Restoration and Reciprocity: The Contributions of Traditional Ecological Knowledge
Carol Crowe, an Algonquin ecologist, tells the story of explaining to one of her elders that she was traveling to a conference about sustainable development. The term was not familiar to him, so she explained the notion of managing resources in such a way
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Restoration and Reciprocity: The Contributions of Traditional Ecological Knowledge Robin Kimmerer
Carol Crowe, an Algonquin ecologist, tells the story of explaining to one of her elders that she was traveling to a conference about sustainable development. The term was not familiar to him, so she explained the notion of managing resources in such a way that future generations would be able to obtain the same ecosystem services that are provided today, without impairment to the land. He was quiet for a time. The idea was hardly new to him. He then asked her to carry a message to the conference. He said, “This idea of sustainability sounds to me like the same old formula by which people simply continue to take from the earth. They just want to keep taking. You can’t just take. Tell them, that among our people our concern is not what we can take from the land, but what we can give.”
Restoration and Reciprocity The idea of reciprocity with land is fundamental to many indigenous belief systems. Indeed, such beliefs serve as the foundation for what have been described as “cultures of gratitude.” In such cultures, people have a responsibility not only to be grateful for the gifts provided by Mother Earth, they are also responsible for playing a positive and active role in the well-being of the land. They are called not to be passive consumers, but to sustain the land that sustains them. Responsibilities to the more-than-human world are simultaneously material and spiritual, and, in fact, the two are inseparable. Ecological restoration can be viewed as an act of reciprocity, where humans exercise their care-giving responsibility for ecosystems (Egan 1988; Oeschlager 1996; Kimmerer 2000; Martinez, Salmon, and Nelson 2008). The traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of indigenous peoples is rich with prescriptions, both philosophical and pragmatic, for this practice of giving back to the land. This chapter engages TEK as a partner to contemporary restoration science, in a symbiosis based on intellectual pluralism. “We’re going to need the enduring knowledge of indigenous science as well as the best of leading edge western science. It’s high tech meets high TEK.” (Ausubel 2008). Among my Anishinaabe people, we share a teaching known as “the prophecy of the seventh fire.” This teaching relates that, with the coming of strangers to our shores, D. Egan (eds.), Human Dimensions of Ecological Restoration: Integrating Science, Nature, and Culture, 257 The Science and Practice of Ecological Restoration, DOI 10.5822/978-1-61091-039-2_18, © Island Press 2011
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perspective: eco-cultural restoration
many changes will befall our people. It is said that the land will become fragmented, plants and animals will be lost, that the people will be scattered and divided from their homelands, and that the language spoken for millennia will nearly disappear. As we know, these things have come to pass. Our peoples live on tiny remnants of their original homelands, and our language and culture face many threats. The prophecy explains that the
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