First Nations: Ethical Landscapes, Sacred Plants
NYBG symposium bringing together Indigenous environmental experts from the United States and Canada to discuss how Native communities are researching and addressing threats to their lands from extractive industries, pollution, and climate change. The speakers share Native understandings of the medicinal and nutritional value of plants and models of ethical and sustainable land use. They also suggest how botanical gardens can learn from Indigenous plant experts in a spirit of respect and reciprocity and in full recognition of the ways in which these institutions have supported and profited from colonialism in the past. They consider how to build a just alliance with Indigenous scholars to work together with due humility toward a more sustainable relationship with plants.
