"Ecological Indian"

 This animation of Mother Earth Indigenous populations realize does not exempt these populations from enacting impacts on the land. Evading the “Ecological Indian” bias, there are lessons to be learned by observing Indigenous cultural practices as they interact amongst the land. Their ancestral knowledge of the land is a proficiency lost in post-colonist education. When colonizers declared America to be theirs, they were under the assumption that the land had not been touched, that it was pristine nature, wild and unkempt. Because the land was not managed the European way, the conscious husbandry of the landscape was not made evident. To white settlers, it was a novel and virgin land. To Native inhabitants, it was their ancestral home. Subtle but in no way “unimproved”, American landscapes were humanized environments. Regular vegetation burns facilitated the formation of grassy habitats open to berry bushes, birds, deer, and game for the purpose of hunting and gathering for caloric intake. In order for the Indigenous people to meet their requirements for sustenance, building materials, cultural activities, etc, intensive management of the land and biotic resources was necessary. So much so, in fact, that there were significant ecological and evolutionary consequences. Coining the term “proto agricultural” techniques, Indigenous peoples utilized traditional knowledge of natural processes gained over the millennia of inherited ancestral wisdom and applied it to increase the quantity and improve select qualities of focal plant species. The ecological impact of aboriginal land management practices was influential in the equilibrium maintained amongst the local biosphere. Their deep knowledge of the land and the flora and fauna sharing the land alongside them was pivotal in sustaining the complex diversity and precarious balance of the environment. We as environmental scholars must ensure that the previously marginalized and excluded voices of Indigenous people are no longer on the periphery of our academic conversations. By recognizing their lived experiences, the historical oppression and ostracism systematically ingrained into the current normalized scholarship for the climate crisis will include and elevate these buried voices.