Listening

6 downloads 0 Views 6MB Size Report
When cities are seen in that biocultural light, they can then begin to ... Their annual festivals celebrate this ..... These invaluable accounts ..... Below & Inset: The water that birthed a spa and a city: geothermal ..... colonialism, industry, and warfare have led us ...... laNGSCaPE MaGaZiNE VolUME 7, iSSUE 1, SUMMEr 2018.
Langscape Magazine is an extension of the voice of Terralingua. It supports our mission by educating the minds and hearts about the importance and value of biocultural diversity. We aim to promote a paradigm shift by illustrating biocultural diversity through scientific and traditional knowledge, within an appealing sensory context of articles, stories, and art.

ABOUT THE COVER PHOTOS Front: Dub Kanche checks whether everything is OK with the audio Photo: Thor Morales, 2016 Back: A child gazes at the ocean. Photo: Manuel Maldonado, 2015

Terralingua thanks the Reva and David Logan Foundation and Kalliopeia Foundation for their generous support. Editor: Luisa Maffi Editorial Assistant & Web Support: Coreen Boucher Graphic Design: Imagine That Graphics Printing: Contour Grafix Learn about Terralingua: www.terralingua.org Receive Langscape Magazine by subscribing or by purchasing single copies. Details at www.terralinguaubuntu.org Learn about Langscape Magazine: www.terralinguaubuntu.org/langscape/home.htm Read past articles on Medium: medium.com/langscape-magazine ISSN 2371-3291 (print) ISSN 2371-3305 (digital) © Terralingua 2017

Langscape Magazine is a Terralingua Publication

. nature . language . culture .

LANGSCAPE MAGAZINE VOLUME 6, ISSUE 2, Winter 2017 Resilience and Resistance: Why the World Needs Biocultural Diversity

Table of Contents Editorial................................ 4 Ideas Cornerstone of Resilience:

Reflections on the Diversity of Species and Cultures Olga Mironenko............................................. 8

Monocultures of the Fields, Monocultures of the Mind:

The Acculturation of Indigenous Farming Communities of Odisha, India Kanna K. Siripurapu, Sabnam Afrein, and Prasant Mohanty..................................36

Bahadar’s Almanac:

Listening to Our Ancestors:

Oral Tradition in Northern Pakistan Makes People Resilient and Prepared for Natural Disasters Zubair Torwali..............................................42

Rooted in Place:

Hta:

Biocultural Diversity through the Indigenous Lens Jon Waterhouse............................................12 Exercises in Belonging, Ecological Awareness, and Love Radhika Borde..............................................16

Reflections Never for Sale:

Listening (or Not) to the Language of the Land Page Lambert ..............................................21

The Obvious Mirror:

How Biocultural Diversity Is Reflected in the Natural World Nejma Belarbi...............................................26

Dispatches Tsurushibina:

A Traditional Japanese Craft Helps Maintain and Restore Biocultural Knowledge and People’s Connection with Nature Mariia Ermilova............................................31

How Karen Farming Saved a Forest in Thailand and Its Poetry Changed International Policy Viveca Mellegård..........................................47

Story Map:

Youth Reconnect to Place and Biocultural Heritage in Colombia Jennifer McRuer............................................52

Visions from Within:

Another Shot for Biocultural Conservation in the Cradle of Humankind Thor Morales.................................................57

Heal the Land, Heal the People:

Strengthening Relationships at Hwaaqw’um in the Salish Sea Joe Akerman .................................................68

Shle’muxun:

Reconnecting with the Salish Sea Bioregion Daniel Kirkpatrick.........................................74

Web Extras Photo gallery: “Tsurushibina” photos, complementing Mariia Ermilova’s article, at https://medium. com/langscape-magazine/photo-gallerytsurushibina-260e2f3fcd40

Photo gallery “Story Map”

photos, complementing Jennifer McRuer’s article, at https://medium.com/ langscape-magazine/photo-gallery-storymap-250dceef6e22

Action Special: Reconnection and Reconciliation in the Salish Sea, Pacific Northwest Sustain, Benefit, Celebrate:

Embedding Nature in Our Culture Rob Butler.....................................................64

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 3

Editorial

Circle of Stories,

Circle of Life

Luisa Maffi

I

t was the end of a long day twenty-six years ago in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state. I was part way into my twoyear stint as a doctoral researcher among the Tzeltal Maya. That day my Mayan field collaborator, Petul, and I had been recording Tzeltal elder Don Antonio telling old stories about people, plants, places, and spirits. In spite of his age, the old man had been talking for hours on end, hardly showing any sign of fatigue. Petul and I, instead, were exhausted. As we sat back, taking a rest, I casually remarked: “Well, Petul, I guess that’s what people here usually do at night—sit around and listen to elders telling stories?” Petul looked at me, puzzled. “Huh,” he said after a moment of reflection, “actually, that’s the way it used to be… But now, you see, the kids are going to school, and when they come back at the end of the day (if the school is close enough that they can come back daily at all), they have homework to do. So that’s what happens at night: they sit at the table under the light bulb and do their homework. Plus, some of the people now have TV, so at night they sit around and watch TV programs instead. We don’t spend that much time visiting one another and listening to stories anymore. And the kids often think that the old stories are weird, anyway, because of what they learn at school or see on TV…” He paused, pondering. We had been working together for several months by then. Going around with an anthropologist interested in the “old ways” had made him keenly aware of how things had changed in his community and beyond. He had started asking himself questions about why things had changed the way they had, and whether people were better or worse off for that. “You know what?”

4 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

he resumed after a while, “I think I’m going to start a circle of stories. I see that we’re losing a lot from not telling our stories anymore. I’ll invite Don Antonio and other elders to come to my house on Saturdays, when the kids are home from school, and I’ll tell the neighbors to join us as well. This should be good!” So it went. And by that stroke of serendipity, in at least one Mayan household in the Chiapas Highlands the old stories began to be told again. I was reminded of that distant episode a few days ago when an article that argues for the value of Indigenous storytelling for biodiversity conservation crossed my computer screen.* Revitalizing the practice of storytelling, the authors point out, is crucial for the intergenerational transmission of traditional environmental knowledge (TEK). And ensuring the continuity of TEK is crucial for biodiversity conservation: TEK embodies millennia of keen observations of and skillful adaptations to the natural world that have allowed Indigenous Peoples and local communities to live sustainably for countless generations. The retelling of those stories benefits both the tellers and the non-Indigenous conservation practitioners who do care to listen. But the importance of storytelling definitely doesn’t end with the practical goal of making conservation efforts more effective and equitable by linking them to storytelling—valid and valuable as that purpose is. Oral traditions have been at the core of Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ identities, serving as the principal means to express * Fernández-Llamazares, A., & Cabeza, M. (2017). Rediscovering the potential of Indigenous storytelling for conservation practice. Conservation Letters. doi:10.1111/conl.12398

their diverse worldviews, cultural and spiritual values and beliefs, and precepts about how to live in a spirit of reverence, respect, and reciprocity with one another and with the earth. That sense of interconnectedness and interdependence has conferred resilience to Indigenous and all other societies living in close contact with the natural world, allowing them to persist and resist over time, in spite of tremendous assimilation pressures from dominant Western or Westernized forces. And it goes even deeper than that. Diversity in nature and culture is the hallmark of life on earth, the spontaneous expression of the evolutionary forces that bring life forth. The more diversity there is, the more vital and resilient the whole planet is. And the more attuned we are to diversity, the deeper the sense of “livingness” we can perceive and live by, as Terralingua co-founder Dave Harmon puts it.* The loss of that sense in Western thought has been one of the primary sources of the global environmental and social predicament we experience today. In today’s globalized and ever more homogenized world, we are rapidly losing touch with the importance of diversity in both nature and culture. We watch with indifference as our own actions wantonly erode that diversity, as if it were of no consequence to us. But not so! The more we chip away at diversity, the more we fray the web of life of which we are a part, reducing our options for the future. And the more, as Dave Harmon also warns us, we narrow the scope of human experience and undermine the very essence of our humanity. With ever-growing and accelerating signs of social turmoil and ecological disruption worldwide, we seem to be all too close to that dangerous cusp now. It may be tempting to look away from this disturbing and daunting picture and just “get on with our lives.” Yet, around the world today, there is a widespread malaise, an unsettling sense that “things are not well.” Many people are motivated to act but feel at a loss about how. It’s more important than ever, then, to remind ourselves of why we need biocultural diversity as a source of ecological and social resilience and resistance. And it’s more important than ever to hear ideas and stories that speak to the value of that diversity for the future of our species and all other species on earth. We all need * Harmon, D. (2016). Biocultural diversity: Reason, ethics, and emotion. Langscape Magazine, 5(1), 10–13

new narratives that will unseat the long-dominant one of profit-driven economic growth, technologydriven “progress,” market-driven consumerism, and relentless accumulation of material goods—all at the expense of the flourishing of life in its myriad forms and of our ability to experience the true wealth of “livingness” and the comfort of emotional and spiritual well-being. That’s what we set out to do with this issue of Langscape Magazine: bring together voices from all corners of the world that, collectively, weave strands of the new narrative we so urgently need. As if by the hand of a master weaver, many different threads unite here into a colorful tapestry, in which recurrent patterns emerge: the value of language and oral traditions, the importance of traditional knowledge and sense of place, and the need to (re) connect to biocultural heritage, other people, and the land to heal ourselves, each other, and the earth. A diverse group of thinkers graces the pages of our “Ideas” section. Olga Mironenko, an environmental scientist, offers a fresh perspective on the diversity of species and cultures and the importance of both diversities as “cornerstones of resilience.” She ponders our “baffling proclivity” to seek uniformity whereas “nature’s recipe for survival has been diversity,” and invites us to remind ourselves that diversity in all its forms is “one of the critical factors that will enable us to ensure our future”—a future that will be both kinder to the earth and free from cultural intolerance. Jon Waterhouse, a storyteller and activist, brings an Indigenous lens to bear on the dramatic loss of biocultural diversity that we are experiencing “while focused so intensely on propelling ourselves further into the future.” We have much to (re)learn, he argues, about our “place in nature and within the diverse condition of the planet—a condition that, as humans, it is our obligation to preserve.” And we can do so by listening with open minds and hearts to the knowledge of the ancestors—the ageold and evermore relevant wisdom of Indigenous cultures that “have not only survived in their place for millennia,” but indeed “have thrived.” Radhika Borde, a social scientist and conservationist, asks what it means to be “rooted in place” in today’s world of disconnected city living and massive human migrations toward cities. Can the idea of biocultural diversity, usually applied to rural contexts, be

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 5

extended to life in the built environment? It can, she suggests, if urban dwellers will make conscious efforts to grow roots “in and into” cities by becoming more conscious of them as biophysical places that owe immensely to their natural surrounds, both historically and in the present. When cities are seen in that biocultural light, they can then begin to “speak to a person’s soul and nourish it.” The two contributors to “Reflections” provide telling examples of what happens when people do (or do not) let the land speak to them and nourish their souls. Page Lambert and her family have been listening to the language of the land for decades on their beloved ranch in rural Wyoming. But someone else isn’t listening: the Wyoming Department of Transportation, which wants to realign a highway right through the ranch. As worldviews clash, Page sees the heart of the ranch (and her own) sliced open by an “eminent domain fissure.” Yet she finds comfort and resilience in the long view: the land, she muses, will endure far beyond the scars left behind by human action. That’s what Nejma Belarbi learns when she first hears “earth’s language” in an unlikely place: on the side of a dirt road trampled by feet and car tires, where tiny “plant people” reveal themselves to her once she begins to focus her attention. That’s the start of her journey away from the disconnected “urban industrial paradigm” she had experienced most of her life and back to the teachings of her North African elders, who speak of “our connection to all living things through the light that animates us.” Along the way, she reflects on how nature raises a mirror to our faces so that we may recognize human diversity as an intrinsic part of the diversity of life. Our “Dispatches” from the field bring us stories of biocultural resilience and resurgence as diverse as the people and places they portray. Yet each story has the same moral: the value of traditional knowledge and practices and of connection to place for maintaining and restoring the “inextricable link” between humans and nature and thus for ensuring the thriving of life. Living in Japan, Mariia Ermilova learns a traditional craft that, long neglected, is attracting practitioners again: the colorful art of making tsurushibina, or “hanging doll” decorations. The “dolls” are mostly figures of plants and animals

6 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

with deep cultural significance, embodying both practical and symbolic connections with nature. Practicing the craft, Mariia thinks, can serve to revitalize Japanese traditional knowledge and to foster environmental education, by helping people learn or relearn the “biocultural code” inscribed in this art. Kanna K. Siripurapu, Sabnam Afrein, and Prasant Mohanty introduce us to the Kandha people of eastern India, who have followed their “biocultural code” for generations, practicing shifting agriculture and developing a great diversity of heirloom seeds adapted to different conditions. Their annual festivals celebrate this agro-biodiversity and the resilient community spirit manifested in the sharing of labor and the exchanging of seeds. Now urgent action is needed to safeguard this rich and diverse biocultural system from the forces of acculturation. The Torwali people of northern Pakistan, we hear from Zubair Torwali, are holding on to their traditional knowledge—and to Bahadar’s farming almanac. Zubair goes back to his home village to learn more about the sophisticated agricultural calendar developed orally by villager Bahadar 150 years ago, which has been transmitted and used by local farmers since then. Along with an ingenious system for sharing irrigation water, also devised by Bahadar, the almanac has helped and continues to help farmers grow their crops and be resilient to famine and natural disasters. Viveca Mellegård travels to northern Thailand where the Karen people have also held fast to their farming traditions, in spite of rampant encroachment of logging and a government ban on their shifting cultivation practices. They found strength in their hta—stories, poetry, and songs that convey their traditional knowledge—to fight a long battle against logging and for recognition of their farming methods. They won, and their lands have regenerated. Ironically, they now risk eviction from those lands, which the government wants to turn into a national park. The Afro-Colombian communities of Isla Grande, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, have also long seen their territorial rights trampled and are making efforts to re-affirm their connection with their ancestral lands and biocultural heritage. Jennifer McRuer tells their story in a photo essay

on a youth group project. Through photography and mapping, the youth are promoting a process of collective reflection and action that, by recognizing and strengthening relationships to place, aims to “innovate, adapt, and build resilience in the face of global change.”

imperative” to be aware of, celebrate, and sustain local nature—an effort from which he anticipates immense benefits for the health of both people and the land. Walking the talk, he then embarks with his family and others on a celebration of nature in the bioregion.

New media are also central to language and culture revitalization efforts in northern Kenya, where members of the Gabbra, Borana, Konso, and El Molo Indigenous communities learn to use participatory video to create a “vision from within” for biocultural conservation. Thor Morales, who provided the training, watches in awe. In his photo essay, he shares the extraordinary experience of witnessing the video teams craft a “new form of resilience… using modern gear to revive the past and keep it going in a new but authentic way.”

On Salt Spring Island in the Salish Sea, Joe Akerman comes home—literally and metaphorically—to Hwaaqw’um, a village site of his Quw’utsun (Coast Salish) ancestors, as a place to “heal the land, relationships with one another, and the people and communities around us as we find ways to reconnect to the natural systems that give our lives deeper meaning.” Hwaaqw’um is now a sacred space for Joe’s Quw’utsun relatives to gather again and to engage with members of the Salt Spring community in a caring dialogue on “reconcili-action.”

New forms of resilience are indeed emerging worldwide as Indigenous Peoples and local communities strive to maintain or reconnect to their histories, languages, cultures, and lands as they move toward the future. At the same time, non-Indigenous people are beginning to realize they have a lot of reconnecting to do, too: to nature, by recognizing once again that humans are part of it, not separate from it; to place, by growing back their place-specific roots; and to First Peoples, by engaging in reconciliation with them after centuries of colonization, displacement, oppression, and often brutalization.

One island over, on Galiano, Daniel Kirkpatrick takes part in “Reconnecting,” an event that likewise aims to heal relationships with both First Nations and the land. From a Penelakut (Coast Salish) elder, he learns about shle’muxun, the Indigenous notion of stewardship, which sees the land as alive and calls for responsible, caring tending of the land that sustains you. Shle’muxun, he feels, is an “attainable and necessary goal.” And as this process unfolds in the Salish Sea, he muses that what happens here “may become a model for other bioregions around the globe.”

One place in which reconnection and reconciliation are starting to occur is the very bioregion from which Langscape Magazine hails: the Salish Sea in the Pacific Northwest, across the border between Canada and the USA. Original home to Coast Salish Peoples, this bioregion has witnessed over 150 years of harsh colonial history, which has left deep scars on both the Indigenous inhabitants and the land. We devote a special “Action” section to a variety of inspiring initiatives that are taking place in this bioregion to heal the wounds of that history and rebuild respectful and resilient relationships of people to people and of people to place.

Perhaps it will—only time can tell. But one thing seems clear: the more we come together locally and globally in a circle of stories, and the more intently we listen to one another and to the land, the closer we get to (re)building a collective narrative—one that is as ancient as it sounds new—about our rightful place on earth: within the biocultural circle of life. Bioculturally yours, Luisa Maffi Editor, Langscape Magazine Co-founder and Director, Terralingua

Salish Sea resident Rob Butler calls for a “renewal of our ancient relationship with nature”—one that has long been embedded in Indigenous ways but has largely been lost by settler populations. As a path toward that renewal, he proposes that people develop a “Nature Culture”: a “cultural

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 7

e n o t s r Corn e il ience of R e s O

Reflections on the Diversity of Species and Cultures

ur planet is populated by an incredibly wide variety of creatures. Coming in different sizes and with different sets of adaptations to their respective environments, they inhabit the so-called planetary envelopes: hydrosphere, cryosphere, lower layers of the atmosphere, and upper layers of the lithosphere, creating a unique envelope, the biosphere, that interweaves with and changes the others.

We are used to hearing about species—if not from our school biology courses or from nature observations, then from the media: there is much well-grounded talk about species extinction, accelerated up to 10,000 times by what we humans do, and resulting in a serious decline of biodiversity. If you could take a look at our planet Earth from above, wearing special glasses that would allow you to see large, complex communities of life forms, you would see umpteen species, broken down into populations, distributed all over its surface. Species may interact with one another in many ways, but they usually do not interbreed in Above: Life’s traces #1. 2017

8 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

Text by Olga Mironenko Photos by David Rapport

nature, and they occupy slightly or very different niches. Interbreeding normally happens within a population of a given species, to preserve and pass on the population’s genes. This is conditioned by shared habitat and relative seclusion from other populations. But in the great scheme of things, this is simply how a species is trying to preserve its gene pool. What does any of this have to do with our cultures, you will ask? We know that humans are just another species on the planet, among many. And, as humans, we do recognize one another as members of the same species. Yet, at the same time, we are often inclined to fight with one another because of cultural or ethnic differences, as if those differences made human groups into different species. We may well be doing this as a reflection of the biological urge to preserve a population’s genes, but we humans take this urge much farther than any of our planetmates do, ignoring the great value of this diversity. Ethnic differences, in fact, may not even play as significant a role as cultural differences do. Many ethnicities can live in a country, or a certain part of a country, sharing one culture, traditions, and values. As a result of cultural assimilation, there may be a homogeneous culture while ethnic differences persist (although they may also even out over a period of time). It is especially in terms of our cultural differences that we mostly choose to draw boundaries among ourselves: around religions, values, traditions, customs. Being a single species, Homo sapiens, but divided into different cultural “populations,” we often tend to think that the human bearers of a different set of customs and beliefs are alien to us and that there can be little or no common ground for mutual

understanding. This is the very root of our issues with racial and cultural intolerance. When we draw these parallels—which often is a good exercise in systems thinking—it is important to remember that humanity is one species, and the cultures we divide up into correspond to populations within that species, and that the ecological laws valid for a given species remain valid for any population of that species. So, with this in mind, why do we need diversity, both in nature and in terms of our human cultures? The fact is that, in nature, the more biodiverse the ecosystem, the more resilient it is. The more room there is for a variety of responses to various stress factors, which are always there in nature, the higher the chance of a successful response and, hence, of survival. It is crucial to remember that every species occupies a certain ecological niche in an ecosystem, and all the niches are interconnected. Nothing in nature exists in isolation. The various correlations and interactions between niches also

serve the stability of an ecosystem. For instance, if stress factors drive out or bring about a substantial decline in one species performing a particular function, this species will be replaced by another species present in that ecosystem, whose functions are the closest to those of the species that could not respond to the stress well enough. By much the

“In nature, the more biodiverse the ecosystem, the more resilient it is. The more room there is for a variety of responses to various stress factors, which are always there in nature, the higher the chance of a successful response and, hence, of survival.” same logic, the more populations within a species, the higher the odds of survival for the entire species because at least one of the populations may be able to adapt to whatever the stress on the entire species is. So, you can imagine that the wider the choice of options, the higher the chances of withstanding any kind of pressure or challenge.

Above: Life’s traces #2. 2017

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 9

“Diversity also contributes greatly to the overall health and well-being of the entire ecosystem. … Nature doesn’t know monoculture, unless perhaps in certain extreme conditions where only one species can thrive.”

Diversity also contributes greatly to the overall health and well-being of the entire ecosystem. For example, monoculture forests or agricultural fields are particularly vulnerable to pests and, once attacked, stand few chances of survival. Monoculture forests have actually been described as “green deserts” rather than forests—and for a good reason. Or next time you go out for a walk, take a look under your feet. If you are a city dweller and are lucky enough to find any semblance of nature in the outskirts of the city, what you will most likely see will be mixed herbaceous meadows. Nature doesn’t know monoculture, unless perhaps in certain extreme conditions where only one species can thrive. That is why biodiversity matters so much. We, as humans, might not care for the survival of ecosystems, but that happens only when we’re short-sighted and don’t see that we are a part of the entire system, in which our survival depends entirely on the survival of other species. All these principles also hold for us and our cultures. That means that the more cultures there are, with a diverse set of approaches, worldviews, and strategies arising from them—and therefore the more varied the responses we give to a multitude of stress factors we are faced with—the more resilient we become as a global society. In light of the environmentally depleted future that is already becoming our today, our survival depends greatly on this resilience.

Top: Life’s traces #3. 2017 Inset Top: Life’s traces #4. 2017 Inset Bottom: Life’s traces #5. 2017

10 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

Ongoing globalization has already wiped out many cultures. Globalization per se—a result of our quest for unrestrained economic growth coupled with our ever more advanced means of transportation, which give us a virtually limitless ability to move from one end of the earth to the other—combines with that baffling proclivity of ours for replacing biodiverse meadows with monocultural mowed lawns. We tend to want things more uniform, that is, more easily comprehensible and controllable. That way

our brain, which spends a lot of energy processing large volumes of new data, can spare some precious effort and pull notions and concepts out of readymade boxes it sorts everything into. That cognitive process has its upsides, such as the ability to process more information faster. Yet its downsides are fraught with peril. Granted, uniformity is convenient, but how many survival stories can you remember that happened within the comfort zone, in the convenience of the habitual? Nature’s recipe for survival has been diversity. We have to face our current reality. We live in a world where a wonderfully colored patchwork blanket of cultures, with all that they comprise, is being bleached into a white sheet, leaving behind blurry borders between what used to be fascinatingly patterned patches and a feeling of loss that cannot be undone. There is a multitude of things we can ask ourselves: How deeply does each of us look into our own culture and respect others? How does our passion for globetrotting— which each of us can relate to for the sheer beauty of this planet that everyone, understandably, wants to capture with their own eyes—eventually work as that bleaching agent? How do we eradicate cultural intolerance from our minds, and instead explain to ourselves that the survival and success of our own “population”—our culture—depends on others being there, being different, and surviving and succeeding as well? And how do we celebrate these differences as the cornerstone of our common resilience?

Above: Life’s traces #6. 2017

These questions are valid for all times, not just for times of crisis such as the one we are heading into now. They would matter as much in ideal times of plentiful resources, a healthy environment, and zero concerns about our immediate future. But we can’t go back to such long-gone times, and the stakes are now higher than ever. So, we have to constantly remind ourselves that diversity—both in the species around us and within ourselves as yet another species—is one of the critical factors that will enable us to ensure our future on this intrinsically diverse planet.

Olga Mironenko is an environmental scientist based in Moscow, Russia. She holds an MA in languages and international relations, and an MSc in environmental science. Her current research focus is on marine sustainability issues and marine pollution. David Rapport earned a PhD in economics and then spent many years shedding economic dogma and learning what makes life on earth tick. When he is not writing about ecosystem health, he can often be found wandering in the woods and along beaches, marveling at the diversity of life’s patterns.

Further Reading Harmon, D. (2002). In Light of Our Differences: How Diversity in Nature and Culture Makes Us Human. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Maffi, L. (ed.). (2001). On Biocultural Diversity: Linking Language, Knowledge, and the Environment. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Meadows, D. H. (2008). Thinking in Systems: A Primer. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green. Odum, E. P. (1953). Fundamentals of Ecology. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders.

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 11

Listening to Our Ancestors

Text by Jon Waterhouse Photos by Mary Marshall

W

Biocultural Diversity through the Indigenous Lens

e are now living in the digital era, when practically every component of our lives appears to be moving at an ever-increasing, unstoppable pace. In many instances it is clear that we humans are not capable of keeping up with the technology we are creating, even as access to information and knowledge is more abundant and easier than ever. So, as we barrel ahead with our hair on fire, I’m compelled to stop and ask: What are we sacrificing while focused so intensely on propelling ourselves further into the future? Sure, looking around the globe we can see the innumerable benefits of technological advancements. But when we stop to assess the current human condition, as well as the state of this planet we call home, isn’t it obvious that our eagerness to arrive at tomorrow is costing us much of what has sustained us and made us who we are today? All over the world, cultures are mingling like never before, and countless opportunities to gain knowledge and wisdom from people different from us are presented with regularity and ease. Yet, as the world’s population increases, biocultural diversity

12 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

is significantly threatened and has demonstrably declined. Instead of embracing the many benefits that this first-hand exposure to other ways of life presents, we are insisting that all citizens adopt a uniform existence and eliminate the traits and characteristics that set us apart. Personally, I believe this fact might appall our ancestors. Thinking of my own grandfather and his love for worldly knowledge (as evidenced by his vast collection of National Geographic and World Book Encyclopedia), I truly believe he would be thrilled to cross paths in his local grocery store or favorite diner with folks from various Asian, Russian, Latin Top: Traditional community on the Giraffe River (Bahr-el-Zaraf) in South Sudan. 2011 Inset: Traditional Kwakwaka’wakw carving from Alert Bay, British Columbia. 2014 Facing Page: Memorials to Haida Ancestors at SG̱ang Gwaay on Gwaii Haanas, Haida Gwaii, British Columbia. 2016

American, or African cultures. And he certainly would not insist that they give up their traditions, assimilate, and live in the same manner as our family. Yet, well-meaning but misguided representatives from Eurocentric groups and organizations are descending on Indigenous communities from Greenland to Australia and all points in between to offer “help.” They are bringing the concepts of Western education and opportunity to light for these people, whom they view as in need of “domestication.” But why? These Indigenous cultures have not only survived in their place for

“Indigenous cultures have not only survived in their place for millennia— they have thrived.” millennia—they have thrived. Sure, the arrival of development activities in their regions and onto their lands has taken a toll, as many corporate practices pollute, drive the extinction of species, and more. The problem of corporate infiltration in their regions or globally, however, will certainly not be mitigated by efforts that result in alienating people from their own places and ways of life. Most devastatingly, and paramount to this discussion, we cannot overlook the hard fact that, over the last 500 years, we have witnessed imperialistic domination of non-Eurocentric human societies, which on the best of days demands cultural assimilation and on the worst complete subjugation or total annihilation. Again, examples abound: the U.S. Federal Indian Policies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the ruthless rule of the Belgians in the Congo (1908–1960); the Rubber Baron Era in South America (1879–1912); the extermination of the Marsh Arabs in Southern Iraq by Saddam Hussein in 1991—you name it.

and main water source. The Indigenous people using peaceful protests and civil disobedience were pitted against a fully militarized state and federal force that was supplemented by private security contractors. The contrast in each side’s approach was stark: thousands of people protesting peacefully versus hundreds of heavily armed police reinforced by military armored vehicles, water cannons deployed in freezing temperatures, and attack dogs. The draconian response by the authorities against Native Americans protecting their homelands and future is a dark repeat of earlier wrongs and shows that we are still not willing to learn the lessons of the past. Some of our lack of understanding and confusion about biocultural diversity finds its roots in the long-standing dismissal of Indigenous people as “primitive,” “savage,” and/or “unintelligent.” We must find it within ourselves to move past cultural bias to embrace their knowledge—knowledge that should not be viewed as in conflict with contemporary science, but rather as complementary to it. This ancient wisdom and perspective can offer guidance for the modern world to understand and accept the many benefits of biocultural diversity, propelling us to a level far beyond where we are today. As an Indigenous person who has spent decades working with various small populations and cultures across the globe, I’d like to share a bit about Native American knowledge and wisdom specifically—and possibly surprise you with a few tidbits that you may not have known. For instance, did you know that science and technology are nothing new to Indigenous Peoples? We have been practicing science and its applications

Even today, the list of human domination and atrocities against other humans goes on and on. Take the high-profile case of the 2016 occurrences at Standing Rock Indian Reservation, spanning across the border of North Dakota and South Dakota in the USA. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, joined by thousands of protesters, stood against the rerouting of the Dakota Access Pipeline away from the predominantly white community of Bismarck, North Dakota, and through their tribal reservation lands

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 13

to technology since time immemorial. The same can be said of the Indigenous approach to conservation and sustainability. Indigenous (or Native) cultures have always grasped the importance of understanding and nurturing every component of what sustains them, so to that end they have operated as scientists and conservationists by default. Whether in regard to developing the most effective methods for growing food, making tools, catching fish or game, building homes or canoes, or even managing the land, the concept of “research and development” has been an integral part of being Indigenous, simply out of necessity to survive. What we as contemporary society often tend to forget is that much of our modern technology originated within Indigenous cultures from all over this planet. Many historical achievements of First Peoples around the globe have literally carried us to this very moment in time. Just to give you an idea, here are but a few of the items we use regularly that were conceived, created, or first discovered and harnessed by Indigenous cultures within Native America specifically: almanacs, aspirin, anesthetics, bullet-proof vests, calendars, canals, canoes, chaps (leather leggings), chewing gum. Oh. And chocolate. As you can see, I’ve shared only a few of the items from the very top of the alphabetical list. So I often wonder: While we marvel at the great monuments of the past and at the complex design and execution required to create them, how can so many of us completely disregard the Indigenous science that brought them forth? We are awed by the pyramids of Giza and Teotihuacan, the temples of Petra and Machu Picchu, and countless others. The ancient fish ponds found in Hawai’i are impressive. Yet we ask: How could an ancient, primitive, non-European people have possibly been sophisticated or intelligent enough to accomplish these technological “miracles”? A few of us would rather give credit for these feats of technological superiority to alien beings or divine intervention. Why is it so difficult to accept the ingenuity of ancient Indigenous cultures? Mayan astronomy, Polynesian wayfaring,

14 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

Inca stone-shaping, and other examples of ancient Indigenous technology continue to baffle scholars and scientists. Yet, if we can marvel at these grand structures and skills of the past, developed by humankind through the ages, then why would we today ignore and reject the Indigenous knowledge, science, and understanding that gave rise to them and that has existed since time immemorial? Especially since this vast knowledge predates “modern science” by thousands of years and has passed countless tests of time. Take the case of the concept of caring for future generations, a principle so important to Native Americans as a guide for the success of a society that it was codified in the Iroquois Great Law of Peace. In turn, as the U.S. Senate acknowledged in a 1987 resolution (U.S. S. Con. Res. 76, 2 Dec. 1987), that document served as Top Left: Traditional ways still followed today: an Evenk reindeer herder in Kostetem, Sakha Republic, Russian Federation. 2008 Inset Top: A Sakha shaman at the “Flowers on the Tundra” celebration in Yakutsk, Sakha Republic, Russian Federation. 2016 Inset Bottom: Communicating with youth using their favorite medium: Instagram. Yakutsk, Sakha Republic, Russian Federation. 2016

a model for the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, no acknowledgement of the principle of responsibility to future generations was included. The First Salmon Ceremony of the Pacific Northwest, which was witnessed and documented by Lewis and Clark in 1806, is the ultimate representation of conservation practices. It offered a clear picture of ideal sustainability efforts practiced within a community. Farther afield, the Olonkho epic tale has been instilling cultural methods, beliefs, and philosophies among Siberia’s Yakut people for centuries. Less well known but no less important is the 500-page Traditional Medicine Encyclopedia created by the Matsés people of the Amazon to record their ancestral medicinal knowledge. The Matsés created this document in their language and will not translate it, in an effort to protect its content from exploitation. In each of these examples, like so many others, the message is designed to enlighten and inspire thinking beyond oneself. These invaluable accounts of human existence and survival illuminate one’s place in nature and within the diverse condition of the planet—a condition that, as humans, it is our obligation to preserve. A vast library of untapped knowledge regarding our planetary system exists. It has been passed down through generations of Indigenous Peoples via oral traditions and ceremony, containing life lessons applicable and perfectly suited to our current

Above: Evenk Elder Evdokia shares a moment with Jon in Zhigansk, Sakha Republic, Russian Federation. 2015

state. In this regard, Indigenous knowledge and its applications to the preservation of biodiversity and biocultural diversity are essential. But again, if we ignore these facts rather than embrace them, we will enter a bleak future that will surely bear witness to an unspeakable loss of diversity of cultures, species, and knowledge systems. This is a call to action. I ask that we all relax our current way of thinking and open our minds to the world of Indigenous knowledge. I can promise you that no harm will come from this effort, and the future will look much brighter when viewed through an open mind and heart.

Jon Waterhouse is an environmental steward, Indigenous advocate, and storyteller. Driven by his belief that blending Indigenous knowledge with contemporary science is key to understanding our planet, he partners with members of often remote, voiceless populations, providing them with technology to collect and share their place-based science. Mary Marshall, an author and photographer, is passionate about empowering Indigenous populations around the globe. While she and her partner Jon Waterhouse work alongside Indigenous groups to monitor their water quality, she also provides them with the technology and training to tell their story, in their own words, to the audiences of their choosing.

Further Reading Hance, J. (2015). Amazon tribe creates 500-page traditional medicine encyclopedia. Mongabay. Retrieved from https://news.mongabay.com/2015/06/amazon-tribe-creates-500-page-traditional-medicine-encyclopedia/ Mohawk Nation News. (2013, April 19). Energy balance [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://mohawknationnews.com/blog/tag/the-united-states-senate-con-res-76/ Native American Contributions. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Native_American_contributions

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 15

Rooted in Place W

Radhika Borde

Exercises in Belonging, Ecological Awareness, and Love

hat does it mean to have roots? In most cases the metaphor implies a genetic legacy, a cultural inheritance comprising a set of values and beliefs, or a connection with a place that comes from having spent one’s childhood there. In each of these cases there is an assumption that roots are passed down through family generations or are cultivated when a person is very young. Today many people—particularly urban dwellers —have become placeless and rootless, often living in a virtual world more than they do in a physical space that they can connect to with their senses. How might they learn to reconnect with place? Also, with increasing numbers of people migrating from place to place for work and to escape war and poverty, it becomes ever more crucial to explore whether and how a person may be able to cultivate and establish roots in a new place—understood as a culturally interpreted biophysical context. It is

16 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

possible to learn a language in adulthood and speak it with the fluency of a native speaker. Can we learn or relearn to cultivate roots in a similar way?

Growing a root in and into a place, just as a plant does, would allow a place to speak to a person’s soul and nourish it. This might go a long way towards alleviating what can be seen as a new type of anomie that fractures the Earth’s power to offer solace, nurture, and connection to diverse peoples in diverse places. The idea of biocultural diversity, which implies that cultural and biological diversity are linked, has been primarily developed in relation to non-urban areas. Here, I wish to explore its applicability to urban contexts, for two interrelated reasons: over Below: Seeking roots in a new city. Photo: Radhika Borde, 2017

half of the world’s population now lives in cities, and it is cities that generally function as destinations for humans on the move. Cities are often argued to be hotspots of cultural diversity, but it is hard to make the case that they are also rich repositories of biological diversity. On the other hand, it is easy to argue that they are superb examples of the impact that the biophysical features of a place have had on the development of human culture. Cities have usually been founded in areas with distinctive and advantageous natural features that have facilitated the flourishing of human civilization: on hills, beside rivers, or along coastlines. It may be difficult to find an example of a city that does not owe its achievements at least in part to a natural environment that was conducive to enhancing the effects of human labor, creativity, and enterprise. The debt that cities owe to nature is sometimes forgotten in our contemporary world, in which the significance of cities is credited to their position in the space of “flows”—flows of data or capital— rather than in the space of “places”—physical loci that can be tangibly experienced. Since the natural environment of cities has had such a huge impact on culture, the concept of biocultural diversity might be expanded to emphasize, for urban contexts, the importance of being receptive to the influence that the biophysical features of a city have had, and can continue to have, on culture. Within such a framing, the biocultural diversity of a city might be understood as the intricate web of cultural influences that a city as a biophysical place has had and could have on the diverse communities that call it home, and conversely the diversity of meanings and interpretations that these communities would ascribe to the city as a place. Yet, as important as cities are as places, it would be unhelpful if not impossible to ignore that they also are hubs that exist in a space of flows. Cities can be imagined as having tendrils that span the globe. And the people who come to live in them can be understood to bring offshoots of the rhizomatic networks of culture that they are part of. When these culturally diverse peoples grow roots in and into a city as a place, this might facilitate rich processes of cultural hybridization. These hybridizations might then reach other places through the tendrils that are constantly curling out of cities, thus allowing

for further and more nuanced hybridization. This would foster a process of globalization without homogenization, since the strength behind this cultural process would stem from the unique character of the biophysical features of cities as places and from the uniqueness of the culturally influenced roots that people would grow into them. Many, if not most, people would agree that places, in all their biophysical splendor, are unique and should be appreciated and respected as such. We usually take it for granted that the planet is much more interesting for the fact that there are tropical rainforests, deserts, and temperate grasslands. When culture is open to the influence of place, we can be sure that there will be biocultural diversity— and perhaps even a renewed and enhanced respect for the diversities of both nature and culture around the globe.

“Today many people—particularly urban dwellers—have become placeless and rootless, often living in a virtual world more than they do in a physical space that they can connect to with their senses.”

So, how do we rediscover cities as biophysical places? How do we open ourselves up to being culturally influenced from the ground up, so to speak? There is extensive scholarly writing on place-making in urban contexts—that is, on how people engage with such contexts, relate to them, and recreate them as places for work, life, and leisure. There have also been scholarly discussions of biodiverse place-making in cities through such practices as nature volunteering and urban gardening. Issues of cultural diversity have not been neglected in these discussions, but the focus has been mostly on the ability (or inability) of diverse ethnic communities to reclaim urban green spaces, the differing and sometimes conflicting cultural valuations of biodiversity in cities, and so on. In other words, much of the discussion on this topic has been political. What I believe is needed is a phenomenological approach—one that addresses the vital question of how we can develop roots in and into cities as places, regardless of whether we grew up in a given city or have cultural roots elsewhere. What can individuals,

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 17

Above: The phenomenology of a midnight walk in a snowy city. Photo: Frantisek Borde-Havelka, 2017

groups, and institutions do to develop and foster a deeper experience of, and connection to, a city (whether native or adopted), as well as an enhanced feeling of ecological responsibility toward it? To get to know and experience a city as first a biophysical place, and then a biocultural one, one might start by seeking out the natural features around which the city has developed—be those a river, a bay, or a cluster of hills—and then spend time in vantage points that allow for contemplation of these natural features, as well as engage in exploring the history of the city’s development in symbiosis with those natural features. Another useful exercise would be an immersion into the mythical history of the city’s founding (if such a history exists and has been recorded). The biophysical features of cities such as Rome, Mexico City (Tenochtitlan), and Prague are linked with prophecies, festivals, and legends. The ancient Septimontium festival in Rome celebrated its seven hills. The Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, literally the “place of the prickly pear cactus,” was linked to a

18 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

founding myth related to the auspicious sighting of an eagle sitting on a cactus and holding a snake in its mouth. It is said that Prague was built after its founding princess stood on a hill overlooking the River Vltava and had a vision of a city whose fame would touch the stars.

“Growing a root in and into a place, just as a plant does, would allow a place to speak to a person’s soul and nourish it.” Engaging in these exercises is quite distinct from spending time in urban green spaces, which may be understood as zones where humans have made “concessions” to nature. Contemplating the natural feature or features to which a city owes its existence would reposition people as not just stewards of, but as debtors to nature. Paying homage to how a native or adopted urban home was nourished by its biophysical environs would allow for a similar, contemporary experience of personal or communal nourishment.

The next exercise might be to experience a heightened awareness of the physical nourishment that the biophysicality of a city and its environs can provide—such as by tasting and smelling local produce, along with understanding how the soil and climate of the city and the agricultural lands that supply it have influenced the tastes

places. For example, a seasonal fruit may be used in the cuisine that is local to a place, but this does not restrict it from being adopted by a culinary tradition that originated elsewhere. This process of culinary adoption might benefit from some degree of continuity between the historical bioculture of a place and its contemporary manifestations.

“The debt that cities owe to nature is sometimes forgotten in our contemporary world, in which the significance of cities is credited to their position in the space of ‘flows’—flows of data or capital—rather than in the space of ‘places’—physical loci that can be tangibly experienced.”

By engaging in such exercises, newcomers to a place, as well as people who feel rootless despite belonging to families that have been living in the same urban context for several generations, would most likely experience some feelings of rootedness. But why is this important? In today’s cosmopolitan world, rootlessness may not necessarily be seen as a negative experience and may be thought to imply freedom. Why this emphasis on both newcomers and local city dwellers developing roots in place?

and smells that are being experienced. Gathering available wild foods and gaining an appreciation of local ecological and seasonal cycles would also be beneficial. This exercise would emphasize that the biophysicality of a city belongs to all who understand and enjoy it and that it can be mediated not only by cultures that are local to the place but also by cultures that were nourished by other

The first answer to this question is that there is scant evidence that local communities will necessarily embrace newcomers. If the people you have come to live among are less than welcoming, developing your own strong roots into that place may be helpful. Below & Inset: The water that birthed a spa and a city: geothermal geyser and spa at Karlovy Vary, the Czech Republic. Photos: Radhika Borde, 2014

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 19

Secondly, in many countries, there are heightened security concerns surrounding immigrants or refugees who may appear not to “integrate.” Now, the idea of “integration” implies merging into a new cultural context that might be at odds with the one that a newcomer is familiar with, and that is the wrong thing to expect—at many levels. Rather than using the language of “integration,” it may be more valid to speak of “connection”—which may mean connection both to the place one finds oneself in and to the communities one finds oneself among.

care. Most of us can only think and act locally, and ecological action will most likely be much more effective if the need for it is felt viscerally. Also, if we (both newcomers and those who have preceded them) feel rooted in a place and discover how to cherish it, there is no reason why we couldn’t have multiple roots in multiple places that we may have experienced and enjoyed and may continue to treasure—thereby giving a new meaning to the concept of “rooted cosmopolitanism” that some philosophers argue we should aspire to.

Last but not least, it is crucial for all people to develop roots into the biophysicality of the places we live in. The planet as a whole is far too large and too abstract an object to elicit our ecological

Below: Ripe with unseen promise: a city and an urban vinyard prepare for winter. Photo: Frantisek Borde-Havelka, 2016

Radhika Borde has a PhD in Cultural Geography from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She has studied and written on Indigenous nature spiritualities and environmental activism. She is a steering committee member of the IUCN specialist group on Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas and edits the group’s newsletter.

Further Reading Buizer, M., Elands, B., & Vierikko, K. (2016). Governing cities reflexively: The biocultural diversity concept as an alternative to ecosystem services. Environmental Science & Policy, 62, 7–13. Castells, M. (2004). Space of flows, space of places: Materials for a theory of urbanism in the information age. In S. Graham (Ed.), The Cybercities Reader (pp. 82–93). London, England: Routledge. Cheah, P. (2006). Cosmopolitanism. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(2–3): 486–496. Dirlik, A. (1999). Place-based imagination: Globalism and the politics of place. Review, 22(2), 151–187. Escobar, A. (2001). Culture sits in places: Reflections on globalism and subaltern strategies of localization. Political Geography, 20(2), 139–174.

20 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

Never

Page Lambert

e l a S r o f

Listening (or Not) to the Language of the Land

J

ohn and I are driving down an unfurling ribbon of highway en route to the Black Hills of Wyoming and the small town of Sundance, population 1222. I’m doing battle with the State’s Department of Transportation, which has decreed to realign a major state highway through the pristine heart of the ranchland where my children were reared. I was a mere caretaker of my children compared to the land that raised them. My daughter ran up and down deer paths. My son explored high ridges and deep gullies. They gathered sheep off the hayfield before nightfall, howled at coyotes before bedtime, fed calves before daybreak. They saved the money they earned from raising and selling their animals toward college tuition and weanling colts. They helped old cows die and young ones be born. They learned the lay of the land, her meadows and oak forests, her rolling hills and steeply rooted ponderosas. The land taught them to speak an ancient language—to seek southern slopes during winter storms, to protect brittle grasses during seasons of drought. By the time they were teens, my children understood the concept of a shared landscape clear to the marrow of their bones. They understood it

like their great-grandparents, five generations back, when the first grandparents left Maine by wagon to bring their asthmatic son to the healing, high country air of the Rocky Mountains. Today, I can barely catch my breath. An eminent domain fissure has sliced open my heart. The Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) has become my nemesis, my Goliath—and, like David, I’m grasping at stones to slay the giant. In a few hours, John and I will walk the ground on the heels of an archaeologist hired by the Department to look for cultural artifacts as part of the Environmental Assessment required by the National Environmental Policy Act. “Have John go Above: Pristine heart of the ranchland: mountain prairie on the Lambert Ranch, Sundance, Wyoming, before the rerouting of Highway 14. Photo: John Gritts, 2012 Inset: Sarah Lambert sitting in a historic barn at the Lambert Ranch in the early 1990s. Photo: Page Lambert, 1992

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 21

with you,” friends advised. “Even if he never opens his mouth, it will make the archeologist sit up and take notice.” At 6 feet 4 inches tall, John can be imposing. He’s a full-blooded, enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. It would be rare to unearth Cherokee artifacts in the Black Hills of Wyoming, but that doesn’t dissuade me from silently pleading with John’s ancestors from Georgia. Maybe they could lead us to a Sioux burial site. That would stop the archaeologist in his tracks, and possibly the entire project. Not long ago, John and I were having dinner with some Navajo friends. I told them about WYDOT’s plans to reroute the highway through the ranch. “The Doctrine of Eminent Domain is the ace up their sleeve,” I said. “If I don’t agree to sell, all they have to do is condemn my ownership of the land, claiming that it’s in the public’s best interest for the State to own it. I’ve never even considered selling.” Belvin took a sip of his iced tea, arching one eyebrow. “The government wants to take your land?” he asked, smirking not unsympathetically. “Guess now you’re an Indian too.” We laughed, but the truth is that the Black Hills had been promised to the Sioux Indians in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. Less than ten years later, the government seized the Hills along with all its gold.

“The Kiowas, Kiowa-Apaches, Arapahos, Cheyennes, Lakotas, Crows, Shoshones have all been camping, fasting, and holding ceremonies in the Black Hills for generations.” The Kiowas, Kiowa-Apaches, Arapahos, Cheyennes, Lakotas, Crows, Shoshones have all been camping, fasting, and holding ceremonies in the Black Hills for generations. Known as “an island in a sea of plains,” here the grassland oceans of the U.S. Great Plains (North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas) lap up against the rocky shores of the West (Montana, Wyoming, Colorado). The Bear Lodge Mountains, one of three mountain ranges that comprise the Black Hills, shelter the ranchland that still tethers my soul.

22 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

Above: John Gritts out on the ranchland. Photo: Page Lambert, 2009

Stand at sunrise, facing east on the high ridge where the highway department plans to cut gashes as wide as 360 feet across, and you’ll see Sundance Mountain backlit by morning glow. Stand on the same ridge at sunset, pivot slightly to the south, and watch long shadows fall across the flanks of Inyan Kara Mountain, the “mountain within a mountain.” Tribal people have been knapping quartzite at Inyan Kara for at least 10,000 years. Stand on that same ridge in June when the Lakota are holding their Sundance Ceremony at Mato Tipili (the Bear Lodge, renamed Devils Tower when it became our nation’s first national monument in 1906), pluck a sprig of sage, pivot due west, face into the wind, and listen for the echo of drumbeats rising from the distant silhouette of its ancient volcanic core. In 1980, the U.S. Government offered the Sioux Nation a settlement of $102 million for portions of the Black Hills. Set aside in a trust, the funds have grown to well over one billion dollars. The Sioux Nation refuses to accept a penny, believing any payment to be invalid. Why? Because the land was never for sale. I tried that argument on WYDOT. “Do you see a For Sale sign around here anywhere?” I asked. No, of course not. Yet orange surveying flags already pockmark the land. This earth holds the bones of the dogs my family has loved. It holds the bones of the faithful horses that have carried us across tallgrass prairies, through burr oak woods and ponderosa forests. None of this land is for

sale. Beside the fact that ownership of any land can be debated, kinship with this land makes me angry and protective. The siege is on. I do not give up hope. Yet the stones I grasp flake away like slivered mica. Twenty-five miles east of here, when WYDOT surveyed the route for Interstate Highway 90 in the 1970s, they discovered a large limestone sinkhole. WYDOT graded a crude road down into the sinkhole and drilled several holes in the bottom. The drill brought up bone fragments—a lot of them. A large “jump” was discovered—a natural trap into which bison were herded, killed, and butchered in the centuries before the Plains Indians had domesticated horses. The interstate’s route was redirected to protect this historic site. Archaeologists now know that the remains of thousands of bison lay buried at what is now known as the Vore Buffalo Jump. Ceremonial circles of bison skulls and canid skulls from hybrid wolf–dogs have been discovered beneath the layers of red earth.

I’ve hiked this land for nearly thirty years. The fox skulls I’ve found, the red-tailed hawk feathers that have drifted onto my prayer knoll, the ammonites and the tapered, broken crinoid stems of ancient marine creatures that I’ve stumbled across—none of these, I fear, will save this land from the bulldozers. “If you see anything that looks like historic trash,” friends advised, “any chert, obsidian, or quartzite bits of stone on the ground, point them out. The bits of stone are probably lithic debitage, debris from stone toolmaking. Do you know of any historic building foundations out there? Odd depressions in the ground? Ask for a copy of the Bureau of Land Management’s search for historic homesteading.” John and I wait for the Department’s archaeologist to arrive. He is a nice guy. Hiking the mapped realignment takes several hours. When I show him the artifacts I have gathered over the years—scrapers, chipping debris, fossils—he tells me, “Unless I find them in situ, they can’t go into the report.” In situ. In place. Not moved from the original place of deposition. Like John’s Cherokee ancestors, forced to walk the Trail of Tears? Like the Lakota? Like Belvin and Lynda’s Navajo people? If only I could recruit a breeding pair of bald eagles to take up residence in a gangly ponderosa, or entice a few shy orchids like the threatened Ute Ladies’-tresses to bloom in the damp gullies. John and I walk behind the archaeologist, side to side, across the breadth and length of the proposed route. He examines each rock I lift from the ground, shakes his head, and tosses it aside. We find no bones other than the ribcage of a deer, no burial site, no sinkholes filled with bison remains. I point toward the highest ridge. We hike there. I show him two cairns and one stone alignment. “Lithic scatter,” he nods, “but no associated artifacts or charcoal staining.”

Top: Participants in a Wyoming Highway Department Public Comment Meeting on the Rupe Hill Realignment in Sundance, Wyoming. Photo: John Gritts, 2012 Bottom: Artifacts and fossils gathered at the Lambert Ranch (all except the lower jaw fragment). Photo: Page Lambert, 2012

“Any chance they would stop the project?” “No. Might even mean that the highway realignment moves deeper into your land. We’ll have to contact the appropriate tribes.”

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 23

By the time he drives away, I’m utterly discouraged. John understands my need to wander alone, to gaze at the expanse of virgin high grass prairie, to lay—heart to the ground—and weep. Weeks later, the Department releases its environmental assessment report. On the tail of the assessment comes the FONSI—the Finding Of No Significant Impact report. “A bald eagle was observed eating carrion,” wrote the highway department biologists, “but no nests were seen.” The archaeologist writes that the cairn features “are sodded in, suggesting they are of prehistoric age.” The Threatened and Endangered Species section of the FONSI states, “Project not likely to adversely affect threatened or endangered species. No mitigation required.” The Paleontology section of the FONSI mentions in the fine print that there is “potential for impacts to fossil resources. On-site monitoring will be completed during construction.” The last stone within my reach is the hope that bulldozers will pull from the once-unbroken land something deemed worthy of protecting. The report concludes: “The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has determined that the Preferred Alternative—which will realign an approximate one-mile section of US 14—will have no significant impact on the human or natural environment.” The real estate appraiser hired by the Department states that the “highest and best use of the land is for development.”

24 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

I am slayed, speechless. The “highest and best use” of this land is to provide soil for the roots of needle-and-thread grasses, crested wheat, bluestem, golden aster, western flax, and Wyoming sagebrush, to provide a home for whitetail deer, sharp-tailed grouse, kestrels, and red-tails, antelopes, mountain lions, foxes, and coyotes. The best use for the land is to provide sloping hillsides and hidden trails for boys and girls. After three years, the battle has been lost, the ground relinquished. There is no David and Goliath ending. “Thanks for fighting for the land, Mom,” my son and daughter console, “for all you’ve done to try and save it.” I love the viewshed that will be destroyed—the way the eye flows from the clusters of low-growing burr oak to the open expanse of prairie, from the dark green pine-covered mountains to the deep washes of iron red earth. Millions of years of erosion have cut into these hillsides, leaving gullies and carving mini-canyons. The arroyos are as red and smooth as an earthen floor tamped down with animal blood by bare feet that know the contours of a land by heart. Within a few months, more than a dozen boreholes mark the land—twenty, forty, sixty feet deep. Each pulls from the earth stories of her geological past, Below: Not listening to the language of the land: the rerouting of Highway 14 through Page Lambert’s ranchland. Photo: John Gritts, 2016

recorded in science-speak. Project: DR 41319. Potential Realignment. Log of Boring. Sample recovery. Blow count (in value). Vane Sheer. Unconfined. Water Content. Liquid Limit. Plasticity Index, slightly moist, silty clay with sand and minor gravel, medium stiff to stiff color change: dark brown to light brown to beige in the cuttings, silty clay to claystone with silty infillings: Mottled grey, yellow and brown; Iron staining min natural breaks harder with depth. Nothing about this is natural. At the next meeting, I stare at the engineer’s map, stretched across a six-foot conference table. The highway will pass directly over a deep gully where rain gathers to seep into a natural spring that flows downstream to a pond where animals water.

The engineer points to a right-of-way that will cut a gouge into the earth “as large as a football field.” I am mute. We do not even speak the same language. Later, I find solace in knowing that the stories I have written about this land will endure. Within the pages of those books, at least, the memories are safe. Bolstered, I pick up one last stone. I Google, “What is the lifespan of a road?” Pavement: 39 years. Sprayed seal surface: 26 years. Asphalt: 26 years. A mere blink of the eye! I sigh, relieved. It all comes into perspective. The land does not measure a span of time in years, but in eternities. Above: Hope springs eternal: green season of summer renewal on the ranch. Photo: Page Lambert, 2010

Page Lambert is a Senior Associate with the Children & Nature Network, member of the International League of Conservation Writers, and Rocky Mountain Land Library advisor. She has been writing about the landscape and leading nature retreats for twenty years. Her latest essay, “Mother Tongue,” appeared in the journal Sojourns: Landscapes for the People.

Further Reading

Gunderson, M. A. (1988). Devils Tower: Stories in Stone. Glendo, WY: High Plains Press. Greenhouse, L. (January 19, 1982). Sioux lose fight for land in Dakota. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/19/us/sioux-lose-fight-for-land-in-dakota.html?mcubz=1 Lambert, P. (1996). In Search of Kinship: Modern Pioneering on the Western Landscape. Golden, CO: Fulcrum. Lambert, P. (2007). Birth, death, and renewal: Living heart to heart with the land. In L. Pritchett, R. Knight, & J. Lee (Eds.), Home Land: Ranching and a West That Works (pp. 149–159). Boulder, CO: Johnson Books. Lambert, P. (2011). A shape-shifting land. In L. Stegner & R. Rowland (Eds.), West of 98 (pp.  203–207). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 25

The

Nejma Belarbi

Obvious M

irror

How Biocultural Diversity is Reflected in the Natural World “All things in creation are sacred and have a diversity much beyond our understanding.” ―My grandmother, Fakhita Jazouli

“G

et on your hands and knees on the side of the dirt road and look down to find medicinal plants. A square foot will do.” I immediately felt that would be all but impossible. When my herbology mentor Carol McGrath asked us, her apprentices, to do this, I thought: “How could medicinal plants grow in this environment? And in a square foot no less!” But we did what were told, and on we knelt. Initially I only saw dirt and some blades of grass—some greenery I couldn’t identify. Then there was a moment when, unknowingly, the run-on commentary in my mind stopped, most likely to just catch its breath, and I saw a violet. Impulsively, in my surprise, I thought: “Hello!” I had been kneeling for a good ten minutes before violet made herself known. And then following her came plantain, couch grass, and a tiny dandelion. All of these plant people I hadn’t noticed! This was very puzzling to me. I had been taught their shapes and their properties, had handled them, had seen them growing in the meadow—and yet I had failed to recognize them, even though I had been staring at them for ten minutes. Perhaps the reason I didn’t see them is that they were very small and dusty. It was hard to identify the shapes of their leaves. Some of them had been run over by cars and trampled by my shoes and those of

26 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

others at some point or another. But later I thought that perhaps I couldn’t see them because my eyes were figuratively closed, as I had a preconceived idea as to how medicinal plants grew and where: in a meadow, of course, or in the forest—anywhere but on this driveway on which I walked weekly! What lived in my mind was entirely segregated from an experience of connection or relatability. Teachings from my elders came back to me, however, anchoring all the sayings I had heard throughout my childhood regarding our connection to all living things through the light that animates us. An echo of experiencing this connection resounded back to me from childhood.

Top: Reflection of the natural world. A glass ball in a child’s hand. Photo: Uschi, 2016. Available on Pixabay; reproduced with artist’s permission. Above: The medicinal community: Purple dead-nettle, Cleavers, Ivy, and other plant people on a side street, Vancouver Island. Photo: Nejma Belarbi, 2006

In a way, the taught paradigm separated me from nature. I had lived in cities my whole life, followed conventional educational models that were entrenched in Western history, and was taught to think of nature as a resource that dwelled somewhere else. Although I longed from a very young age to be immersed in the natural world and flee the industrialized human world, there seemed to be no possibility to do so aside from learning about it in the way I was taught. Nature and even medicinal plants were something I read about, saw pictures of, and related to as something “other.” Even in my handling of them, I perceived them in my mind rather than within my experience. I realized at that moment just how “illiterate,” like many others, I was—the missing element being earth’s language, which in my mind is present in all of the world’s tongues. I speak three languages and have heard earth’s language whisper through all of them. That language is part of the foundational concepts and experience corresponding to nature and our interconnection with it. Below: The city of termites. Walbran Valley, Vancouver Island. Photo: Nejma Belarbi, 2007

The short window when my faculties retreated to the background allowed a pull of my intuition to deeply recognize these plants as people, as intelligent beings. It was as though a mirror was held up, whereby “seeing” these plant people triggered a reflection of the web of interconnections between all existing beings and myself and an understanding of just how much wealth that connection holds. The urban industrial paradigm, which I had so resisted and yet is so prominent in the world, came apart, and I felt the rebirth of communication through intuition rather than cognition. “The hearing that is only in the ears is one thing. The hearing of the understanding is another. But the hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty, to the ear or to the mind. Hence, it demands the emptiness of all the faculties. And when the faculties are empty, then the whole being listens. There is then a grasp of what is right there before you that can never be heard with the ear or understood with the mind.” ―Zhuang Zhou

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 27

Often, when I looked outside, there was a disconnection. I saw a sea of green, the word TREE written on all the standing giants, SHRUB on all the shorter plants, but mostly the color green and some texture. Even though I memorized the botanical names and common names of species, their medicinal properties and habits, for me the concepts were purely intellectualized and sterile. Regardless of the language, it was the learning process that was integrally embedded in concepts of separation rather than experiential relation.

“Teachings from my elders came back to me, anchoring all the sayings I had heard throughout my childhood regarding our connection to all living things through the light that animates us.” Diversity is present in everything we see, and there are innumerable species that share this planet with us, each of them supporting the continuity of life just by their mere existence. Krill and whales have a relationship that decreases atmospheric carbon. Earthworms are imperative to the growth of plants. Plants have medicine in them that balances soils, animals, and people; they are a fundamental part of the food web that supports everything. This symbiotic relationship is readily apparent—yet, although the current leading paradigm may recognize it intellectually, the experiential and most important facet of it is often disregarded. Still, this diversity is intrinsic to our existence and is often a mirror to our very selves. A mirror because, if the world is so diverse in its makeup, where no single species stands alone without symbiotic relationships with other species, perhaps our own cultural and linguistic diversity can be seen as a reflection of that very same process. Through culturally diverse perspectives that foster our interconnection with all other species, we mimic the symbiotic relationship that allows us to live

28 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

in balance. As each language and culture holds knowledge of the place in which it dwells, it is a reflection of a given ecological niche permeated with specific instinctive knowledge that allows its denizens to survive symbiotically. If we are born on this earth, we are part of it—that much is undeniable, and it is clear that flipping our perspective from “separated from” to “part of” offers a wealth that is incomparable to the value of what we as a species understand “wealth” to be in our current economic worldview. If there is a general malaise as rampant profit-based perspectives throw their weight around, it is because there is not enough “wealth” to saturate the void created by our separation. We could go on desecrating the earth and consuming products made with little integrity, and yet it would never be enough to fill the emptiness caused by the severance of the connection to our environment. Information on our interconnection with land and other species is often found in the tools that traditional knowledge gives us—tools that we have accumulated for centuries to denote this connection and foster it. The sad thing is that the present dominant system of values has us filling this void with constant distractions and systems that create and perpetuate cultural and biological degradation and engender a cognitive dissonance that tears us away from the potential to be fully human.

Above: Hawthorn: heart medicine showing its brightness. Vancouver Island. Photo: Nejma Belarbi, 2017

Above: The Chellah, a medieval fortified necropolis in Rabat, Morocco. Phoenician, Carthaginian, Roman, and Muslim conquerors have come and gone. Nature endures, slowly chipping away at our attempts to separate and control our environment. Photo: Nejma Belarbi, 2015

It was the very experience of finally “seeing” the plant people—the living, breathing, intelligent individuals I had up until then unknowingly disregarded as such—that helped me realize just how the current deep-seated paradigm had influenced this separation. The feeling of connection and recognition was familiar, however; perhaps an essence of it remained from my childhood. Once I felt my kinship with plants, I felt it with all the other beings that surrounded me, a web much greater than myself. The diversity that existed in that small square of dirt grew into not just the medicinal plants, but the ants that used the path, the microbes in the soil, and the insects in and above the soil—all symbiotically related to one another, affecting one another, and together supporting the continuity of life. If life can have such interspecies diversity that mutually supports the general survival of all, surely we could entertain the idea that we have intraspecies diversity for the same reason!

The resilience of these trampled diverse little beings was amazing to me: Why even try to survive when you would be stepped on or driven over at any time? Well, the answer was loud and clear: because life is inherently resilient. Biological diversity is proven to sustain the health of ecosystems, as each species has a role in keeping the balance of the whole. The diversity of languages and cultures follows a similar pattern, as each of them is responsible for a piece of the global mosaic that teaches us how we truly are part of a greater whole. The separatist paradigm and the homogenizing tendency that have taken over the globe through colonialism, industry, and warfare have led us to believe that this is the only valid perspective. Other perspectives and voices—Indigenous, spiritual, traditional—are still being silenced and invalidated. Our diversity as a species, however, continues to find ways to survive and seeps into our collective conscious.

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 29

system that was used to strip people of their family, language, knowledge, and connection to land and place. In that quest for safety, our cultures have survived and continue to do so. Traditional knowledge is still disseminated to future generations no matter how hard the separatist paradigm tries to eradicate it. The obvious mirror held up by creation and nature quietly persists, gently opening the eyes of our intuition little by little. Although it may seem unthinkable for some of us that a paradigm and worldview shift is possible, there are many examples that point to the contrary. There is space for voices to be heard and for language like “biocultural diversity” Above: Fusion: I am the landscape; the landscape is me. High Atlas, Morocco. to be created and disseminated. Photo: Nejma Belarbi, 2011 Sovereignty claimed by Indigenous Peoples and policies affirming the Historically, there are many cases in which Rights of Mother Nature and cultural and spiritual knowledge keepers fled to mountains and other relations with sacred natural sites are leading us remote places to avoid both persecution and all away from a separatist perspective that has now assimilation by colonizers or conquering cultures. run its course. In each generation there is a growing In my ancestral story, the Chluh people in North tendency to claim heritage and connection. The Africa barricaded in the mountains for centuries. creative force that unleashes our need for diversity In the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, British and its ability to connect us and heal us from this Columbia, I heard stories from Elder Deb Modeste painful separation can be seen through the rising about how many Indigenous parents fled with their possibilities that prompt us to open our eyes to children to the mountains, and even across the U.S. nature’s obvious mirror. border, to protect them from the residential school Nejma Belarbi, MSc, MH, is a North African–Canadian ethnobotanist and herbalist committed to researching and promoting humanity’s connections to the environment in all of its diversity. She is an advocate for initiatives that address traditional ecological knowledge protection and promote underrepresented voices and perspectives. Her work explores how traditional perceptions in medicine foster connections to the environment.

Further Reading Buhner, S. H. (2002). The Lost Language of Plants: The Ecological Importance of Plant Medicines to Life on Earth. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green. Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green. King, R. (2010). People on the Move: An Atlas of Migration. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ruru, J. (2014). Tūhoe-Crown settlement – Te Urewera Act 2014. Maori Law Review. Retrieved from http://maorilawreview.co.nz/2014/10/tuhoe-crown-settlement-te-urewera-act-2014/

30 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

Text, photos, and drawings by Mariia Ermilova

a n i b i Tsurush A Traditional Japanese Craft

Helps Maintain & Restore Biocultural Knowledge & People’s Connection with Nature

“Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty if only we have the eyes to see them.” –John Ruskin

I

want to tell you the story of a Japanese craft that impressed me for its deep connection with the culture and customs of the people. As a regional planning researcher, my attention was first drawn to this craft because of its ability to forge local identity and contribute to the resilience of local communities. Then I started practicing the craft myself—and, as I gradually learned the symbolic meaning of its elements, I began to feel that the practice might help regain a lost connection with nature by revitalizing traditional environmental knowledge. The craft seems to have a “biocultural code” inscribed in it, which people can learn or relearn to read. The roots of Japanese people’s relationship with nature are found in Japan’s two main religions: Shintoism, which is close to shamanism, and Buddhism, with its reverence for all living creatures. Japan’s frequent exposure to terrible natural Above: Sketch of a Japanese Shinto shrine. 2015

disasters also contributed to the development of a peculiar mix of spiritual reverence for nature and superstitious fear of it. During the Heian period (794–1185), however, urbanization and the consequent alienation from rural nature gave rise to a “romanticized” and “poetic” view of and affinity for nature among the aristocracy, which later spread to commoners. One of the ways in which the commoners’ view of nature found expression is the tsurushibina craft. Tsurushibina translates as “hanging doll decoration.” The craft arose around the celebration of the important spring festival known as Hinamatsuri (Girls’ Day), which is held to pray for the health and happiness of girls. During the festival, the nobility would exhibit expensive dolls that portrayed sitting figures of the Emperor, Empress, courtiers, and musicians. As a more affordable way for commoners to celebrate, mothers and grandmothers started using scraps of kimono silk to make small hanging figures of plants, animals, and household items that had a symbolic protective value for girls. In so doing, women also transmitted traditional knowledge from one generation to the next.

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 31

Above: The Hinamatsuri Festival in Higashiizu, which attracts 900,000 visitors every year. Hanging doll decorations are displayed on the stairs of the Shinto shrine along with the sitting dolls. 2017 Below: A local shop at Izu-Inatori in Higashiizu sells ready-made tsurushibina ornaments and do-it-yourself materials for the craft, and provides tourists with a list of the symbolic protective meanings of the most popular ornaments. 2017 Bottom Left: Silk fabric scraps in a handicraft shop. 2017 Bottom Right: Learning the craft by myself by using a manual and materials from a handicraft shop. 2017

From the Edo period (1603– 1868) on, the tsurushibina craft became a widespread tradition in popular culture, but it went into decline with the advent of the industrialization era, just like everything else considered to be “old-style.” It took a long period of economic crisis in Japan, starting in the early 1990s, along with a growing concern for environmental issues, to revive the craft. People started remembering the old Japanese concept of avoiding a wasteful use of resources, which was expressed in the word mottainai (translating more or less as “don’t waste”). Making tsurushibina figures from silk scraps was in line with those environmental concerns, and the craft began to flourish as a popular activity once again. Today, a high level of economic development in Japan encourages people to save less and spend more, but the tsurushibina tradition continues. As kimono silk, like all vintage materials, has gone up in price, handicraft shops offer synthetic analogues of silk and instruction manuals for making tsurushibina ornaments. Paradoxically, the traditional tsurushibina craft has now become an expensive hobby for those who can afford the time and money to learn the craft from a master. Yet, the craft continues to transmit Japanese folk knowledge and wisdom about human-nature interactions to future generations. My research brought me to Higashiizu town— one of the three places in Japan where the hanging

32 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

Top Left & Right: Tsurushibina craft ornaments in Higashiizu town, showcasing medicinal and edible plants as well as the local marine biodiversity. 2017 Bottom Left, Middle & Right: Drawing of a peach flower and a peach fruit ornament. Drawing of a red pepper ornament. 2017

doll ornament craft originated and developed in a unique way. There I observed the Girls’ Day Festival and interviewed local craftspeople about the meaning of the craft. My observations led me to conclude that most of the fruits and vegetables featured as motifs in the hanging decorations are commonly used in daily life and that plenty of them have medicinal properties.

“Urbanization and the consequent alienation from rural nature gave rise to a ‘romanticized’ and ‘poetic’ view of and affinity for nature.” The main plant associated with the Girls’ Day celebration is the peach tree. Flowers, seeds, fruits, and leaves of the peach tree are widely used in Chinese medicine (many elements of which were adopted into the Japanese herbal medicine system known as Kampo) for the purification of the female body and the treatment of various diseases. The most valued healing property of the peach seed is its effect of promoting good blood circulation. In particular, it can be applied to treat scarce menstrual flow or even absence of menstruation in women. Another good example is the red pepper. It keeps insects off, so it is supposed to drive undesirable lovers away from young women. Among plants with

a medicinal use, typical ornament motifs are also camellia, plum, and chrysanthemum. The list of motifs also features edible plants such as bamboo shoot, turnip, radish, carrot, lotus root, pumpkin, mandarin orange, peach, plum, strawberry, and persimmon. Many different animals are also represented in tsurushibina motifs: clam, shrimp, red sea bream, flounder, kinmedai (or splendid alfonsino) fish, boar, horse, mouse, rabbit, monkey, dog, pigeon, chicken, nightingale, crane, swallow, white-eye, sparrow, owl, cicada, butterfly, frog, turtle, and others. This huge variety of motifs is associated with distinctive symbolic meanings, which may be conveyed by physical characteristics such as color or shape, or even by intangible connotations such as wordplay. Let me give you some examples.

Color Tsurushibina decorations are dominated by the color red, which is believed to repel evil spirits. Some of the ornamental elements are associated with proverbs about the color of fall fruits, which are supposed to bring health. One such proverb goes: “When persimmons turn red, doctors turn blue.” The season in which these fruits are eaten results in fewer patients, so that doctors worry about losing their jobs and get pale faces. This Japanese proverb has similarities with the English one: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 33

Top Left: Craftswoman Saito-san from Higashiizu shows a Girls’ Day Festival altar in her house. The red color dominates. 2017 Top Inset: The red fish is a kinmedai, or splendid alfonsino, considered an auspicious sign and used in celebrations. Also visible is a red persimmon. 2017 Below: Bifurcated daikon radish. 2017

Shape A bifurcated radish (futamata daikon) has a shape reminiscent of the the legs in a human body. Usually farmers do not eat such radishes when they find them in their fields, but instead bring them to a roadside shrine, praying for healthy legs. In addition, the resemblance of a bifurcated radish to a woman’s body makes it a symbol of fertility. This kind of radish is called a “bride of Daikoku,” Daikoku being one of the seven lucky gods. Radish has a detoxifying property and is widely known for its beneficial effect on the human body. An old proverb says: “Eating pungent radish and drinking hot tea will leave starved doctors begging on their knees.” Clam shells are symbols of fidelity, as two valves make a unique match. Some of the animals—for example, owl and sparrow—have a round shape, a concept expressed by the word fuku, which sounds the same as the word for “good fortune” (also pronounced fuku).

34 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

Wordplay Okada san, a local craftswoman of Higashiizu, told me that plenty of symbolic meanings come from Japanese tales, proverbs, and forms of wordplay such as homophones, as in the case of fuku above.

Japan is a country in which contemporary culture and technology coexist with ancient rituals and superstitious religiosity. The practice of the tsurushibina craft expresses the creative power of nature and helps revive people’s connection with nature and with the places they live in. By both drawing inspiration from nature and drawing attention to nature, it has served and can continue to serve the purposes of environmental education, if only people are willing to read the “biocultural code” in it once again.

Commonly known as nandina, heavenly bamboo, or sacred bamboo, in Japan as well as in China the nanten plant symbolizes a sacred celebration. The sound of the plant’s name is homophonic with nan wo tenzuru, or “hardship reversal.” Additionally, the dried berries are used as a remedy for cough in traditional Chinese medicine, whereas tonics derived from the roots are used for eye conditions, flu, muscle pain, rheumatism, fever, and gastrointestinal illness. From my interviews with practitioners of the tsurushibina craft, I drew the impression that they do not consciously attach special importance to how knowledge about nature can be learned from this craft. They do reach into it unconsciously, however, learning the protective symbolism of the figures while creating beautiful natural patterns.

Top Left & Right: Drawings of the red berries of a nanten plant, a common tsurushibina ornament, and of an ornament representing the berries. 2017 Above: Learning the craft in a local studio in Higashiizu town. 2017

Mariia Ermilova is pursuing a PhD degree in Landscape Planning at Chiba University’s Graduate School of Horticulture, Japan. Part of her research focuses on the links between arts and crafts and citizens’ knowledge and perception of their natural environs. As an artist, she sketches urban scenes and traditional Japanese crafts.

Further Reading Kinunokai Tsurushi Bina Production Association. (2017). Welcome to Silk Association [Japanese]. Retrieved from http://www.kinunokai.com/ Land of the Huled Chicks. (2017). In Tsurushi Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.tsurushi.jp/origin/index.html Mihara, N. (2009). Consideration about the Tsurushikazari Ornament: The Revival and Future of Hina Tsurushikazari Ornament [Japanese]. Tokyo Kasei University Museum Bulletin, 14, 133–149. Murguia, S. (2011). Hinamatsuri and the Japanese female: A critical interpretation of the Japanese Doll Festival. Journal of Asia Pacific Studies, 2(2), 231–247. Shirane, H. (2013). Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons Nature, Literature, and the Arts. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 35

Monocultures

of the Fields, Monocultures of the Mind The Acculturation of Indigenous

Farming Communities of Odisha, India

Kanna K. Siripurapu, Sabnam Afrein, and Prasant Mohanty

T

he connection between agriculture and major festivals of India, traditionally and predominantly an agrarian society, is unmistakable. The Indigenous agro-biodiversity and cultural diversity of the Indian subcontinent likely coevolved over thousands of years in synchrony and harmony with each other. The winds are fast changing, however, and there is a shift in traditional culture and practices across the subcontinent, perhaps from the influence of globalization and aggressive industrialization of the agriculture sector. Fortunately, a few pockets of the subcontinent, inhabited predominantly by Indigenous communities, still retain remnants of the otherwise fast-eroding Indigenous agrobiocultural diversity. This is the story of the agro-biocultural diversity of the Kandha community, one of the main Indigenous communities of the eastern Indian state of Odisha, India. The Kandha population is unevenly dispersed across the state, with main concentration in the central and southwestern regions of the state. The word Kandha means “hillock,” a name given to these people by mainstream society. The members of this community, however, prefer to identify themselves

36 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

after the language they speak, known as Kui loku, Kui enju, or Kuinga, which belongs to the Dravidian linguistic group. The agrarian Kandha community worships nature, and their main festivals are celebrated around agriculture and agro-biodiversity. The four main Kandha festivals all have a strong connection and are directly linked with the crop-growing season and agricultural practices and with agrobiodiversity. The agriculture season opens with the observation of the festival known as Podho Jatara (or Meriah Jatara), followed in order by Bihan Puja (or occasionally Burlang Jatara), Tako Jatara, and Anaka Jatara. By and large, the Indigenous agricultural system maintains the vestiges of the ancient shifting cultivation culture and practices and still follows a similar cycle. At the beginning of the cycle, people hold Podho Jatara. Podho Jatara is a communal event, which is celebrated once in three to seven years by a group of six to seven neighboring villages that work together to clear a patch of forest for cultivation. The three- to seven-year cycle of the festival coincides with the local shifting cultivation cycle. That cycle, however, varies for different groups of villages, and Above: A Kandha woman with the distinct facial tattoos of her sub-group (Kutia Kandha). Photo: Sue Price, 2017

so does the celebration of Podho Jatara. As the villages usually are a large network of extended families who are invited to participate in the celebrations, that circumstance makes this festival an annual event for most of the villages. Depending on the local seasonal pattern, Podho Jatara takes place in March or April, in anticipation of the upcoming kharif season (agricultural season, during the monsoon period). Preparations for the celebration, however, happen much in advance. The chieftains and priests of different villages come together during the months of January and February to talk about which fertile forest patches in the hills to choose for cultivation. The hills are locally called gudia, hence the word gudia chaso (hill cultivation). After the decision is made on the hill to be chosen and the patch of forest to be cleared for shifting cultivation, the village leaders will send a message to all the partner villages. Either the village chieftain or the priest takes the lead and decides which rituals should be performed during the clearing of forest vegetation and the following Podho Jatara celebration. The village priest performs a brief ritual at the forest patch selected for cultivation. A tiny earthen mound, called a terupapkoni, is erected, and chicken are sacrificed to satiate Mother Earth, locally known as Dharani Penu.

livestock, or grains towards celebration of the festival. The festival includes Indigenous rituals and animal sacrifice, usually the buffalo (podho meaning “buffalo” in the local Kui language), to satiate Dharani Penu. The celebration normally lasts three to four days, and a buffalo will be prepared for sacrifice. On the first day, it will be taken on a procession around all the participating villages. After the procession, the buffalo will be brought to the host village, put on a leash, and tied to the totem pole (Dharani Manda) carved out of a huge log and usually standing right in the middle of every Kandha village. On the second day, residents of all the participating villages congregate at the host village. Guests are invited into the village, and a feast filled with traditional music, songs, and dance follows. Guests are offered the local beer (called katul), which is brewed from little millet (Panicum sumatrense). Both women and men relish katul, as it is believed to be an amazing body coolant for this time of the year, which is the hottest season, heralding the onset of summer. The festival also provides a crucial opportunity for socializing and for strengthening and reinforcing social bonds and social networks.

The residents of all the participating villages share both the costs of the festival and the labor needed to clear the forested land. People donate money,

Above: Symbol of Dharani Penu (Mother Earth). Photo: Aditya Singhdeo, 2015 Right: Dharani Munda, the totem pole of Mother Earth. Photo: Aditya Singhdeo, 2015

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 37

of the buffalo are carried up the hill to the forest patch that has been selected for cultivation and are offered to Mother Earth. After satiating Mother Earth, the forest patch is cleared communally, and the land is prepared for cultivation before the advent of the monsoon season.

Above: Little millet beer served during a communal feast. Photo: Aditya Singhdeo, 2014

During Podho Jatara, men play the traditional musical instruments, and both men and women sing duets, which are as follows: Men: “Oh! My dear brothers and sisters and everyone, please come together; let’s go, let’s go and prepare the land, together.” Women: “Yes! Let’s go, let’s go… let’s prepare!” Men: “Oh! My dear brothers and sisters and everyone, please come together, let’s give Mother Earth the presents of food, grains, chicken, beer, and wine.” Women: “Yes! Let’s give, let’s give to Mother Earth!” Men: “Oh! Mother Earth, we are neither rich nor affluent; we are poor and can’t offer you expensive gifts every year. So, we offer you the gift of a buffalo, food, and wine once in three to seven years; please accept our gift, and protect our seeds and crops and bless us with the bounty of harvest.” Women: “Oh! Mother earth!!” After two days of feast filled with traditional food, drink, music, and dance, the buffalo is sacrificed, and its blood is offered to Mother Earth and to water bodies located in and around the village. Residents of all the participating villages receive small amounts of buffalo blood, which they will carry back and offer to Mother Earth and water bodies in their respective villages. Both the carcass and the blood

38 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

Following Podho Jatara is another communal festival, Bihan Puja (seed festival), celebrated in May or June, just before the inception of the sowing season. During the annual Bihan Puja, heirloom seeds are collected from every household of the village and deposited in one place, usually near the totem pole of Dharani Penu. The heirloom seeds thus collected are piled in a heap and mixed together. The heap is divided into equal parts, proportionate to the number of households present in the village. Every household receives its share of heirloom seeds, which the family will use for cultivation. There are many remarkable aspects of this extraordinary festival: among others, it secures heirloom seed availability for every household of the village, it helps in conservation of the Indigenous agro-biodiversity, and it reinforces social bonding. The equal-sharing mechanism

“The agrarian Kandha community worships nature, and their main festivals are celebrated around agriculture and agro-biodiversity.” ensures that every household receives the same amount of heirloom seeds regardless of the amount a person contributes, and nobody is deprived of seeds, thereby ensuring food security for the entire village. In some instances, when a person develops an improved seed variety, that variety too will be distributed among the entire village through the equal-sharing arrangement, thus improving and conserving the Indigenous agro-biodiversity. The entire village is served a feast with traditional food (usually of millets and both cultivated and wild yam and leafy veggies), country beer of little millet, and country wine prepared from the flowers of the mahua tree (Mahua longifolia). Burlang Jatara is a similar festival, but celebrated only occasionally at a much larger scale by a group of villages. Burlang Jatara (burlang meaning

“punnet,” or small basket for fruit and vegetables, in the local language) is celebrated only during a large-scale seed deficit or an unexpected natural calamity due to which heirloom seeds are lost in the entire region. Several villages come together as a group to celebrate this festival, during which they will display and exchange heirloom seeds. The festival usually lasts for over a week. The host village will be selected by the chieftains, and a message will be sent to all the neighboring villages. Both men and women arrive at the host village in a procession, usually men playing the Indigenous musical instruments and women carrying different varieties of Indigenous heirloom seeds encased in small, decorated earthen pots or punnets. The host villagers invite their guests with merriment. Country beer brewed from little millet is served, and a weeklong feast filled with traditional food, music, songs, and dance follows. Women arriving from different villages carry different heirloom seeds and place them together at a single spot, usually an elevated stage specially built for that purpose. The containers with seeds

Top: Kandha women performing a traditional dance during the Burlang Jatara celebrations. Photo: Aditya Singhdeo, 2013 Inset: Villagers guarding the cache of seeds deposited during Burlang Jatara. Photo: Aditya Singhdeo, 2014

are worshipped for the entire week. While the community is engaged in socializing, the chieftains stand guard over the cache of seeds, to protect them from potential damage or theft. At the culmination of the festival, heirloom seeds are exchanged and distributed among the participants; amid dance and music, guests leave for their respective villages with seeds to start the cropping season.

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 39

The next main Indigenous festival is Tako Jatara (tako meaning “mango seed” locally), which is celebrated in September or October. This festival marks the harvest of Indigenous maize, millet, and certain strains of Indigenous rice, also known locally as the “early harvest.” The panicles of Indigenous barnyard millet (Echinochloa frumentacea), little millet, and maize are collected. The festival involves the performance of traditional rituals including prayers, sacrifice of chicken, and offerings of millet, rice, yam, and katul beer to Dharani Penu. The festival concludes amid music and feasting for the entire village.

“The festival… provides a crucial opportunity for socializing and for strengthening and reinforcing social bonds and social networks.” The last main Indigenous festival is Anaka Jatara (anaka meaning “squash” or “bottle gourd” locally), which is celebrated in January or February. The festival marks the “late harvest” of crops of different varieties of pulses and lentils. At this time, the siali shrub (Bauhinia vahlii) also comes to fruiting. Considered a local delicacy, siali pods are roasted and the seeds consumed. Like the other Indigenous festivals, Anaka Jatara is celebrated communally and centers around agriculture. Pods of different pulses and lentils are offered to Dharani Penu wrapped in siali leaves, and katul is served to the entire village in a container made from dried anaka. Music and a communal feast conclude the festival. Despite its immeasurable socio-cultural, economic, and ecological benefits, the biocultural diversity of the Kandha community is under serious threat from the invasion of industrial agriculture and religious conversions. Many villages have abandoned the Indigenous crops and festivals. People recount that Indigenous rice varieties such as jadumanisaru, nagelsuan, tinguna, sires (aromatic rice), kuiska (aromatic rice with large panicles), and so forth, which were cultivated some thirty years ago, have become extinct locally, replaced by the highyielding varieties of nabin, sarathi, lalat, and jajati rice strains promoted by the government under the state-supported Large-size Adivasi Multi-Purpose Co-operative Societies. Many Kandha villages gave up cultivation of the Indigenous coarse grains

40 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

(millets) and pulses that had been grown under the Indigenous millet-based mixed farming systems. Instead, they adopted monocultures of rice, hybrid maize, and cotton. The Kandha communities have also started to shy away from celebrating Indigenous festivals and from consuming the traditional katul beer. The shift in the Indigenous culture is due partly to the notion that such practices have become redundant after the government started supplying high-yielding varieties of grains, and partly to the feeling that their Indigenous crops and cultural practices are inferior or against the precepts of the newly adopted religion. The prevalence of an inferiority complex among the Kandha community in relation to their biocultural diversity is a consequence of the doctrine imposed on them by the government’s Agriculture Department officials, according to which Indigenous agro-biodiversity and agricultural practices produce inferior yields, and also promoted by pastors, who preach that Indigenous biocultural practices are contrary to the teachings of the Holy Bible. The contributions of Indigenous farmers to conservation of agro-biodiversity are unparalleled, yet they are downplayed and ignored by so-called scholars and professionals. For instance, the International Rice Research Institute has produced only two strains of rice after fifty years of continuous research. On the other hand, research has shown that Indigenous farmers of India have produced nearly 400,000 strains of rice, suitable to different local agro-climatic conditions, cultures, and cuisines.

Above: Offerings to Dharani Penu (Mother Earth): little millet beer in earthen jars, millet and rice on siali leaves. Photo: Aditya Singhdeo, 2014

Yet, despite their incomparable success and the crucial role they have played as conservationists, plant breeders, and sentinels of agro-biodiversity, Indigenous farmers are still considered as ignorant and as passive recipients of aid by modern-day agricultural extension officers and professionals. Much of this is the result of the top-down formal agricultural education and research system of India, which considers farmers as recipients rather than as equal partners in conservation and improvement of the indigenous agro-biodiversity. The increased industrialization and top-down approach of the agriculture sector in India has led to not only to the alienation of farmers and the curtailment of their rights, but also to a significant reduction in the indigenous agro-biodiversity and to increased dependency on just a few plant varieties to meet food and fiber needs—a trend scholars term “genetic erosion.” This genetic erosion, caused by the erosion of biocultural diversity as a result of aggressive industrialization of the agriculture sector and promotion of pervasive monocultures, has farreaching consequences. A study conducted by Azim Premji University, India, suggests that a changing food culture could be the cause of an increase in malnutrition among the tribes and rural communities of India. The study found that half a decade ago the diet of rural communities in India included “pearl millet, barley, twenty types of green leaves, bamboo shoots, tubers, beaten rice,

different types of corn, black sesame, wild berries, a lot more variety of wild meat and many more, but today rice has become the staple food of tribes and rural communities and meat of poultry chicken has replaced wild meats.”

“Heirloom seeds… are piled in a heap and mixed together. ... Every household receives its [equal] share of… seeds, which the family will use for cultivation.” It is a complex situation with many actors and factors actively at play, and we need to learn more about the value of Kandha agro-biocultural diversity and the impending threats it is facing. But it may be safe to say that action is urgently needed to protect this rich and diverse biocultural system, which has served the Kandha community so well for generations, from the homogenizing forces of acculturation. Acknowledgements: We warmly thank the residents of Betabadi, Tidipadhar, Ghumuragaon, and Baliapani villages of Tumudibandha block, Kandhamal district, Odisha, India, for offering their precious time and hospitality, sharing valuable information, and providing insights into their incredible culture and knowledge, without which it would have been impossible for us to write this article.

Kanna K. Siripurapu, Sabnam Afrein, and Prasant Mohanty are affiliated with NIRMAN (http://www.nirmanodisha. org/), a nonprofit that works to promote the sustainable development of marginalized agrarian, tribal/Indigenous, and forestdwelling communities in India, particularly their food and livelihood security. At NIRMAN, Kanna is Program Manager, Sabnam is a Program Associate, and Prasant is a founding member and the current Secretary cum Executive Director.

Further Reading Anand, C. (2016). Changing food culture could be cause of malnutrition: Research. The Hindu. Retrieved from http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/Changing-food-culture-could-be-cause-of-malnutrition-Research/ article14505988.ece Kumar N. A., Nambi, V. A., Rani, M. G., King, E. D. I. O., Chaudhury, S. S., & Mishra, S. (2015). Community agro biodiversity conservation continuum: An integrated approach to achieve food and nutrition security. Current Science, 109(3), 474. Nautiyal, S., Bisht, V., Rao, K. S., & Maikhuri, R. K. (2008). The role of cultural values in agrobiodiversity conservation: A case study from Uttarakhand, Himalaya. Journal of Human Ecology, 23(1), 1–6. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Research and Training Institute. (2013). Kandha. Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India: Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Research and Training Institute. Singh, A. (2017). Revisiting the status of cultivated plant species agrobiodiversity in India: An Overview. Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy, 83(1), 151–174. doi:10.16943/ptinsa/2016/v82/48406

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 41

Text by Zubair Torwali Photos by Aftab Ahmad

’ s r a d a Bah nac Alma Oral Tradition in Northern Pakistan

Makes People Resilient and Prepared for Natural Disasters

W

hen I still used to lend a hand in the fields to my father, now 78, he would refer to a certain guy, Bahadar |bahadər|, for his oral traditions about the right weather for sowing and harvesting. At that time, I was in college and was familiar with the Gregorian calendar, which was commonly known as Angrezi (English calendar) in our community. My father always ignored the Gregorian calendar and preferred Bahadar’s oral almanac to it. Now I no longer help out with farming and work at my office instead, where we always use the Gregorian calendar. This system is now the official calendar of Pakistan and is popular in offices, as it marks working days and public holidays. But even today, my father does not follow the popular Pakistani almanac called Jantry in Urdu. He says that Bahadar’s almanac is ahead of the Jantry

42 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

and is more authentic. Like him, a majority of other Torwali farmers in the Swat District of northern Pakistan continue to consult Bahadar’s system for cultivation and harvesting. Besides, there are a number of oft-told legendary stories about the authenticity of Bahadar’s almanac. One such story goes as follows: “The father of Syed Jamal, a man named Sher, was once ploughing his field. It was a mid-summer day, and Sher was sowing his maize crop in Gurnal |ɡurna:l| village. In the afternoon, Bahadar went to him and advised him not to sow more maize in the field because, according to Bahadar’s calculations, the time for sowing had ended that very afternoon. Sher did not accept his claim and kept up sowing the field. Bahadar told him to divide the field into two portions with some fencing, according to the time of sowing before and after noon on that day. He added that Sher would see that the maize crop sown in the afternoon that day would not ripen, whereas the other portion of the field would have a ripe crop. At the time of harvest in early fall, people really saw that the maize crop sown before noon that day in summer was ripe while the other portion sown after noon was not.” Above: The beautiful village of Gurnal nestled on the side of a hill in the Swat District of northern Pakistan. 2017

Bahadar died about a hundred years ago. He lived all his life in Gurnal, a beautiful village on the hills about eight kilometers to the east of Bahrain town in Swat, in the heartland of the Torwali people. Bahadar belonged to one of the four Torwali clans, Bahadar Khel. He had no education at all. He could not read or write, but people say it was as if he had some magical knowledge about the changes in weather and seasons. People saw him like a saint.

“Bahadar knew there was a day in the summer when stones would get softer. Once he was able to thrust a pickaxe into a boulder at that particular time, as the boulder was soft enough to be penetrated by a pickaxe. Later, the stone hardened again, and the pickaxe remained stuck in there. Bahadar told the people that he would be able to extract the pickaxe at that particular time on that particular day the following summer. He waited until that day and pulled the pickaxe out of the boulder when it became softened again.”

Bahadar had several followers from his family and clan. In addition to devising the almanac, he and his fellows designed a strategy for the distribution of irrigation water to the village’s fields. This system is still in use today and seems to work very well for the village.

“[Bahadar] could not read or write, but people say it was as if he had some magical knowledge about the changes in weather and seasons. People saw him like a saint.”

For a long time, I was curious to learn about Bahadar’s almanac. Finally, in September 2017, at the time of Sul |sʊl| (or Suel |sʊel|) according to the almanac, I traveled to Gurnal to meet the elders and find out from them about Bahadar and his amazing Indigenous knowledge. In Gurnal I met with a number of elders. Among them, I interviewed Wakmadar, 75; Muhammad Siraj, 85; Muhammad Rasool Khan, 70; and Muhammad Sharif, 64. All four confirmed the stories I had heard. They also added more stories about Bahadar’s genius. All these stories tell of his keen observations and deep knowledge of the weather and seasons from an Indigenous perspective.

Below Left: Zubair interviewing Gurnal elders Muhammad Rasool Khan, Muhammad Sharif, and Muhammad Siraj. 2017 Below Right: Zubair interviewing Gurnal Elder Wakmadar. 2017

“Bahadar could predict a ‘good year’—a year good for crops and cattle—or drought. He used to put ashes outside in the open air at night at the beginning of spring. By reading some signs in the ashes, he would tell people that the coming year would either be a productive year or one of drought.” This would help people prepare for the drought. They would then look for means other than crops to ensure food security. Bahadar could also forecast weather and seasons. As I will explain below, the periods of Sul, Gup |ɡʊp|, and others were days of heavy rain. Bahadar would tell people that they should take care of their herds as heavy rain was expected. People would listen to him and thus were prepared for these kinds of disasters. “One bright sunny day, Bahadar was passing by a group of people who were cutting grass from the grasslands adjoining their cultivated land. The

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 43

Above: A view of Gurnal village showing the forests behind it. 2017

people were having a Hashar—a feast-like collective work party, when people help one another during harvest and other similar occasions. Although it was a sunny day, Bahadar told the farmers to stop cutting more grass and start collecting the cut grass instead, so as to save it from the likely heavy rain. People followed his advice only reluctantly, because they saw no sign of rain in the sky. But after some time there came heavy rain with thunder. So exact was Bahadar in his forecast!” “One time Bahadar told the people in Gurnal that it was the first day of spring. The people mocked him, as Gurnal was still covered with snow. When the people did not accept his claim, he told them to go to Manko, a village along the Swat River between the towns of Bahrain and Madyan, and see that a wild apricot had bloomed there. A couple of men did go there and found that what Bahadar had told them was true.” Bahadar’s system helped people cultivate their fields according to the exact weather. They would also be well prepared for natural disasters and famines. Through Bahadar’s astronomy, people could plan ahead and also keep their herds safe. People would also choose when to travel to the highlands following Bahadar’s forecast. In Gurnal

44 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

in particular, and in the entire Torwali heartland in general, people still largely follow Bahadar’s system for cultivating and harvesting their fields. According to my interviewees, Bahadar’s seasonal calendar has nine months, and each month is comprised of forty days. Beside these months, there are special periods like Gup and Sul. There are two Gup periods: one falls in summer, whereas the other is in winter. The one that falls in summer is called Basha si Gup |bəʂa si ɡʊp| (Summer Gup) and the other is called Himaan si Gup |hima:n si ɡʊp| (Winter Gup). When the Summer Gup passes, the heat of summer begins to subside, and the season turns toward winter; and when the Winter Gup passes, the cold of winter begins to diminish, and the season turns toward summer. In Bahadar’s almanac there are two similar periods in spring and fall. They are the periods of Sul or Suel. One is at the beginning of spring, whereas the other is at the beginning of fall. In spring, Sul comes at the start of the month of Chaiter |cetɘr| (Chaitra); in fall, it comes at the end of the month of Pasheekal |pəʃi:ka:l| (Sawan). In both cases, before the Sul, the weather becomes crazy for a few days. These rainy days are called Charmaqaq |cərməqəq|. My interviewees also gave me another version of Bahadar’s seasonal calendar. This twelve-months

Nine-Month Version of Bahadar’s Seasonal Calendar

Twelve-Month Version of Bahadar’s Seasonal Calendar



Season Name

Duration



Season Name

Duration

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Chaiter Beesakh Ahahat Jat Pasheekal Bhado Aso 1st Sala 2nd Sala

40 days 40 days 40 days 40 days 40 days 40 days 40 days 40 days 40 days

1 2 3 4 5 6

Landai ahahat 1st Sala (Spin Sala) 2nd Sala (Tor Sala) Chaiter & Beesakh Ghan ahahat Pasheekal

2 months 2 months 2 months 2 months 2 months 2 months

version is equally divided into six winter and six summer months. The two versions of the calendar are shown in the box above. Bahadar’s system for the distribution of irrigation water in Gurnal, which is still practiced in the village, is based on the royalty from the forest, a payment the government makes to the owners of the forest. The village of Gurnal and its forest are divided into twenty-four “rupees”—a rupee being a unit representing one share. Each of the village’s four clans owns six shares, and each is entitled to a oneday (twenty-four-hour) share of water from the main irrigation channel. This share is in turn subdivided into three shares among the families of each clan. Each day (twenty-four hours) is divided into the following periods of time, during each of which three families can water their fields simultaneously: Zaad |ʑa:d|: from the dawn Azaan—Muslim call for prayers—to seven in the morning Kharen Pheet |kʰeɾen pʰiʈ|: from seven in the morning to nine in the morning Maidan |mɛda:n|: from nine in the morning to the midday Azaan Sari |sɘri:|: From the midday Azaan to Asar Azaan—the afternoon call for prayers Zek pheet |ʑik pʰiʈ|: from Asar Azaan to Esha Azaan—the late evening call for prayers Zaat |ʑa:t|: from Esha Azaan to the dawn Azaan

Background Image: Another view of Gurnal village. 2017

In spring, at the beginning of the irrigation season, the four clans do a toss to establish who gets the first, second, third, and fourth turn. Once this is done, turns rotate, so whoever was first becomes last, the second becomes first, and so on. The rotating turn is followed regularly, giving each clan the opportunity to irrigate at different times of day.

“Thanks to [Bahadar’s] system of water distribution there are no feuds or fighting over turns for watering the fields. … Everybody’s field gets the needed irrigation water and they have a good yield every year.” When I was conducting the interviews, I saw elders who were gathered to distribute the irrigation water in the village. They were actually monitoring whether anybody deviated from the rule. They told me that thanks to this ancient system of water distribution there were no feuds or fighting over turns for watering the fields. They told me that this way everybody’s field gets the needed irrigation water and that they have a good yield every year. It seems that Bahadar made keen observations of the sun and stars for years, and based on his observations, he orally developed this system. The skyline toward the west in Gurnal is very clear. Bahadar fixed various points along this skyline along the hill for the position of the sun. Based

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 45

Above: The western skyline as seen from Gurnal village. The sun sets to the left in winter and to the right in summer. This is the skyline Bahadar would have observed for many years to design his oral almanac. 2017

on these points and on the rising of stars, he built this invaluable Indigenous knowledge system that for generations has supported the local people’s resilience against natural disasters and has helped them meet their daily food needs, which are mainly dependent on livestock and agriculture. His system of irrigation water distribution has helped the

villagers water their crops in a timely fashion while preventing any water disputes. By now, Bahadar’s almanac has been in use as a guide to cultivation and harvesting for over 150 years. Younger generations of farmers follow this system, too, as it is always passed on to them by their elders. So, this extraordinary example of Indigenous knowledge is likely to continue to support people’s resilience for generations to come.

Zubair Torwali hails from Bahrain, Swat District, the Switzerland of Pakistan. He is a researcher, author, protector of minority languages; social, cultural, civil society and human rights activist; writer, columnist, blogger, journalist, and voice for the rights of all the marginalized linguistic communities of northern Pakistan. Aftab Ahmad is a young Torwali researcher who lives in Bahrain Swat and has an interest in the landscapes of northern Pakistan.

Further Reading Shah, D. (2013). Torwali is a language. Himāl South Asian. Retrieved from http://himalmag.com/torwali-is-a-language/ Torwali, Z. (2016). Reversing language loss through an identity based educational planning: The case of Torwali language. Eurasian Journal of Humanities, 1(2), 23–39. Torwali, Z. (2015). The ignored Dardic culture of Swat. Journal of Languages and Culture, 6(5), 30–38. doi:10.5897/ JLC2015.0308  Torwali, Z. (2017). The Torwali language and its new Android keyboard. Google in Asia. Retrieved from https://www.blog.google/topics/google-asia/torwali-language-and-its-new-android-keyboard/ Torwali, Z. (2015). Muffled Voices: Longing for a Pluralist and Peaceful Pakistan. Lahore, Pakistan: Multi Line.

46 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

Text by Viveca Mellegård Photos by Pernilla Malmer

a t H

How Karen Farming Saved a Forest in Thailand and its

Poetry Changed International Policy

With words & lived experience of members of the Karen Community of Hin Lad Nai and input from Pernilla Malmer

“Live with the water, care for the river, live with trees, care for the forest. Live with the fish, care for the spawning grounds, live with the frog, care for the cliff.” ―Karen proverb

W

hen Prasert Trakansuphakon talks about rotational farming, he uses the language of hta: the poetry, stories, and songs told by the Indigenous Karen people of northern Thailand. Wrapped into the rhymes and tales of the hta is a collective knowledge system that incorporates memories and observations based on everyday life experiences. In particular, hta reflect the rich knowledge that Karen people have of their surrounding environment, especially of the variety of wild and domesticated plants and animals. A hta about gibbons characterizes them as gentle animals, in the local tongue of the Hin Lad Nai community:

Cu t’ hpiv hkauf t’ maz, htif pgaz taj kwaj blav. “Hand won’t pick up, the foot doesn’t work: when seeing others’ things, just watching.” (By contrast, monkeys will pinch and pilfer belongings, given half the chance.) The language of hta and the knowledge system expressed in it have also helped the Karen people to protect not only their ways of living and livelihoods but also the forest they rely upon at international, national, and local levels. Trakansuphakon goes to international conferences to tell hta of a Karen tribe called the Pgakenyaw to scientists and policy makers. His stories focus on one small Pgakenyaw community of twenty-five households, called Hin Lad Nai, nestled in the lush forest of Chiang Rai Province.

Below: A large sign at the entrance to the village sets out the regulations by which Hin Lad Nai community lives. 2014.

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 47

This community follows the rituals embedded in the hta at each stage of the village’s rotational farming system. The practices of rotational farming and indeed all of everyday life are imbued with Karen cultural and spiritual values, knowledge, and wisdom, all of which find expression in their songs, poems, and stories. But what the Karen are doing is illegal in Thailand. For many decades, they were accused of using what was seen as a primitive, destructive, “slash-andburn” form of agriculture. National policies divided the Thai landscape into either forest or permanent agriculture and classified rotational farmers as “ethnic minorities,” whose traditional practices were prohibited. At the same time, in the 1960s and 1970s, other pressures were building, pushing the farmers to leave their lands: logging concessions, commercial plantations, conservation projects, damand road-building, and waves of resettlement—both of farmers forced out and of others moving in. But the Hin Lad Nai villagers and many other Karen communities displayed unshakable faith in their culture, which is intimately linked to their rotational farming system. Determined to prove that their system was sustainable and resilient for both people and ecosystems, they and other communities reliant on the forest for home, food, and spiritual practices spent decades protesting logging concessions issued by the Thai government. In spite of their protests, the Hin Lad Nai community saw their forest cut down in the 1980s. Finally, however, in 1989 the Thai government decided to stop granting logging concessions in their area.

“Underpinning the hta is an understanding that land and people are entwined and interdependent throughout time.” Immediately, the villagers of Hin Lad Nai decided to start regenerating their destroyed forest in the only way they knew how: by practicing the Karen rotational farming system. Within that system, they would protect their land against wildfires and illegal hunting and let the trees grow and the wild animals return and thrive again. “The Hin Lad Nai community was so genuinely strong and committed in mobilizing their traditional

48 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

knowledge,” says Pernilla Malmer, senior advisor on agriculture and biodiversity for SwedBio, a program working as a knowledge interface between science, policy, and practice for resilience and development at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Malmer met Trakansuphakon for the first time in 2012, during a unique dialogue in Guna Yala, Panama that brought together scientists and Indigenous communities to share their different kinds of knowledge. This dialogue took place directly before the meeting in Panama City that established the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), an international body that, as a part of its mandate, acknowledges and respects Indigenous and local knowledge. Htof loo auf seifsaf, pgazk’nyau loo auf buwa. “Birds find fruits, humans find white rice.” As practiced in Hin Lad Nai, rotational farming involves starting a new field of rice mixed with vegetable crops that is cultivated for a short period Above: A young woman from Hin Lad Nai in search of supper greens in the now lush forest. 2014.

of one year. The field is then allowed to fallow for a long period, with nothing sown or added to the land for between seven and ten years.

but also biodiversity conservation. Social–ecological knowledge, practices, and advice are carried by songs that the elders pass down through the generations.

During the first- and second-year fallows, grasses and tree saplings take hold, among which animals like wild boar and barking deer can hide. Also hidden among the grasses and young trees are taro, yam, chili, eggplant, rattan shoots, sweet potato, cassava, lemongrass, ginger, galangal—plenty for both animals and humans to eat. By the seventhyear fallow, when the trees have grown tall and the grasses no longer provide enough shelter, wild boar and barking deer are replaced by monkeys and macaques, which take residence in the trees. An abundance of plants that the Karen harvest for medicinal uses—such as ya kaiv muj to treat diabetes and hpau pgaj laj to help women with post-partum recovery—also grow during the seventh fallow.

“Land and forest never end if we know how to take care of and use them,” says Chai Prasert Phokha, Hin Lad Nai’s current community leader, quoting what his grandfather told him. It is not enough to preserve and protect the forest, he explains. You also need to know how to use it to get food and income from it, while conserving it for your own children and grandchildren.

All the while, farmers and other community members walk through the fallows and harvest what they need. Year in and year out, they live with the shifting cycles of growth. N’mei yuj yaz laiz soo quv, cau av k’laz htof lwij bu. “Whenever you miss me, go to the swidden field and you will see the wood pigeon who is my spirit.” When the farmers select the fallow area they want to cultivate next, they perform rituals based on customary laws or taboos. They believe that, after letting the field regenerate as fallow, the land belongs to the spirits of the goddess of the doo lax, land that has been fallow for a full cycle of seven to ten years and is ready for cultivation. They must ask the goddess for permission. Bad omens may be the sighting or sound of inauspicious birds or the barking sound of deer. Or one of the farmers may have a nightmare about fire or flooding the night before selecting the plot, which means the goddess refuses permission to cultivate the land. If there is no sign from the goddess that she refuses, that means that the spirits of that fallow give the farmer the right to cultivate the plot that year.

Today, the lush forest around Hin Lad Nai makes it nearly impossible to imagine how completely it was destroyed by loggers in the 1970s and 1980s. At that time, what was left of the forest was sparse and silent. Frequent wildfires raged through the few remaining patches of vegetation. The inhabitants of Hin Lad Nai came together to decide on next steps. They agreed to create a firebreak all around their community area and took turns keeping watch. They also started protecting their territories against illegal loggers and hunters and formulated their community rules for forest management. Slowly, the forest recovered. In 1992, however, the Thai government decided to make the entire area into a park (now named Khun Jae National Park and standing at 270 square kilometres). The government ordered the communities in the planned park area to leave.

Underpinning the hta is an understanding that land and people are entwined and interdependent throughout time. The hta contain lessons that foster not only food security and sustainable livelihoods, Right: An offering place in the woods along the path to the fields. 2014.

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 49

Instead, the Karen people drew strength from their philosophy and banded together with other affected ethnic groups in the country to fight for their rights to live in the forest. They staged protests under the banner of the Northern Farmers Network and as part of the national-level Assembly of the Poor network. The Hin Lad Nai community won the right to stay on their land. Their area would become a border area to the park.

Crucially, whereas Thai law banned rotational farming, the report highlighted the benefits of the Karen knowledge system and worldview, centrally including rotational farming and the spiritual and cultural beliefs that are deeply embedded in it. In so doing, the report confirmed that Karen practices are beneficial to biodiversity, prevent wildfires and soil erosion, and contribute to developing new sources of income and to sparking innovation. Malmer points out that Hin Lad Nai is a prime example of how Indigenous organizations wage onthe-ground battles by harnessing global developments. By following international processes, such as the UNFCCC, IPBES, or the Convention on Biological Diversity, communities can bring the outcomes back home and demand that their local, regional, and national governments implement them.

Above: View from the balcony: the library next to the school in the neatly maintained village of Hin Lad Nai. 2014.

Meanwhile, in 1994 Thailand ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In signing on, the government committed to protecting its forests, but it also had to begin to recognize what Indigenous Peoples do to protect their forests and how they adapt to and contribute to countering climate change. Encouraged by the government’s new obligations towards its Indigenous Peoples under the UNFCCC, Hin Lad Nai villagers joined other civil society organizations to initiate a study to measure their carbon footprint. The research reported that their consumption levels and emissions of carbon dioxide were far below the carrying capacity of their natural resources.

50 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

In 2010, Hin Lad Nai achieved another victory when it became one of four Thai villages identified as a Special Cultural Zone. In effect, this classification overturned the national government’s criminalization of rotational farming by recognizing that the system works in beneficial ways. The practice is now protected under Thailand’s Ministry of Culture’s list of Cultural Heritage.

N’mei yuj yaz kwaj seif klauz; seif klauz cau cu lauj of htau. “Whenever you miss me, look at the pruned trees; they are the mark of the work of my hand.” Only three decades after logging decimated the forest, eighty percent of the forested area (some 3,000 hectares) has regenerated. The villagers cultivate several hundred hectares within the forest and can choose from more than two hundred edible plant species that are abundant. In addition to being close to complete self-sufficiency, the community also has cash income from harvesting honey and tea from the now flourishing forest. And yet, ironically, their very success in restoring the forest and reinvigorating their community

through interventions that have enhanced the whole social–ecological system might come back to haunt them. A new threat has arisen from an effort to extend stronger levels of national park protection to Hin Lad Nai, including the regenerated forest area. The community faces strict regulation of rotational farming, still considered illegal by some of Thailand’s government agencies—for example, the Ministry of Environment— and possible eviction from their land. This time, there are strong foundations for Indigenous Peoples to support one another in pushing back and negotiating with governmental authorities. Both Above: Taking a break in a resting hut in the fields during an exchange IPBES and the Convention on Biological visit to Hin Lad Nai. Once out of use, the hut’s biodegradable materials will Diversity embody the value of the collapse and return to the soil. 2014. knowledge, practices, and beliefs of these groups. The UN Rapporteur on Human Crossing borders and scales, voices that might not Rights and Environment published a report in March be heard when speaking close to home come through 2017 on human rights and biodiversity, affirming that sounding loud and clear on the international stage they are mutually supportive. Global platforms and and echo back—this time at a higher volume and instruments, such as the UN resolution, that validate with greater force—into the ears of government. the way Hin Lad Nai, and communities like it, manage Will the government listen? ecosystems will serve as powerful allies in the new battle to stay on their land. Viveca Mellegård started her career at the BBC, training to become a documentary director. At the Stockholm Resilience Centre, she uses film and photography to investigate the tacit knowledge and skills embedded in craftsmanship. She realizes creative projects that help capture and make visible the complexities of a resilience approach to development. Pernilla Malmer is Senior Advisor with SwedBio at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden. She holds an MSc in Agricultural Economics..

Further Reading/Viewing AIPP, IWGIA, NDF, & NORAD. (2012). Climate Change, Trees and Livelihood: A Case Study on the Carbon Footprint of a Karen Community in Northern Thailand. Retrieved from http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2012/smsn/ngo/240.pdf Community of Hin Lad Nai, Thailand, & SwedBoi. (2016). Mobilizing Traditional Knowledge, Innovations and Practices in Rotational Farming for Sustainable Development. Stockholm Resilience Centre Report. Retrieved from http://swed.bio/reports/report/mobilizing-traditional-knowledge-innovations-and-practices-in-rotational-farming-forsustainable-development/ SwedBio. (2017). Indigenous Community Research Contributes to Policy Development and Enhanced Ecosystem Governance. Retrieved from http://swed.bio/news/indigenous-community-research-contributes-to-policy-developmentand-enhanced-ecosystem-governance/ Tengö, M., Hill, R., Malmer, P., Raymond, C. M., Spierenburg, M., Danielsen, F., ... & Folke, C. (2017). Weaving knowledge systems in IPBES, CBD and beyond: Lessons learned for sustainability. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 26–27, 17–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2016.12.005 Virus Film [Screen name]. (2016, October 1). The making of rotational farming workshop: Host by Hin Lad Nai Village [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BRqR1m8jL0&feature=youtu.be

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 51

Jennifer McRuer

Story Map

Youth Reconnect to Place and

Biocultural Heritage in Colombia

W

e are all stories…of connection, separation, dependence, interdependence, shaped by places, people, memories, perceptions, and dreams. How we connect with the places we call “home” is the essence of this photo essay—particularly, how biological and cultural relationships contribute to our well-being, and how our relationships inform common visions for a sustainable future. Our relationships with place have never been more in need of explicit attention and expression. Climate change. Deforestation. Overfishing. Coral bleaching. Pollution. Growing inequities. Despite their origin, such issues touch all corners of the earth, all depths of the oceans, all strata of the sky, and all dimensions of the human and non-human experience and spirit. We are living in a time of dire human-driven change, causing pervasive threats to biological and cultural diversity. But there is hope. By reconnecting with place, we can forge new directions toward regeneration.

Above: A protected area surrounding Isla Grande aims to conserve marine habitats, natural resources, and cultural values. However, a disharmony between nature and culture persists through rapid tourism development, water pollution, dwindling fish stocks, mangrove deforestation, coral erosion, changing traditional practices, industrial resource use, and economic disparity. The Isla Grande community is committed to conserving ancestral territories and strengthening biocultural connections. Map: Luisa Ramirez, 2016. Modified and reproduced with map author’s permission.

This photo essay describes the efforts of Colombian youth to share their stories of biocultural heritage, wellbeing, and sustainability, expressing what it means to call a place “home.” Home, for the six Afro-Colombian

youth telling this narrative, is Isla Grande—a small island in the Caribbean Sea of Colombia. Over generations, the Isla Grande community has continuously shaped, and been shaped by, relations with the surrounding coral reef, mangrove lagoons, and dry forest landscapes. The community’s knowledge, innovations, and practices

52 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

are thus entangled with territory, biological diversity, cultural and spiritual values—that is, people’s “collective biocultural heritage.” Existing alongside one of the country’s largest marine national parks and protected areas, the Isla Grande community seeks to balance the rights of nature with those of their local culture. The balance has long been askew on account of government marginalization, national environmental policies that discourage co-governance with local communities, and diverse interests that value Top Left: Using cameras, we stroll, bike, swim, and dive to capture connections with ancestral places of land and sea. Photo: Heides Molina, 2015 Middle Left: We walk and bike to map the places most significant to everyday lives in terms of ecosystems, biodiversity, culture, sustainable development, and innovation. Photo: Manuel Maldonado, 2015 Bottom Left: An online story map shares perspectives of home. It elaborates on the content described in this photo essay and is intended for community members, policy-makers, and a broader audience interested in shared learning for resilience and resistance. Photo: Jennifer McRuer, 2016 Bottom: Ocean connections, Isla Grande. “To me, [biocultural heritage] has to do with everything in the community and how we depend on the environment. Our heritage is the fishermen and all the people that live because of tourism, and traditions like the champeta [a local dance], and Paito [an elder who plays traditional African music] ... All of this is part of a concept that many people live but maybe don’t understand the word” (Dani). Photo: Katya Torres, 2015

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 53

particular worldviews over others. This has led to a lasting neglect of the territorial rights of the region’s original Indigenous inhabitants, as well as those of other communities that subsequently established themselves in the area, such as mestizo (mixed race) peasant communities and Afro-Colombian descendents. In defense of their relationships with ancestral territory places, the Isla Grande community has recently Top: The Laguna Encantada (Enchanted Lagoon) in Isla Grande is a special place for biodiversity, and one that leaves lasting impressions among Islanders and tourists alike. For youth co-researchers, it represents buen vivir (well-being), or the rights, interests, decisions, and actions that shape healthy place relationships: “Of course [there are rights] for the ecosystems and the lack of these rights happens when we don’t respect the ecosystems’ buen vivir” (Ezequiel). Photo: Heides Molina, 2015 Top Left: “Ecocamping Bosque Encantado” (Enchanted Forest Ecocamping). A tourism initiative in Isla Grande blends tradition and innovation to conserve biocultural integrity, extend the Island’s hospitality, and promote collaboration toward a sustainable future. “For us, sustainability means production—through our customs; capacity—to maintain our environment and community in good shape; culture—the methods of our ancestors that we continue today like artisan fishing and handcrafts; and coordination—to [use resources] always at the same level, or better” (Sebastian). Photo: Ezequiel Torres, 2015 Middle Left: Dry forest and agricultural landscapes line the Island’s walking paths. Youth discuss the importance of natural resources and livelihood practices and share their knowledge of common plants and animals in ancestral territory places. Place-based knowledge is attributed to elders’ teachings and their own personal life experience. Photo: Dani Silgado, 2015 Bottom Left: An artisan shop on the Island sells both traditional and innovative merchandise, promoting biocultural conservation and sustainability: “Some of the materials that people use in handcrafts are [made from] our natural resources and some of them are also made using recycled items like plastic bags. This practice helps both the economic side and the environmental side because there is no need to buy, and there will no longer be garbage on the ground” (Jeison). Photo: Heides Molina, 2015

54 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

mobilized sustainable development efforts to redirect its future. Youth perceptions and experiences are valued contributions to this process. Seeking to re-imagine and re-articulate their collective biocultural heritage so as to uphold their relationships with place and one another, island youth share their stories through youth-led photography and mapping, combined with cyclical processes of reflection and action. A co-researcher team of six Island youth, a Spanish research translator, and a Canadian doctoral researcher began a project in 2015 to contribute youth perspectives on biocultural heritage, well-being, and sustainability. The group calls itself “Nuevas Voces” (New Voices). Top Right: Young people carry fresh water—a valued resource on the Island as it lacks natural sources. Youth discuss changing environments that require innovation based on local knowledge. For example, they describe increasing solar panel use instead of generators, as well as traditional water sequestration techniques enhanced with cisterns and boat transport from the mainland. Photo: Ezequiel Torres, 2015 Bottom Right: A youth co-researcher considers the need for livelihood diversification and mangrove nurseries: “I think something that reflects wellbeing very much is the ocean. We know here on the Island we don’t have a place, like an enterprise for the community, apart from the ocean. But not all of us are fishermen so we need micro-enterprises” (Jeison). Youth envision ecotourism, fish farming, and mangrove plant nurseries. Photo: Juan Vega, 2015 Bottom: A child gazes at the ocean. Youth participation in shaping future directions is valued in Isla Grande, as leadership is performed by the whole community: “The most important thing to know about our politics on the Island is that although we are governed by the mayor of Cartagena, we have a Communitarian Council and we are titled as an ethnic community. We have a leader who is the president of the Communitarian Council but being a Council means all the community participates and takes decisions about our future” (Jeison). Photo: Manuel Maldonado, 2015

“We are living in a time of dire human-driven change, causing pervasive threats to biological and cultural diversity. But there is hope. By reconnecting with place, we can forge new directions toward regeneration.”

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 55

Top: Tourists flock to the Island’s beaches in increasing numbers every year, but the industry is a double-edged sword. Youth express the need for responsible community governance to promote economic security, buen vivir, and sustainability: “If only we could face [economic] challenges as a united community while preserving the Island. It is just a case of having different alternatives … This is the whole controversy: we need money, but we also need a way to conserve our territories … the economic [aspect] is not above the [buen vivir of] the community” (Jeison). Photo: Manuel Maldonado, 2015 Inset: “Races don’t exist. The only race is human.” Biocultural heritage on the Island is celebrated through annual cultural events so as to “not forget where we come from” (Dani). Photo: Dani Silgado, 2015

The resultant images, maps, and voices speak to their place-interdependence. Their collaborative story has been woven into a “story map” using an online, open-source platform designed by the Environmental Sciences Research Institute (ESRI). The story map interweaves multimedia and textual elements to tell the youth’s story of place. It importantly highlights the ways in which the community’s language, material culture, knowledge and innovations, subsistence, social and economic relations, beliefs, and values are intimately connected with the biodiversity of its territory. At a time when we need to recognize and strengthen place relationships to innovate, adapt, and build resilience in the face of global change, this platform mobilizes youth’s perspectives and allows them to describe their concerns and, more importantly, their hopes for the future.

Jennifer McRuer holds an MSc in Conservation and Rural Development from the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, UK, and a PhD in Educational Foundations from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon. Motivated by community-based conservation, she is interested in the intersections among biocultural diversity, new materialism, environmental humanities, and sustainability education.

Further Reading Convention on Biological Diversity. (2014). Linking Biological and Cultural Diversity: UNESCO-SCBD Programme. Retrieved from https://www.cbd.int/lbcd/step1 Davidson-Hunt, I. J., Turner, K. L., Mead, A., Cabrera-Lopez, J., Bolton, R., Idrobo, J., ... Robson, P. (2012). Biocultural design: A new conceptual framework for sustainable development in rural indigenous and local communities. Surveys and Perspectives Integrating Environment and Society, 5(2), 33–45. Escobar, A. (1998). Whose knowledge, whose nature? Biodiversity, conservation, and the political ecology of social movements. Journal of Political Ecology, 5, 53–82. Ingold, T. (2008). Bindings against boundaries: Entanglements of life in an open world. Environment and Planning A, 40, 1796–1810. McRuer, J. (2017). A Story of the Places We Call Home: Buen Vivir, Sustainability, and Biocultural Heritage in Isla Grande, Colombia. Retrieved from http://arcg.is/2bITUzX

56 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

Visio n s ithin from W

Text and photos by Thor Morales

Another Shot for Biocultural Conservation

in the Cradle of Humankind

I

magine you’re in the cradle of humankind. Cultures similar to yours have thrived in a seemingly barren, rock-strewn desert for thousands of years. But now, once frequently practiced rites, ceremonies, and traditions are losing vigor, and your mother tongue is falling by the wayside as you adopt a new one from a neighboring tribe. Your environment is still there, your people too, but the culture is rapidly fading away. And every other ethnic or cultural group in the region faces the same predicament. Borders appeared and cross-border migrations were banned for political security reasons. The world has changed so much, that it is wreaking havoc with your way of life and driving the younger generations away from their roots. How can you help keep your biocultural practices alive while there’s still time? There are many possible ways, but suddenly, one you never thought of is at hand. A videocamera? A computer? That is only for educated people! It’s too difficult for me; I’ve never even touched one; I don’t speak English. These and other thoughts might come to your mind. That’s before you experience the magic of participatory video.

In 2016, I met wonderful people, deeply committed to their communities and culture, in the northern desert of Kenya: the Gabbra, Borana, Konso, and El Molo peoples. During two visits, I spent almost a month working closely with them on the use of cameras and editing software and learning with them about how these tools can help in their struggle for biocultural continuity. Top: The beautiful village of Layeni, one of the three El-Molo villages around Lake Turkana. 2016 Inset: After an assignment period, participants came back together and shared their adventures doing participatory video through The River of Life activity, which is a visual narrative method to share stories of the past, but can also be used for the present and future. 2016

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 57

“Something magical happens when videos made by and with members are screened for the featured ‘actors’: from laughs to critiques, from amusement to active participation.”

Yet none of our expectations were fulfilled. Let me explain: participants were expecting a regular musungo (white person) who would teach a boring class about extremely complicated equipment. They were sure it would be a drag. The professor (that’s me) won’t even stand the heat or the food, thought my colleagues from the local NGO that helped coordinate the training. For my part, I was expecting that language would be an almost insurmountable barrier to the success of my facilitation task. After ten minutes together, though, we all realized things would go far better than anyone had expected. We spent every day laughing, learning, teaching, and creating. Language, Above: Participants during a filming practice. They learn not only how to use and handle the camera but also how to frame images. 2016 Inset Top: Mama Elema Molu, from Marsabit, came to the training fearing she would be left aside for being illiterate. As it turned out, she rapidly learned to use the camera and directed several shots during practice days. 2016 Inset Bottom: Dub Kanche checks whether everything is OK with the audio. Another teammate monitors sound before and during recordings. 2016

58 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

cultural, and ethnic barriers melted away and, as one of the ladies said, “We became one family.” Through peer-to-peer learning and practical exercises, the ten participants rapidly acquired filming, sound recording, and visual storytelling skills. They went from never having touched a camera to being confident and creative participatory video filmmakers.

“A new form of resilience is being crafted through the use of video, using modern gear to revive the past and keep it going in a new but authentic way.” When participants set out to define the topics for their videos, the binomial of nature and culture came up top as the preferred choice. They all realized that their cultural practices are vanishing as younger generations lose interest in their traditions and rituals. Every participant’s first thought was to engage in a sort of salvage filming to record all current rites, festivities, traditions, and cultural activities. When the time came for community screenings, I witnessed people stay on in spite of approaching rain

and a sand storm just to be part of the movie nights. Something magical happens when videos made by and with members are screened for the featured “actors”: from laughs to critiques, from amusement to active participation. New ideas are born; the need to document and record cultural activities is suddenly apparent. The fact that your neighbors are able to operate a camera and edit a video changes the way communities feel about being filmed (and screened). It makes more sense; it’s an option for real cultural resistance and not a mere way of pleasing foreigners in exchange for some money. Below Left: A key game in participatory video is Show and Tell. During this activity, participants present an object in front of the camera. This helps them leave fear and nervousness behind when a camera is pointing at them. 2016 Bottom Left: Qabale Diba holds the camera while the three men in her team perform a sociodrama about how eliciting traditional knowledge raises questions and reveals the need for free, prior, and informed consent. 2016 Below Right: Participatory video brings different people together in a dialectic learning process in which each person teaches someone else. Here, Hellen Losapicho (El Molo) shows Guyo Gabbaba (Borana) and Dub Kanche (Gabbra) how to insert the battery in a microphone. 2016

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 59

Above Left: Setting hands on a tripod for the first time in her life seems like a joyful moment for Elema Molu. Titinga Lengotuk follows her with sound gear. Collectivity is at the core of participatory video. 2016 Above Right: Hussein Abdi, the youngest participant in this adventure, shares footage with Soba, the young girl babysitting Qabale’s son so she could take part in the training. 2016 Below: Magella Lenatiyama marvels at the work of Bone Dub Kanche. Despite being neighboring tribes, El-Molo and Gabbra hardly have any interaction. Through participatory video, we seek to connect these and other tribes in Northern Kenya. 2016

From traditional naming ceremonies to weddings, from annual rituals to sacred sites, from cultural festivals to political events, the ten participants in this magical process have been filming their communities’ lives since 2016. In the process, they have raised awareness and interest in culture and nature, encouraged general participation, and given back to their communities. A new form of resilience is being crafted through the use of video, using modern gear to revive the past and keep it going in a new but authentic way. Participatory video allows for a true vision from within. There’s no outside guidance on what to film: it’s the community that decides, along with the participatory video

“This new generation of participatory video filmmakers is blazing a new trail for biocultural conservation.”

60 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

team, what to focus the camera on. Even aesthetics are specific to the cultural group using the camera. In our northern Kenya experience, I can say the camera has traveled all the way to the past and back. In their villages, participants have convinced elders and shrine owners of the importance of using video as a tool for biocultural revival, and have filmed the last stewards of their culture. Through their eyes, hearts, and camera lenses, participants have found a new way to look at themselves, at their own people. At the same time, they have shown parts of their homelands only known to a few. Equipped with only basic gear, this new generation of participatory video filmmakers is blazing a new trail for biocultural conservation. Their wish is to become participatory video facilitators, just like me. They want to share the magic of participatory video with more

Above: Participants view a Gabbra village from a neighboring mount. The use of participatory video offers another angle on daily life and familiar spaces. 2016 Inset Left: In participatory video, on one hand many voices are being heard through the use of video; on the other, power relationships are blurred. This is what collective editing means: Qabale Diba takes control of the computer, and everyone else has to go through her to make changes. 2016 Below: A sunset behind a traditional Gabbra house in the village of Arrankesa, near Kalacha Town. 2016

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 61

Above: A community screening in the middle of the Chalbi desert. At Arrankesa, the whole village gathered together under the starry sky to watch and then talk about the participatory video films in which many of them had been featured. 2016 Inset: Dwellers of Layeni withstand a dust storm to watch the new films being screened by The Gura Pau (El-Molo) participatory video team. People are getting used to these movie nights in which they watch what the team has filmed and can discuss what else should be documented or talked about through video. 2016

communities, build peaceful bonds between tribes, and tackle common challenges faced by most ethnic groups in northern Kenya. For them, it’s not really about getting nice footage and acquiring fame. It’s about sparking community participation to address what matters the most—whether that is children, the environment, native language, education, traditions, or health issues—to local dwellers. Participatory video is about community, about team work and communal reciprocity, about using films to reflect on a reality we live in but seldom

visualize. The participants with whom I collaborated have really grasped this approach and used it to share the visions from within their communities. In a world full of superficial imagery, it’s worth giving locals the chance to point the cameras at themselves, without any more leadership than that of their own community. My ten friends in northern Kenya are pioneers seeking change through the use of cameras, projectors, and community involvement. I can only say: Good luck in giving biocultural

conservation another shot!

Thor Morales is a biologist passionate about audiovisual media, Indigenous communities, nature, and cultures. During the past six years, he has been making a living by using cameras either for documentary work or participatory video training. He sees video as a powerful tool that can be used to create a better world.

Further Reading Lunch, N. (2008). People’s video: Preserving biocultural diversity through participatory video. Resurgence and Ecologist. Retrieved from http://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article2634-peoples-video.html Lunch, N., & Lunch, C. (2006). Insights into Participatory Video: A Handbook for the Field. Retrieved from http://insightshare.org/resources/insights-into-participatory-video-a-handbook-for-the-field/ Muniz, S. (2012). Participatory Development Communication (PDC): Rhetoric or Reality? The Analysis of CommunityBased Level Interventions in Latin America and Africa with Dialogue and Empowerment as Intended Outcomes (MSc Dissertation). University of Reading: London, UK.

62 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

Special:

Reconnection and Reconciliation in the Salish Sea, Pacific Northwest

Above: The Salish Sea Bioregion is defined by watershed boundaries and encompasses inland seas and lands of many First Nations in British Columbia, Canada, and Native American Nations in Washington State, USA. Source: mycoastnow.com, 2017

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 63

Sustain, Benefit, Celebrate

Embedding Nature in Our Culture

Text and photos by

Rob Butler

I

n 2015, I flew to Ecuador, boarded a motorized canoe with a group of friends, and three hours later disembarked at a riverbank dock from which a boardwalk led us to a lagoon. There, guides and canoes awaited to take us to a rustic lodge immersed in Amazon biodiversity. Over the following few days, I felt my life adjusting to nature’s clock. Routines became scheduled around the circularity of natural cycles of daytime heat and evening thunderstorms. I had experienced similar feelings in wild places elsewhere in the world and was enjoying the restorative time amid nature. Experience with nature lives beyond words, and many people with experiences similar to mine have struggled verbalize their feelings. My friends in the Amazon were calmer and smiled more often. Some were brought to tears. Many said the week in the Amazon was life-changing. Some called the experience their “Road to Damascus moment.” These experiences might at first glance appear fanciful, but research into the connection between humans and nature has begun to validate the depths of these kinds of relationships. A review of independent studies that purported to find a physiological and psychological response of humans to nature, conducted

64 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

in 2015 by biologist Paul Sandifer and others, concluded that in most cases exposure to nature elicited positive responses in people and could be convincingly associated with improved health benefits. Sandifer and his colleagues were sufficiently convinced that nature provided tangible benefits that they called for action to combine health and conservation efforts. Their review lent support to an earlier call by Rapport and Maffi who, in 2011, proposed linking cultures and health to the environment under the banner of “eco-cultural health,” defined as “a dynamic interaction of nature and culture that allows for the co-evolution of both without compromising either critical ecosystem processes or the vitality of cultures.” Rapport and Maffi pointed out the need for changes in policy toward fostering combined conservation and health.

Above: Few places on Earth can immerse you in the diversity of life better than the Ecuadorian rainforest canopy. 2015

beavers whose dams gave space for aquatic insects, which in turn attracted birds to eat the insects. In this case, the restoration of wolves appears to have restored resiliency to an entire ecosystem. The cultural imperative of a Nature Culture to sustain key ecological processes that support the diversity of life gives direction to ecological research. In particular, a Nature Culture requires an understanding of key ecological processes and calls for providing guidance on how to maintain these processes while bettering the lives of humans. These needs become the premise for problem solving within an ecological context and a reason for celebrating nature in our lives.

Policy changes would go a long way toward improving our relationship with nature, but a cultural imperative would ensure it. I am calling for a renewal of our ancient relationship with nature. I propose that we explore embedding nature into our culture and develop what I call a Nature Culture. Securing nature over the long term, which is of course essential for sustaining life on the planet, is a central feature of a Nature Culture. Places where nature abounds are sacred sources of inspiration and providers of invaluable services and benefits. Identifying and protecting such locations for the benefit of all people (and of all of life) is of paramount importance. A resilient natural world is a hallmark of a Nature Culture. In eco-speak, resiliency refers to the ability of an ecosystem to recover from a shock and continue to function. For example, the removal of large predators releases their prey to use habitats that they would have otherwise avoided from fear of being killed, which thereby sets in motion a cascading chain of destabilizing ecological interactions. A celebrated example of reversal of this detrimental effect was apparent shortly after wolves were restored to Yellowstone National Park in the USA after a hiatus of several decades. Fear of the newly returned wolves altered where elk chose to forage in the park, thus releasing aspens and willows to flourish, which attracted to the park

As individuals, we can take action by conducting an audit of how we live, our choice of purchases and waste disposal, and so forth. Some changes are easy to introduce, such as replacing harmful products with less injurious ones, buying goods and food from sustainable practices, and recycling. There are many organizations and programs already in place to help make the transition. Collectively, communities can create cultural celebrations, traditions, and lifestyles. The community is where a Nature Culture celebrates successes in sustaining nature, formulates new ideas for sustainable innovations and technologies, and pinpoints practices that are unsustainable and need to be transformed. There is no singular way to celebrate nature. How one chooses to celebrate should remain open to everyone’s imagination. Above Left: An Amazonian shaman in Ecuador. Indigenous cultures are often close allies with nature. 2009 Below: Nature’s raw simplicity can be felt in the silence of an alpine lake in the Muskwa-Kechika wilderness area of British Columbia, Canada. 2012

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 65

the recognition of culture’s dependency on securing both the land where food was grown and the livelihoods of the harvesters. Cultures involve food as a key focus, and I pondered whether we could have a distinctive celebration of sustainable food from the Salish Sea region where I live, the water and surrounding watershed of the Strait of Georgia, Juan de Fuca Strait, and Puget Sound, in southwestern Canada and northwestern USA. Out of those musings, the idea of the First Day Feast arose.

Above: Time in wild places benefits us in ways we are only just beginning to understand. Muskwa-Kechika wilderness area, British Columbia, Canada. 2012 Below: Galiano Island in the Salish Sea: Seasonality of rain and sun defines the region. 2013

The government level is where policies that promote sustainable lifestyles can direct how society relates to nature: for example, by incorporating the benefits of nature for childhood development into the educational system or the health benefits of nature into health care policy. Research into the mechanisms of how nature benefits our health and wellbeing needs to be further promoted. Many of these actions are already in place. The local food movement, green living, recycling, wind and solar power, and parks and protected areas are a few examples of how people are taking nature to heart. The difference is that Nature Culture embodies all these initiatives within a single vision of establishing a sustainable lifestyle as a cultural imperative.

Our family held the initial First Day Feast on January 1, 2012. We assembled around the table to enjoy and explore locally produced food. We sought local food from sustainable sources. Labels were scoured for ingredients and sources. As an entrée for the meat eaters, we chose beef from the Fraser River Valley, within the Salish Sea watershed. For the vegetarians, we picked a vegetarian pizza. Wheat grown and ground in the Fraser Valley was used for the pizza crust as well as for the piecrust of an apple dessert. Wine came from nearby vineyards, vegetables and herbs from greenhouses in the Fraser River Delta, near Vancouver. Sea salt came from a saltry on Vancouver Island, on the western shore of the Salish Sea. For the pie, we sourced apples from just east of the Salish Sea region (okay, we fudged the rules a bit there). Butter and hazelnut oil came from the Fraser River Valley. Sweetening with honey from local hives served us well. We chose a strong-flavored honey in place of cinnamon to enhance the apple pie flavor. All of the ingredients were available in local stores and farm stalls. Many foods from the ocean could have been included, and plenty of wild foods could have been added to the feast, too.

By now you might be asking how to bring the Nature Culture concept into our everyday way of living. A few years ago, UNESCO awarded World Heritage designation to the Mediterranean Diet. The designation recognized the Mediterranean Diet as central to the feasting culture of the Mediterranean region. What resonated with me was

“A resilient natural world is a hallmark of a Nature Culture.” 66 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

In 2014, I upped the challenge when the Nature Trust of British Columbia asked me to hold a similarly themed dinner for seventy-five people at the Deep Bay Marine Station near Courtney on Vancouver Island. The food prepared by Vancouver Island University Culinary School students and staff followed the First Day Feast theme, and afterward I spoke about a Nature Culture. The following year, the Arts and Nature Festival on Mayne Island, one of the Gulf Islands in the Salish Sea, asked me to give a keynote address following a First Day Feast theme. On both occasions, people spoke to me about how the concept resonated with their need to make music, develop foods, and create art connected to nature. Many people said it gave meaning to their passions. Establishing a Nature Culture requires a set of guiding principles for our actions. Unlike the wellknown 100-Mile diet, the geographic scale of a Nature Culture matches that of a bioregion. In my case, the Salish Sea bioregion includes beaches and ocean, forests, rivers, deltas, and mountains. The region is the traditional home of Salish-speaking people who have inhabited the surrounding land and water for ten millennia and continue to live there along with over seven million people from around the world. The Salish Sea is a source of natural foods such as salmon, clams, and shrimp harvested from these waters. Farms in the neighboring river deltas and valleys grow a variety of root and vegetable crops sustainably, so as not to undermine the resiliency of the Salish Sea ecosystem and sustain livelihoods. That makes these farms an important component of the region’s Nature Culture. Exposure to nature is a feature of a Nature Culture that some people find foreign and maybe even frightening. My experiences in the Amazon

and in wilderness areas in Canada are not for everyone. Challenging that fear is the first step toward gaining confidence and reaping the benefits of being immersed in natural areas. Education and recreation programs can help here. A Nature Culture could be adopted into school curricula, clubs, and family outings. In a Nature Culture, parks become sacred places in which to introduce our children to nature and become comfortable with living in the wilds for extended periods of time. Nature Cultures are nothing new to Indigenous Peoples. Many of the elements are already embedded in Indigenous ways. Their examples amply illustrate how rich cultures can develop with nature as the source. Indigenous Peoples have long spoken about respect for nature. What a Nature Culture does is provide recognition to that voice and a philosophical framework for everyone to participate and benefit from all that nature has to offer. Above: Mild weather, calm seas, and abundant wild places have fostered a close relationship with nature: San Juan Islands, Salish Sea. 2013

Rob Butler, PhD, is an ornithologist, author, filmmaker, and artist. For over 40 years, he watched, listened to, and lived among birds in the Salish Sea and in distant tropical lands. He met people from many cultures. From his observations and reflections emerged his vision of a Nature Culture as a way to renew our ancient relationship with nature.

Further Reading

Louv, R. (2005). Last Child in the Woods. New York, NY: Workman. Rapport, D. J., & Maffi, L. (2011). Eco-cultural health, global health, and sustainability. Ecological Research, 26, 1039–1049. Ripple, W. J., Larsen, E. J., Renkin, R. A., & Smith, D. W. (2001). Trophic cascades among wolves, elk and aspen on Yellowstone National park’s northern range. Biological Conservation, 102(3), 227–234. Sandifer, P. A., Sutton-Grier, A. E., & Ward, B. P. (2015). Exploring connections among nature, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human health and well-being: Opportunities to enhance health and biodiversity conservation. Ecosystem Services, 12, 1–15.

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 67

Text by Joe Akerman (T’awaxwultun)

Photos by Xwaaqw’um Project

Heal the Land, Heal the People Strengthening Relationships at Hwaaqw’um in the Salish Sea

Maakw’stem ‘uw huliitun tst. Maaqkw’stem ‘uw slhilhukw’tul “Everything is what sustains us. Everything is interconnected.”

T

his is a story about coming home to a Quw’utsun (Hul’q’umi’num, Coast Salish) village site to heal. To heal the land, relationships with one another, and the people and communities around us as we find ways to reconnect to the natural systems that give our lives deeper meaning. Growing up in very dissimilar circumstances, my uncle Tousilum (Ron George) and I have both found our hearts drawn to the same land on which our ancestor T’awahwiye was born and raised. Although we experienced very different upbringings and experiences of abuse, each of us suffered psychological conditioning brought on by unrelenting oppression from members of the Catholic Church and the many forms of colonization. Shining a light into the dark corners of our lives is not an easy thing to do. Tousilum is the eldest son of the late Qwiyahwul-t-hw (Bennett George) and Thutsimiye’ (Violet George) and nephew to my late grandfather, Bob. We are

68 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

the descendants of Quw’utsun Hereditary Chief Tousilum (Lhumlhumuluts’) and his wife, Taltunaat, and of their daughter, T’awahwiye (c. 1854–1951). T’awahwiye was born and raised at Hwaaqw’um (Burgoyne Bay, Salt Spring Island, one of the Gulf Islands on the west coast of Canada, in what is now known as the Salish Sea). There, a permanently occupied Quw’utsun village of five longhouses once stood below the towering “bent-over rock” that is Hwamat’etsum (Mount Maxwell), one of the highest peaks on the island. Quw’utsun people belong to the Hul’q’umi’num language group of Coast Salish First Nations. Our territory centers in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, the main island off the southern coast of British Columbia, and extends into the Gulf Islands and beyond. Hwaaqw’um (also spelled Xwaaqw’um) was and is an important spiritual place, where merganser ducks were harvested and dried in large numbers. Hwaaqw’um encompasses three sensitive ecosystems: coast Douglas fir and Garry oak on land and the marine eelgrass habitat, where traditional use and harvesting continue to this day. Historic and current Above: Quw’utsun Big Canoe landing at Hwaaqw’um. 2016

cultivation and gathering of camas, berries, nettle, cedar, and other plant species for food, medicine, and clothing, along with seaweed and shellfish harvesting, fishing for octopus, salmon, and herring, and deer hunting show just how intimate the relationships are between all relations at Hwaaqw’um. When you spend time on the land, with the songs and stories spoken in the language of that place, the beauty and strength of our culture is revealed. From a young age, Tousilum’s father regularly traveled over to Hwaaqw’um by x’pey (cedar) dugout canoe with his grandfather Walter George and other Quw’utsun relations to visit T’awahwiye. Some days the ocean winds cutting through the Sansum Narrows between Vancouver Island and Salt Spring Island were favorable enough to catch a helpful breeze in the belly of a bedsheet sail, mounted on a mast in the middle of the canoe. Luschiim (Arvid Charlie) also used to come over to Hwaaqw’um under sail and canoe and likes to share stories of when he used to harvest octopus and sea urchin there as a young boy. In early fall, T’awahwiye collected berries there in her cedar woven basket, “ground them into a thick jam in the carved basin of a generations-old grinding boulder, and patted the mixture into little cookies that she dried in the sun. When they were dry, she brought them into the house, where they kept all winter long,” Grandpa Bob recounts in his book The Akerman Family: Growing Up on Salt Spring, in which he shares early memories of local plant knowledge at Hwaaqw’um. “Grannie showed me what plants were

good to eat and what plants to avoid. In the spring, when the first leaves come out, new plant shoots are sweet and tender—and really good to eat. When the new salmon berry shoots—grannie called them thaskies—were about a foot high, we broke them off, peeled the skin and ate them raw. We did the same with mukmuk, the new shoots off the button-berry bush. Grannie said that Oregon grape shoots were healthy, kind of like a spring tonic to tone up the blood, so we ate those too.”

“Shining a light into the dark corners of our lives is not an easy thing to do.” My vision for Hwaaqw’um is to continue, and strengthen, Hul’q’umi’num relationships to the land, to one another as human beings, and to all our relations. To have grannies and grandpas speaking the language and sharing stories on the land with younger generations. As a vehicle for reconcili-action, the Xwaaqw’um Project was started in January 2015. Reconciliaction can take many forms, but must be led by localIndigenous people. Building relationships takes time and effort. It starts by coming together and helping one another—ts’ets’uwulhtun. Guided by Quw’utsun Elders and Knowledge Keepers, over the last three years the annual Indigenous Youth Culture and Leadership Camp has provided an opportunity for Youth from the Victoria and Duncan Aboriginal Friendship Centers to participate. Grade-school and post-secondary students have taken part in landbased education at Hwaaqw’um, with community gatherings and workshops open to everyone. A more visible Indigenous presence at Hwaaqw’um connects Quw’utsun, Salt Spring islanders, and visitors to Hul’q’umi’num culture, language, and stewardship. “The people are just so grateful,” Tousilum says, reflecting on what the many gatherings mean to him. “Sharing the food, having a cup of tea together. And just walking this land. It opens the soul of this land. You know, the good feeling that we can bring out in one another. And it shows. The laughter here on this land all weekend, it has been gentle, it has been loud, lots of coming together, lots of sharing. Just been powerful within itself.”

Above: Tousilum (Ron George) drumming at a Hwaaqw’um Community Feast. 2015

Our work is guided by Quw’utsun Elders and Knowledge Keepers with support from Cowichan Tribes (the Quw’utsun band government), along

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 69

Above Left: Intertidal Species Net Pull Workshop at Hwaaqw’um. Salt Spring Islander David Denning (L) and a youth from the Victoria Native Friendship Centre raise the net under the watchful eye of Mount Maxwell. 2015 Above Right: Smoking salmon heads the traditional way on a pi’kwun stick. 2015

with reference to the 2015 Xwaaqw’um Indigenous Use Feasibility Study. Future goals of the Xwaaqw’um Project include setting up signage, carving a big canoe, and carrying out an ecological and traditional food restoration plan under the guidance of Elders, rooted in Hul’q’umi’num knowledge and language while also incorporating scientific understanding of ecological restoration and climate change resilience. Future gathering spaces and full access to land and water at Hwaaqw’um are crucial to support the continuing cultural work, and may include an Elder-caretaker in residence, a cultural interpretive center, a dock, and a carving shed.

“Truth, Respect, Healing. These are fundamental human rights.” Hwaaqw’um has a more recent history of Western agricultural and industrial use including livestock and hay, forestry, log handling, an active shellfish lease, and heavy public use of walking pathways and shoreline access points. These activities have impacted terrestrial and marine ecosystem by removing habitat, reducing biodiversity, introducing invasive species, changing hydrology, and degrading soils. A landscape and seascape restoration plan is yet to be realized. Restoring the cultural and ecological integrity of Hwaaqw’um will enhance the quality of life for all who live on or visit Salt Spring Island. All people are invited to engage in respectful cultural exchange with Hul’q’umi’num language,

70 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

traditions, and ecological teachings at Hwaaqw’um. The welcoming and celebratory nature of our community gatherings creates a caring space for dialogue on reconcili-action. “The land is being danced and the old ones are waking up,” Tousilum explains in a video about the carving and installation of the first pair of Coast Salish welcome poles raised since contact. “The land [at Hwaaqw’um] is coming to life.” Many friends, family, school groups, and organizations have paddled over by big canoe taking the 90-minute journey across from Maple Bay on Vancouver Island to Hwaaqw’um on Salt Spring. Luschiim (Arvid Charlie), Hwiemtun (Fred Roland), Qwiyahwul-t-hw (Robert George), and other Quw’utsun Elders and Knowledge Keepers have contributed to many satisfying days on the land, including plant medicine walks, sound healing, and various food harvesting opportunities. “I am envisioning how it used to be when our great-grandmother was here,” says T’awahwiye (Philomena Williams). “The environment was the classroom. We need to get our survivors to places like this. Their spirits are fragmented and lost and they need medicine to build their spirits up again to become healthy people.” The familiar Tzinquaw songs and dances about thunderbird and killer whale, shared by Tousilum and younger singers and dancers at Hwaaqw’um and at many events throughout Quw’utsun Territory, are powerful medicine. Tousilum consistently

Above Left: Welcome Pole raising ceremony at Hwaaqw’um. 2016 Above Right: Tousilum (Ron George) and Qwiyahwul-t-hw, Jr. (Benny George), members of the Tzinquaw Dancers, at the Hwaaqw’um Welcome Pole raising ceremony. 2016

comes prepared with his whole self to crack a joke before leading the Paddle Welcome, Prayer Song, My Son, Where Are You, and other songs passed down to him from a long line of ancestors. Tousilum is a family man, a community man, a ceremonial man. He speaks from that well-rooted place of gentle strength, grounded in the growing acceptance of what was and what is, while staying open to the hopes and dreams he holds for what is yet to be shared on his homelands. Yet Tousilum, like most in his family of twelve children and like many others from the Cowichan Nation, is a residential school survivor. His heart, mind, and physical body were preyed upon, between the ages of five and sixteen, at Kuper Island Residential School, on what is now known as Penelakut Island to the north of Salt Spring, and at St. Mary’s Residential School in Mission, on the mainland of British Columbia. The physical, sexual, and psychological assaults from those governmentsanctioned institutions almost broke him. “For a good part of my life,” confides Tousilum, “the spirituality of my being meant nil. It meant nothing. I didn’t care. Oh, God [sigh], I didn’t care for my physical being, I didn’t look after myself. The only part of me that I really lived in was here—the mind. The mental being. But it was also a scary place to be at.” Of those many decades during which he didn’t listen to his elders, his parents, his grandparents, he says, “I only carried on one vicious way of life. From the age of thirteen, I could drown it with all the alcohol that I wanted to. And I did that.”

Tousilum wants his story to be heard as he continues to shed light into the dark corners of his past and moves toward healing for himself and toward clearing away some of the weight felt by all of his descendants. “You can share, it’s out there now. I want people to know.” Truth, Respect, Healing. These are fundamental human rights. “We were put in our place and were silenced—for so many generations we were silenced. And for a long time after that we were silent. Many more generations after that. All that kept me going was that the old people never gave up on me. They saw that pain in this young man. They saw this anger in this young person. They saw the chaos in me. They saw the running away that I did. They recognized all of that. Just very simple

Above: Tousilum (Ron George) and Qwiyahwul-t-hw, Jr. (Benny George) standing by the Hwaaqw’um Welcome Pole. 2016

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 71

words, saying, ‘Hey, we need you,’ and they took me in; and I started dancing, I started singing, I started drumming. I danced and I danced and I danced, and I loved it. That kept me going, and I’m still going yet. So the dances that we do, called the Tzinquaw, it’s been about 60 years for me now, and they are still in my heart and my soul yet, today.”

and other intertidal plant species for the first time ever in his life—one of a very long list of rights and responsibilities that had been taken away from him. Yet, the day-long grin the 70-year-old was wearing suddenly vanished as he looked north, lifting his gaze from the rock in front of him. The looming memory of the Kuper (Penelakut) Island Residential School, on the island just across the water from Southey Point, again brought tears to his eyes.

I am well into my 30s. In school, our Canadian history textbooks taught me nothing about residential schools; experimentation on and sterilizations of Indigenous men and women; the “Sixties Scoop” when Indigenous children in Canada were taken from their families and placed in foster homes or given away for adoption; the potlatch ban; and all other land and economic policies put in place through the Indian Act to ensure the economic and social failure of countless Indigenous people. Tousilum: “I am a second-class Below: Songs around the fire. L to R: Joe Akerman, Benji George, Hwiemtun (Fred Roland), citizen in this country. I don’t like Tousilum (Ron George), and Qwiyahwul-t-hw (Robert George). 2015 Canada. I don’t stand up for the anthem or celebrate Canada Day.” Finding the strength to stare into the eyes of his Language and culture loss, violence, substance abuse, own lived trauma and to make daily efforts to heal got and suicide epidemics are the hallmarks of the very a boost on two sunny spring days in 2015. On the first deep intergenerational effects of colonial trauma. day, Tousilum bravely took part in the first-ever public sharing of his painful past, with largely unknown If Tousilum and my Quw’utsun family can find workshop participants made up of leadership from ways to heal, I can heal, the land can heal, and local government, schools, and other community settlers can heal. The hard work we do now forms organizations in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver deep ancestral memories with future generations Island. He joined a group of five Hul’q’umi’num who will continue to heal in ways as yet unseen. Elders—like him survivors of residential school— We have all been colonized, and we can begin to set to lead a Cultural Connections Workshop. Bringing ourselves free by getting back to the land to sit and settlers and survivors together in a direct and heartlearn from the old people. centered way, this experiential workshop moved Hwaaqw’um is more than a place for me. It is participants through an abbreviated version of the an ancestor—a relative. My relationship with process of colonization from first European contact. Hwaaqw’um teaches me the intimate responsibilities One by one, the Elders began to share their very woven within the continuation of intergenerational personal and raw stories of their own residential land and sea relationships. The trauma inflicted school experience. upon Indigenous Peoples by colonial structures over The second day, on a span of intertidal rock at the last 150 years and more has also been inflicted P’q’unup (Southey Point at the northern end of on our land and sea relations via the often careless, relentless extraction of ecological resources. Salt Spring), Tousilum happily harvested seaweed

72 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

At a 2016 panel on reconciliation held at the University of Victoria, one of the Indigenous panel members reflected: “Before reconciliation we need healing, before healing we need trust, before trust we need truth. With truth in place, we can finally talk of justice, but before justice is possible we need to talk about the land. It’s always been about the land. Extraction of resources at unsustainable levels: money, greed, arrogance.” Confronting this harm and creating a future that revitalizes a sustainable and respectful place for our children and grandchildren means honoring our ancestors and the ancestors of the places we visit and occupy. Importantly, it also means resisting the deeply embedded, often invisible, genocidal processes of colonization and unchecked resource extraction. In this light, ignoring the pressing biocultural issues of our time is not an option. A sustainable future must protect the people and the land—it must create space for all of our relations.

“If Tousilum and my Quw’utsun family can find ways to heal, I can heal, the land can heal, and settlers can heal.” Resilient, graceful, and inspirational Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and Youth carefully maintain and generously share the knowledge, culturally practiced legal frameworks, and inspiration for healing the land and ourselves. Deep healing through the language, teachings, songs, and ceremonies passed down by countless generations

Above: Joe Akerman and Luschiim (Arvid Charlie) at Hwaaqw’um before the departure of the Big Canoe. 2015

of ancestors, and through stories shared by countless generations to come, will continue here on the rich lands we all live on and enjoy. For true reconciliation to be implemented and sustained, Canadians must return considerable tracts of land and water, power, and resources back to the keepers of the lands they occupy. The vast privilege enjoyed by settlers on Indigenous lands must be acknowledged and concerted efforts made to support the continuation and resurgence of local Indigenous laws and ways of being. All Canadians can participate in healing relationships with the land, with one another and with local Indigenous people, taking meaningful steps on the lifelong journey of being welcomed by Quw’utsun or other local First Nation families and communities.

Joe Akerman is of mixed Quw’utsun and European heritage. T’awaxwultun is his ancestral Hul’q’umi’num name. Living on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Joe helped spark a movement to save Grace Islet, a First Nation sacred site, from development and leads the Xwaaqw’um Project, which aims to create space for Elders and Knowledge Keepers to continue and enhance culture, language, and land-based knowledge and opportunities. To learn more about, follow, and support the Xwaaqw’um Project, you can visit www.xwaaqwum.com, where you can also watch short videos of the project’s activities and events.

Further Reading

Akerman, B., & Sherwood, L. (2005). The Akerman Family: Growing up on Salt Spring. Salt Spring Island, BC: Author. Marshall, D. P. (1999). Those Who Fell from the Sky: A History of the Cowichan People. Duncan, BC, Canada: Cultural and Educational Centre, Cowichan Tribes. McEwen, C., & Ling, C. (2008). Community Action on Salt Spring. Retrieved from https://crcresearch.org/communityresearch-connections/crc-case-studies/community-action-salt-spring-island

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 73

Shle’muxun Daniel Kirkpatrick

Reconnecting with the Salish Sea Bioregion

F

lorence James smiled and said the word again, a little more slowly: “Shle’muxun.” The fifty or so people in the audience quietly rolled the sound across their tongues, trying it out. A helper took a marker and wrote out the word on butcher paper, checked the spelling with Florence, and posted the sheet on the wall. Shle’muxun. This term, from the Hu’l’qumi’num language that Florence has spoken from childhood and now teaches, means “guardian of the land,” or “stewardship.” Sharing this word was a highlight of “Reconnecting,” a four-hour event held in June 2017 on Galiano Island in the Salish Sea Bioregion—a region that spans the Canada–U.S. boundary and includes many islands and coastlines on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Florence is an elder of the Penelakut Nation on nearby Penelakut Island, where her people seek to live by the premise of shle’muxen. “Reconnecting” participants, diverse in age and politics, had traveled from several other islands and mainland British Columbia and Washington State to explore the concept of stewardship and what it means to them. The perspective that Florence brought helped enrich participants’ discussions about caring for nature, ensuring that honoring the original stewards of the land was part of the puzzle. She highlighted the critical importance

74 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

of watching, listening, and learning from one’s surroundings. Being carefully attentive to place can allow one to live in a way that does not take more from Nature than what regenerates. The Salish Sea is a verdant region, reaching from mountaintops to the sea and encompassing many protected islands along the western flank of North America. Within the Salish Sea, dozens of First Nations and Native American Nations reside. Yet the dysfunction of contemporary Western society and its vast impacts Top: The Salish Sea Bioregion offers an ideal location for sustainability initiatives that honor First Nations rights. Photo: Daniel Kirkpatrick, 2017 Inset: Florence James, an elder of the Penelakut Nation who teaches cultural history and the Hul’q’umi’num language, was a keynote speaker at “Reconnecting,” held in June 2017 on Galiano Island in the Salish Sea. Here she is seen talking with Daniel Kirkpatrick. Photo: Lisa K. Beck, 2017

lie heavily, like a synthetic blanket, upon the ecosystems and Native cultures of this region. Like so many other parts of our planet, the ecosystem has suffered dramatic increases in population density, industrialization, unsustainable resource extraction, and habitat loss. Yet the blanket of dominance is wearing thin, yielding openings where light passes through the prevailing economic and social systems to reveal examples of ecological harmony and Indigenous autonomy. In these places we find inspiration for the pursuit of pathways toward a resonant and healthy eco-cultural future. The Salish Sea is in some ways an ideal place to build a model society of resilience, harmony, and wisdom. The government of British Columbia, which overlays part of this region, has one of the broadest and most comprehensive carbon tax systems on earth, which—to the extent it is effectively implemented—is a major achievement. The head of Canada’s Green Party is an elected member of parliament from this district. The region also contains the locality with the highest concentration of electric cars per capita in Canada. Further, there is a small but growing number of meaningful agreements between settler groups and First Nations about the protection of sacred sites and recognition of Indigenous land rights in the province.

“The blanket of dominance is wearing thin, yielding openings where light passes through the prevailing economic and social systems to reveal examples of ecological harmony and Indigenous autonomy.” In the portion of the Salish Sea flying the U.S. flag, Washington State also has a strong environmental legacy. This legacy includes mandatory kindergarten to Grade 12 environmental education, a robust set of policies guiding the protection of water quality, and a growing collection of leading-edge green industries. The historic Boldt decision regarding fishing rights in Washington State waters was a court decree that, after years of struggle, marked a substantial shift toward honoring Native fishing rights. First Nations and Native American Nations hold on to their own autonomy on both sides of the international boundary. These groups have cared for

the land and the water for millennia. Their work has not been easy; their lands have been appropriated and their autonomy repeatedly challenged. Yet each Nation has in its own way survived, and many have become leading advocates for the shift to good stewardship practices, including habitat preservation, renewable energy, and protection of cultural heritage. Given this chromatically and politically green region, one might assume that its denizens have achieved a minimal ecological footprint and assured its sustainability. This is hardly the case. Industrialization and capitalism are very strong forces here, with immense momentum and entrenched power. Moreover, there is a wide chasm between belief and practice on the part of green citizens. It takes more than a Greenpeace bumper sticker to transform one’s relationship with the ecosystem, and attending occasional public meetings does not ensure the restoration of Indigenous rights. Part of the problem for the dominant, settler population is epistemological, rooted in the way meaning is determined. Above: Ornithologist and filmmaker Rob Butler was a keynote speaker at “Reconnecting” and is an advocate for a Nature Culture. Photo: Daniel Kirkpatrick, 2017

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 75

Time is always of the essence to European cultures. Contracts have deadlines, obligations are backed up by penalties if work is not done on time, and the idiom “time is money” reflects the bond between capitalist economies and the passage of time. This is an operant worldview in which things are manipulated to achieve results, typically for financial gain. Such an orientation does not place value on taking time to listen to and learn from the ecosystem. Instead, things must be done. Forests cleared, crops planted, structures built, products produced. One may lose ownership of one’s land by failing to pay tax bills on time. Indigenous Peoples, in contrast, value place above all else. The land is alive. And for those living on the land, the close relationship between humans, nature, and survival underscores the value of attending to the nuances of the ecosystem. This attention cannot be rushed. It is a worldview of attentive presence, following natural cycles rather than imposing arbitrary schedules upon the work of living. When a place is threatened by development, as places so often are, the issue for Aboriginal people is not simply one of real estate. It is an issue of identity. Thus, in land use decisions, the would-be developer of the land and the one who lives close to

the land speak about different things, with different meanings, even when discussing the same project at the same location. Such communication and decisional processes are asymmetrical and come with built-in misunderstandings. Such an asymmetry is not immutable, and the door to a place-based consciousness is not closed to settlers. Yet such awareness cannot be bought nor obtained quickly. Sit quietly. Do so regularly. Observe. Spend time watching the seasons and the cycles of plant growth and the migration of animals to slowly build the experiential foundation needed to truly understand your place. The patterns of the living world gradually emerge into discernible form for the denizen who applies consistent attention. Then, those patterns can be grounded in a cultural context through a similar discipline of learning the human history, the original names for natural features, and the stories that define the place. It is fortunate that decision making around land use and development is increasingly influenced by an Aboriginal perspective. In Washington State, the construction of a vast new coal-shipping terminal was abandoned in 2017 when the Lummi Nation asserted tribal fishing rights in the adjacent waters. That fishery

Above: About fifty people gathered in June 2017 to share a feast and explore the meaning of stewardship, or shle’muxun, together. Photo: Lisa K. Beck, 2017

76 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

would have been irreversibly damaged if the coal port had been built. Such decisions demonstrate that while traditional peoples may be in a familiar position— advocating for the natural world—they may be doing so with a new level of political empowerment. Another hopeful example of Native influence is a joint study of clam garden aquaculture around the islands of the Salish Sea. This project brings together scientists from Parks Canada with coastal First Nations elders to investigate the historical practice of building clam gardens. At these sites, rocky berms were placed in intertidal waters to enhance habitat for key food species such as clams and mussels. The recognition of this traditional practice is “new” to modern science. Most vividly, the linkage between practitioners of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and modern scientists reflects a new opportunity to better understand this unique practice. A theatrical production called Sxw?amet, or “Home,” marks a further bright spot in the development of an eco-cultural consciousness in the Salish Sea. Developed by a collection of Indigenous and settler playwrights and performers, this production by the Theatre for Living incorporates audience participation to explore barriers to reconciliation and enrich participants’ cross-cultural awareness. Sxw?amet was performed recently in Vancouver and is slated to be on tour throughout the region in 2018. Above: Establishing a network of attentive stewards in the Salish Sea Bioregion may provide a model for other bioregions around the world. Photo: Daniel Kirkpatrick, 2017

Each performance is different, yet they all trace the complicated relationship between settlers and First Nations people, and they bring to life the path toward reconciliation for those in attendance. Through participatory arts, the Theatre for Living is playing an important role in facilitating the relational work needed for a new era of understanding. Back at the “Reconnecting” event, the lead presenter sharing the stage with Florence James was Robert Butler, an ornithologist and filmmaker who advocates moving toward a Nature Culture.* As an ornithologist, Rob has spent significant time observing the cycles of nature, giving him a rich sense of place in the region. The Nature Culture initiative offers a path to link contemporary living with a reverence for Nature and to bring sustainability within reach. Such acts as taking walks in the woods for exercise, rather than driving to the gym, foster both individual health and an affirmation of nature. Eating more local and seasonal foods can strengthen local ecologies and economies while stemming the flow of semitrucks carrying food from distant factory farms. Cultivating community gardens can bring us closer to both our neighbors and to the earth. Small group discussions followed the keynote speakers. Several dialogues had to do with land use: how can landowners care for their homes, farms, * Editor’s Note: See Rob Butler’s article earlier in this section.

Volume 6 Issue 2 | 77

and woodlots in a way that ensures sustainability, while honoring Aboriginal traditions? The event was hosted by the Salish Sea Stewardship Alliance (SSSA), a nascent group aiming to help heal discordant and dysfunctional elements of the relationship between people and place. This group works from the recognition that, while time defines life for those of European heritage, place defines life for Native peoples. Making the shift to sustainability may require a shift from the primacy of time to the primacy of place. Progressive and environmentally oriented people are drawn to live in harmony with the nature around them. Gardening, enhancing habitat, removing invasive species, and focusing on native vegetation are examples of healthy approaches to caring for one’s land. But what would a deeper connection with the land entail? SSSA is developing tools for landowners to better understand and honor First Nations rights, become more educated about fostering ecological health, and obtain stewardship certification for their land. A variety of accreditation programs already exist for land and buildings. The most widely known example is LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, but many others exist, including the more comprehensive certification provided by The Living Building Challenge. What SSSA seeks, beyond a green seal of approval, is a demonstrated commitment to respecting ecocultural in addition to ecological factors. A landowner might agree to use native species in a habitat restoration project. She might mitigate rainwater runoff by ensuring that hard surfaces be porous. And she might go further by ceding certain rights, like that of harvesting medicinal plants, to local Aboriginal groups. Eventually that landowner might take part in an eco-cultural inventory that would feed

into a region-wide species distribution and human heritage database. Together, such strategies form a pragmatic land-based stewardship model. One does not have to tear up one’s land title to honor an eco-cultural perspective. A significant step in the right direction would be the adoption— or restoration—of Indigenous place names. Since those names, instead of featuring conquerors and exploiters, bring forth the living fabric of a place, embracing them is a vital way to restore a consciousness of place. Bringing terms from

“First Nations and Native American Nations… have cared for the land and the water for millennia.” Indigenous languages into regular use also offers a chance to better understand a Native worldview and perhaps reduce the asymmetry of cultures. Ultimately, each denizen of the region must take steps to re-inhabit her or his place by investing attention in that place, growing in relation to that place, and gradually making place paramount. The Salish Sea Bioregion has a high percentage of ecologically minded people who—despite continued excessive consumption, reliance on fossil fuels, and general ignorance of Indigenous cultures—are beginning to wake up. Meaningful engagement and a deeper awareness of place can be the ground for a community of landowners and allies committed to tracking biodiversity, fostering cultural reconciliation, and supporting new, sustainable economies. Shle’muxun is an attainable and necessary goal. As a network of attentive stewards takes shape, the door opens to a powerful new era in this bioregion, which ultimately may become a model for other bioregions around the globe.

Daniel Kirkpatrick resides part time in Bellingham, USA, near his gardens and part time in the Canadian Gulf Islands, near an expanse of wild nature. Daniel has spent 40 years fostering learning focused on nature studies, human relations, martial arts, and global issues. He also loves writing, drawing, playing music, and carving wood.

Further Reading

Arnett, C. (1999). The Terror of the Coast. Vancouver, BC: Talonnbooks Press. Butler, R. (2017). Nature Culture Blog. Retrieved from http://www.pacificwildlife.wordpress.com Sellars, B. (2016). Price Paid: The Fight for First Nations Survival. Vancouver, BC: Talonbooks Press. Thornton, T. F. (2008). Being and Place Among the Tlingit. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.

78 | Langscape Magazine Winter 2017

. nature . language . culture .

LANGSCAPE MAGAZINE VOLUME 7, ISSUE 1, SUMMER 2018

CALL FOR ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS

COMING SOON

Sign up for Terralingua’s enews and receive the call for submissions this winter www.terralinguaubuntu.org/enews Read past articles on Medium: medium.com/langscape-magazine Questions? Contact us through our website

Or email [email protected]

KEEP THE PRESSES ROLLING! LANGSCAPE MAGAZINE

is an entirely not-for-profit publication and is made possible by your subscriptions as well as by your generous donations to Terralingua Subscribe to Langscape Magazine www.terralinguaubuntu.org/subscribe Or Donate to Support Langscape Magazine www.terralinguaubuntu.org/donate Or Sponsor an Issue! www.terralinguaubuntu.org/Langscape/langscape-sponsorship

Terralin gua

U N I T Y IN BIO CULT URAL DIVERSIT Y

Terralingua n 1: the languages of the Earth, the many voices of the world’s diverse peoples. 2: the language of the Earth, the voice of Mother Nature. 3: an international non-governmental organization (NGO) that works to sustain the biocultural diversity of life – a precious heritage to be cherished, protected, and nurtured for generations to come. ¶ From Italian terra ‘earth’ and lingua ‘language’ www.terralingua.org

“The more cultures there are, with a diverse set of approaches, worldviews, and strategies arising from them—and therefore the more varied the responses we give to a multitude of stress factors we are faced with—the more resilient we become as a global society. … We have to constantly remind ourselves that diversity—both in the species around us and within ourselves as yet another species—is one of the critical factors that will enable us to ensure our future on this intrinsically diverse planet.” ―Olga Mironenko