list Jan. 31, 2020.

“The book came out six years ago, so this is not the way that it usually happens,” said Kimmerer, Distinguished Teaching Professor at ESF and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Her publisher, Milkweed Editions is “thrilled” as the book has been a best seller for them for years. “But it’s not like the book has had any mass marketing, that was not the approach,” said the botanist and ecologist.

Braiding Sweetgrass is a collection of essays weaving traditional ecological knowledge with scientific knowledge to examine the relationship people have and can have with the living environment. In talking to booksellers, Kimmerer’s publisher learned the book’s rise in popularity is due to the personal connection people experience after reading it.

Said Kimmerer, “Apparently – and I love this – according to the booksellers, people come in … and buy a copy because they’ve heard about it. Then they’re back in a week or two to buy a stack because they want to give them to people. And that’s how the book is moving.

“That is the point of Braiding Sweetgrass. Let’s imagine a different way to go forward, which is based on these indigenous relationships with the living world. I think there’s a way in which this new spike in readership is because people need some light in a dark time.”

“It’s people connecting to it and saying, ‘Yes, this. This! And I want to share this with others!’ I couldn’t be happier that that’s how it’s happening because it’s connecting with people and I think oftentimes we can feel we are alone in our passion for the living world. I think outside of a place like ESF, people are longing for a deep connection to nature and then they find a book like Braiding Sweetgrass that gives them a vocabulary to express what relationship they’d like to have with the living world and then they want to share it.”

“The thing I love about that … is that’s actually the way the plant, sweetgrass, is disseminated. It isn’t a plant whose seeds blow all over the place and can establish anywhere. Essentially, it has to be transplanted hand to hand and that’s how the book is making its way in the world. too.”

The book is all about reciprocity, Kimmerer explained, and how do people enter into reciprocity with the world, giving back in return for the gifts of the earth. “When a book with a message like that hits the best sellers list I can only be hopeful that means that these ideas have adherents. … There are places in Braiding Sweetgrass where I ask, ‘Aren’t we a better species than this?’ and for the book to be doing so well gives me the answer that ‘Yes, yes we are.'”

Kimmerer’s publisher noted in a time of environmental peril when people’s values are being challenged that may be why six years after publication people need to imagine a different way forward. “That is the point of Braiding Sweetgrass,” Kimmerer said, “Let’s imagine a different way to go forward, which is based on these indigenous relationships with the living world. I think there’s a way in which this new spike in readership is because people need some light in a dark time.”

“There’s a teaching I grew up with and is often said in Native communities that the teachings (about the living world) that we hold and that the dominant society did their best to erase, that it was so important we hold tight to those teachings because there would come a time when the world would need that which they tried to eradicate,” said Kimmerer, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. “One can imagine that those times are now. So, it really is a privilege to share the teachings that were shared with me in what are urgent times.”

“I also know that this is inspiring to my students who are poised to bring this work of indigenous knowledge to the academy and into science. How exciting for them that the work we’re doing together, which can be such an uphill battle, is welcome. I think of this as nothing but good for our students. They can have the confidence that ‘people are going to listen.'”

Article originally published by SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Listen to our conversation with Dr. Kimmerer on the Real Food Reads podcast: 

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For Native people, colonization and environmental injustice go hand in hand. So argues Dina Gilio-Whitaker in her new book As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock. We were pleased to feature it as our November Real Food Reads book as we celebrate Native American Heritage Month. And I was honored to have a rich and fascinating conversation with Dina on the podcast.

Food, we are reminded in the book, has been used throughout history as a tool of war and subjugation. Prior to colonization, Native people were some of the healthiest people in the world—far healthier than Europeans. Genocide, forced displacement, and industrialism led (first) to starvation in Indian country and (later) to dependence on foreign, unhealthy foods.

The loss of access to culturally-appropriate food sources went hand-in-hand with the loss of access to sacred places and traditional plant medicines. This rupture of Native peoples’ relationship with ancestral lands made way for an extractive, capitalist economy that put us on the path to the climate crisis and sixth mass extinction of the earth’s biodiversity.

It’s a powerful story indeed. One that locates colonialism—and the philosophy of domination over nature that accompanied it—at the root of today’s multiple crises.

It also challenges us to ask hard questions: Who controls—and benefits from—land and resources? How are people dispossessed from their lands and what are the health and environmental consequences of that dispossession? What do food, climate, and environmental justice look like when we identify colonialism as the root cause of injustice? And how can we decolonize our movements for the transformation we need?

“We all have to band together and build alliances because all of our futures are at risk now.” —Dina Gilio-Whitaker, Real Food Reads podcast

For Dina, Native peoples can provide hope in this dark time, not least for having survived near-total devastation. Perhaps for that very reason, Indigenous peoples lead the global movement for climate justice. But Indigenous knowledge and worldviews must also be recovered and Native political sovereignty recognized. Our movements must grapple with histories of genocide and land theft, and also seek to understand, uplift, and protect Indigenous conceptions of the sacred and sacred places. 

My biggest takeaway from our conversation? The most important work non-Native people can do is be brave enough to decolonize our ways of thinking and organizing—and understand how colonialism has shaped the political and legal structures in which we operate. This decolonizing work is urgently needed in order to forge effective alliances, and build political power, with Native peoples. 

There is room for different conceptions of the sacred to come together in these alliances. But there’s no less at stake than the survival of all human and non-human life. 

Tune in to my conversation with Dina Gilio-Whitaker, author of As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock on the Real Food Reads podcast. 

Featured image: Canoe and Minnesota wild rice. Photo by Eli Sagor/Flickr.

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As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina GIlio-Whitaker 

The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen by Sean Sherman 

Decolonize Your Diet: Mexican-American Plant-Based Recipes for Health and Healing by Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Join the Real Food Reads book club for monthly book selections, related news & events, and author interviews on the Real Food Reads podcast. Listen on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, GooglePlay, or Stitcher.  

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Indigenous Peoples’ Day has us thinking about all the ways indigenous communities, knowledge(s), cultures, seeds, and foodways are central to building the world we need. This isn’t just about preserving traditions, it’s about recognizing indigenous people as leaders, change-makers, and innovators of food and climate justice movements.

This great article by Nick Estes—which we shared in our latest issue of the Real Food Scoop— argues that the green jobs envisioned in the Green New Deal have been pioneered and are already being modeled by indigenous peoples, whose stewardship of nature is rarely viewed as “productive work”: 

Rarely is Indigenous caretaking defined as work. Yet, like unwaged caregiving work, land defense and water protection are undervalued but necessary for the continuation of life on a planet teetering on collapse.

Demonstrators reach out for food donated by supporters in Quito on Oct. 9. (Photo by Jonatan Rosas/Washington Post)

Indigenous people in Ecuador are leading one of the most powerful protests in the world right now against the extractive industries that are wrecking the climate—with the first and most severe impacts felt by indigenous farmers. The protests are led by the indigenous confederation CONAIE, with strong leadership from women. 

In many ways, indigenous worldviews are better equipped to understand the climate crisis and organize collective responses to it that are rooted in centuries of sustainable land and water management and adaptation to changing weather patterns. Critical to applying this invaluable knowledge to the current climate emergency is protecting, and restoring, indigenous community control over land and territory—especially considering these territories are home to upwards of 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity.     

Modern agroecology—the science, movement, and practice of sustainable agriculture—is based in large part on the many techniques, insights, and principles developed by indigenous peoples around the world. 

Alliances across multiple sectors of society are necessary if we are to address the most urgent ecological and humanitarian crises of our time. But in this new global movement we are building— against environmental destruction and (neo-)colonialism, and for relationships that protect and care for the earth and each other—we would do well to center indigenous peoples and leadership.

Check out our four Real Food Reads book picks in celebration of Indigenous People’s Day, and for more reflection, discussion, and action on the climate crisis, see our Climate Toolkit.

Header image: People demonstrate in Quito on Oct. 9. The march is made up of a union of all ethnic groups originating in the Ecuadoran Andes. In the coming days the Amazon communities will also join the rallies. (Jonatan Rosas/Washington Post)

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Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

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