Protecting & Respecting the Environment
Protecting and respecting Mother Earth is a basic principle of Indigenous culture.
Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) embodies the life-sustaining wisdom of Indigenous peoples, amassed over a millennia. It entails the belief and practice of existing in harmony and mutual respect with the surrounding environment. This knowledge is gained through observation, firsthand experience, sharing, and transmission to future generations.
“Our Fathers had plenty of deer and skins, our plains were full as also our woods, of turkies, and our coves full of fish and fowle. But these English have gotten our land, they with scythes cut down the grass, and with axes fell the trees; their cows and horses eat the grass, their hogs spoil our clam banks, and we shall all be starved.”
MIANTONOMO, NARRAGANSETT SACHEM, 1642
“How, in our modern world, can we find our way to understand the earth as a gift again, to make our relations with the world sacred again? I know we cannot all become hunter-gathers — but even in a market economy, can we behave ‘as if’ the living world were a gift?”
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass