Humans Tending Nature
If you enjoyed Robin Wall Kimmerer's “Braiding Sweetgrass,” here is another book that brings this way of thinking about nature closer to the realm of our own landscapes. I've been reading Jared Rosenbaum’s new book, Wild Plant Culture, whenever I can sneak in a few minutes...it's a very good read.
What gets me excited about Rosenbaum is that he is a restoration ecologist who is ironically not so interested in restoring a landscape to some supposed pre-human-intervention standard. Rather he works with the idea that the most healthy, diverse, and productive landscapes are those that are tended by humans with a certain attention to and knowledge of how ecosystem elements interact.
“It is time to expand our vision past supporting ‘birds, butterflies, and bees’ and fully integrate the most challenging animal of all—the human being—into our native plant gardens.”
He describes two different economic lifeways that humans have pursued. The first is something that has come to be called "Ecoculture", a term that goes a little further than the term 'Hunter-gatherer."
“In Ecoculture, we are keystone animals, participating in and constantly melding the natural ecology around us to be its most abundant and productive.
“Ecoculture management practices benefit an entire plant and animal community, and we humans thrive on the resulting abundance. This lifeway rewards awareness and deep knowledge of ecology, and produces cooperative relationships, including among humans, who typically live in egalitarian societies. The path of ecoculture is typical of many human cultures for the past 10,000 years, probably much more.” This is of course what Kimmerer was talking about in “Braiding Sweetgrass,” where she describes how Native American cultures tended the land.
This is in contrast to “a second type of agriculture based on monocrops of domesticated plants, usually annuals. Here, humans clear away natural communities and optimize conditions for a narrow group of crop species intended to benefit ourselves exclusively.”
His book has a section on plant communities that is applicable to much of eastern North America. He writes about native plants in medicinal and food contexts. He writes about how to learn about your own land, including how to find a reference site for inspiration. There is quite a bit of practical advice on seeding and propagating. And there is a wonderful 120-page section on plant species—the most interesting I’ve ever read (and believe me, I have read a lot of these!).
I would recommend this book especially to homeowners with a lot of land, or who have some naturalized areas that they are stewarding.
I hope you are enjoying seeing the fresh buds and signs of spring! With the plants starting to emerge, this is again a very good time to schedule a consult. Learn more here.
Happy Tending!
Chris