Presents stories of courage, determination, and resistance to multinational corporations and disastrous government policies that are harming the planet and describes how eleven Native people work to save our environment.

"As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on "a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise.""--

An ethnobiologist examines the world of the Papago Indians of Arizona and Mexico, drawing attention to the role of the desert and desert ecology in Papago Indian agriculture, culture and mythology.

"Tibetans preserved whole mountains as sacred sites on which it was forbidden to cut trees or kill animals. The world environmental and social justice crises brought on by our high-throughput global economy can be ameliorated only if we creatively and urgently adapt the pragmatic ethics of social cohesion in traditional societies to the modern world." "Traditional societies have much to teach the modern world about conservation and environmental management....

"An overview of efforts by Native Americans to regain cultural and genetic patrimony and the conditions needed for traditional spiritual practices, including tribal histories, analysis of changes to nutrition, economy, and physical environment, and actions taken toward pollution abatement, dam removal, land and cultural reclamation, and alternative energy production"--Provided by publisher.

"In Shishmaref, Alaska, new seawalls are constructed while residents navigate the many practical and bureaucratic obstacles to moving their entire island village to higher ground. Farther south, inland hunters and fishermen set out to grow more of their own food - and to support the reintroduction of wood bison, an ancient species well suited to expected habitat changes. First Nations people in Canada team with conservationists to protect land for...