#foodforests — Public Fediverse posts

The #Indigenous Roots of #RegenerativeAgriculture

“All flourishing is mutual.”
– Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

August 9, 2023

"While a new wave of enthusiasm has crested in recent years, regenerative agriculture is an ancient concept that originated with #IndigenousPeoples around the world more than a thousand years ago. In many Indigenous world views, humans and nature are not separate forces, but parts of a whole that need each other to thrive. Regenerative agriculture supports this by promoting farming methods that enrich the land—so it can continue to provide for present and future generations.

"Embracing #TraditionalKnowledge

"Due to the long and horrific history of #StolenLand and #colonization, the Global North often refers to #IndigenousPeoples’ culture and knowledge in the past tense. Yet today, Indigenous peoples are indisputably the best guardians of our world’s most precious #ecosystems. When you take into account that the few remaining Indigenous lands are home to 80 percent of the world’s #Biodiversity, while modern #IndustrialAgriculture is responsible for 80 percent of global #deforestation, it’s clear that Western society still desperately needs to learn what Indigenous people have known for millennia: that human beings must live in a reciprocal relationship with the Earth.

"Around the world, Indigenous peoples have long practiced the key elements of regenerative agriculture. Here are just a few examples:

The art of #agroforestry

Some Indigenous communities, like the #Lenca people in #Honduras, know agroforestry simply as 'traditional technique.' Agroforestry—or the concept of growing crops in a way that mimics the forest and offers shade, protection, and nutrients—is such common practice there is no special name for it.

"Our lead for sustainable forest management, Emmanuelle Bérenger, explains the importance of Indigenous growing methods: 'By using #sustainable practices taught from one generation to another, [Indigenous peoples] actively safeguard forests, preserving biodiversity and keeping a delicate balance essential for both the environment and their own sustenance.' "

Learn more:
https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/insights/the-indigenous-roots-of-regenerative-agriculture/

#SolarPunkSunday #Intercropping #FoodForests #ProtectNature #ProtectBiodiversity

The #Indigenous Roots of #RegenerativeAgriculture

“All flourishing is mutual.”
– Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

August 9, 2023

"While a new wave of enthusiasm has crested in recent years, regenerative agriculture is an ancient concept that originated with #IndigenousPeoples around the world more than a thousand years ago. In many Indigenous world views, humans and nature are not separate forces, but parts of a whole that need each other to thrive. Regenerative agriculture supports this by promoting farming methods that enrich the land—so it can continue to provide for present and future generations.

"Embracing #TraditionalKnowledge

"Due to the long and horrific history of #StolenLand and #colonization, the Global North often refers to #IndigenousPeoples’ culture and knowledge in the past tense. Yet today, Indigenous peoples are indisputably the best guardians of our world’s most precious #ecosystems. When you take into account that the few remaining Indigenous lands are home to 80 percent of the world’s #Biodiversity, while modern #IndustrialAgriculture is responsible for 80 percent of global #deforestation, it’s clear that Western society still desperately needs to learn what Indigenous people have known for millennia: that human beings must live in a reciprocal relationship with the Earth.

"Around the world, Indigenous peoples have long practiced the key elements of regenerative agriculture. Here are just a few examples:

The art of #agroforestry

Some Indigenous communities, like the #Lenca people in #Honduras, know agroforestry simply as 'traditional technique.' Agroforestry—or the concept of growing crops in a way that mimics the forest and offers shade, protection, and nutrients—is such common practice there is no special name for it.

"Our lead for sustainable forest management, Emmanuelle Bérenger, explains the importance of Indigenous growing methods: 'By using #sustainable practices taught from one generation to another, [Indigenous peoples] actively safeguard forests, preserving biodiversity and keeping a delicate balance essential for both the environment and their own sustenance.' "

Learn more:
https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/insights/the-indigenous-roots-of-regenerative-agriculture/

#SolarPunkSunday #Intercropping #FoodForests #ProtectNature #ProtectBiodiversity

The #Indigenous Roots of #RegenerativeAgriculture

“All flourishing is mutual.”
– Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

August 9, 2023

"While a new wave of enthusiasm has crested in recent years, regenerative agriculture is an ancient concept that originated with #IndigenousPeoples around the world more than a thousand years ago. In many Indigenous world views, humans and nature are not separate forces, but parts of a whole that need each other to thrive. Regenerative agriculture supports this by promoting farming methods that enrich the land—so it can continue to provide for present and future generations.

"Embracing #TraditionalKnowledge

"Due to the long and horrific history of #StolenLand and #colonization, the Global North often refers to #IndigenousPeoples’ culture and knowledge in the past tense. Yet today, Indigenous peoples are indisputably the best guardians of our world’s most precious #ecosystems. When you take into account that the few remaining Indigenous lands are home to 80 percent of the world’s #Biodiversity, while modern #IndustrialAgriculture is responsible for 80 percent of global #deforestation, it’s clear that Western society still desperately needs to learn what Indigenous people have known for millennia: that human beings must live in a reciprocal relationship with the Earth.

"Around the world, Indigenous peoples have long practiced the key elements of regenerative agriculture. Here are just a few examples:

The art of #agroforestry

Some Indigenous communities, like the #Lenca people in #Honduras, know agroforestry simply as 'traditional technique.' Agroforestry—or the concept of growing crops in a way that mimics the forest and offers shade, protection, and nutrients—is such common practice there is no special name for it.

"Our lead for sustainable forest management, Emmanuelle Bérenger, explains the importance of Indigenous growing methods: 'By using #sustainable practices taught from one generation to another, [Indigenous peoples] actively safeguard forests, preserving biodiversity and keeping a delicate balance essential for both the environment and their own sustenance.' "

Learn more:
https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/insights/the-indigenous-roots-of-regenerative-agriculture/

#SolarPunkSunday #Intercropping #FoodForests #ProtectNature #ProtectBiodiversity

The #Indigenous Roots of #RegenerativeAgriculture

“All flourishing is mutual.”
– Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

August 9, 2023

"While a new wave of enthusiasm has crested in recent years, regenerative agriculture is an ancient concept that originated with #IndigenousPeoples around the world more than a thousand years ago. In many Indigenous world views, humans and nature are not separate forces, but parts of a whole that need each other to thrive. Regenerative agriculture supports this by promoting farming methods that enrich the land—so it can continue to provide for present and future generations.

"Embracing #TraditionalKnowledge

"Due to the long and horrific history of #StolenLand and #colonization, the Global North often refers to #IndigenousPeoples’ culture and knowledge in the past tense. Yet today, Indigenous peoples are indisputably the best guardians of our world’s most precious #ecosystems. When you take into account that the few remaining Indigenous lands are home to 80 percent of the world’s #Biodiversity, while modern #IndustrialAgriculture is responsible for 80 percent of global #deforestation, it’s clear that Western society still desperately needs to learn what Indigenous people have known for millennia: that human beings must live in a reciprocal relationship with the Earth.

"Around the world, Indigenous peoples have long practiced the key elements of regenerative agriculture. Here are just a few examples:

The art of #agroforestry

Some Indigenous communities, like the #Lenca people in #Honduras, know agroforestry simply as 'traditional technique.' Agroforestry—or the concept of growing crops in a way that mimics the forest and offers shade, protection, and nutrients—is such common practice there is no special name for it.

"Our lead for sustainable forest management, Emmanuelle Bérenger, explains the importance of Indigenous growing methods: 'By using #sustainable practices taught from one generation to another, [Indigenous peoples] actively safeguard forests, preserving biodiversity and keeping a delicate balance essential for both the environment and their own sustenance.' "

Learn more:
https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/insights/the-indigenous-roots-of-regenerative-agriculture/

#SolarPunkSunday #Intercropping #FoodForests #ProtectNature #ProtectBiodiversity

The #Indigenous Roots of #RegenerativeAgriculture

“All flourishing is mutual.”
– Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

August 9, 2023

"While a new wave of enthusiasm has crested in recent years, regenerative agriculture is an ancient concept that originated with #IndigenousPeoples around the world more than a thousand years ago. In many Indigenous world views, humans and nature are not separate forces, but parts of a whole that need each other to thrive. Regenerative agriculture supports this by promoting farming methods that enrich the land—so it can continue to provide for present and future generations.

"Embracing #TraditionalKnowledge

"Due to the long and horrific history of #StolenLand and #colonization, the Global North often refers to #IndigenousPeoples’ culture and knowledge in the past tense. Yet today, Indigenous peoples are indisputably the best guardians of our world’s most precious #ecosystems. When you take into account that the few remaining Indigenous lands are home to 80 percent of the world’s #Biodiversity, while modern #IndustrialAgriculture is responsible for 80 percent of global #deforestation, it’s clear that Western society still desperately needs to learn what Indigenous people have known for millennia: that human beings must live in a reciprocal relationship with the Earth.

"Around the world, Indigenous peoples have long practiced the key elements of regenerative agriculture. Here are just a few examples:

The art of #agroforestry

Some Indigenous communities, like the #Lenca people in #Honduras, know agroforestry simply as 'traditional technique.' Agroforestry—or the concept of growing crops in a way that mimics the forest and offers shade, protection, and nutrients—is such common practice there is no special name for it.

"Our lead for sustainable forest management, Emmanuelle Bérenger, explains the importance of Indigenous growing methods: 'By using #sustainable practices taught from one generation to another, [Indigenous peoples] actively safeguard forests, preserving biodiversity and keeping a delicate balance essential for both the environment and their own sustenance.' "

Learn more:
https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/insights/the-indigenous-roots-of-regenerative-agriculture/

#SolarPunkSunday #Intercropping #FoodForests #ProtectNature #ProtectBiodiversity

Nutrition programs work better when they include #Indigenous food knowledge

Researchers found nutrition programs work better when they include Indigenous food knowledge, local languages, and traditional practices.

By Raquel Brandao, July 24, 2026

Excerpt: "Cameras, cooking and conversation

"Some things worked. #Storytelling, #workshops, and #CookingDemonstrations turned up again and again across the 39 studies, alongside #TalkingCircles, #ShortFilms and #SmartphoneApps.

"The common thread is direction. Each of these methods lets people speak in their own words rather than sit and receive instruction.

"In #NewZealand ( #Aotearoa ), researchers built a mobile health app together with #Māori and #Pasifika partners. The language, the stories, and the pictures all came from the communities the app was meant for.

"Speaking with Earth.com, Rao described a project she led. 'In my own work, and one of the papers reviewed, I have used cameras and #DigitalTools with young women and men in an Indigenous community in #India to document their traditional food knowledges by speaking to the elders, visiting the forests and local markets, talking to women engaged in #foraging and #FoodPreparation.'

"That project is one of the 39 studies in the review. An earlier paper followed ten Santhal young people in eastern India who were trained to make films.

"They made nearly 50 films and screened them in their own villages. Older relatives supplied much of what went into them.

Elders as teachers

"Who holds the knowledge matters as much as what the knowledge is. #Elders, #healers, #farmers, and #women each carry different parts of it.

"None of it arrives as a curriculum. It moves between generations through cooking, gathering and long conversation, which is exactly what a nutrition leaflet cannot carry.

" 'Reclaiming and recognising #IndigenousKnowledge , values and practices to address the different elements of nutrition and health involves recognising intergenerational and wider social relations, and engaging everyone from the elders, healers, educators and farmers to service providers, policymakers and academics, to together raise issues and find solutions,' said Rao.

"Traditional foods carry knowledge of the local landscape in a way nothing else does. The review treats them as practical resources rather than heritage."

Read more:
https://www.earth.com/lifestyle/nutrition-programs-work-better-when-they-include-indigenous-food-knowledge/

#SolarPunkSunday #Technology #IndigenousCommunities #TraditionalKnowledge #TraditionalDiets #FoodForests #Foraging #SharingKnowledge #PreservingCulture #TraditionalEcologicalKnowledge #FoodKnowledge #TraditionalFoods

From #Fairways to #FairUse: Repurposing #GolfCourses

How golf courses can be repurposed to meet the needs of people and planet

Autumn 2024
by Grace Crabtree & Dan Woolley

"Back in April 2020, shortly after the UK had gone into lockdown for the first time, Guy Shrubsole, the campaigner and author of Who Owns England (2019), set out to map and investigate London’s golf courses. While a natural continuation of his wider work on land ownership, it was also given particular urgency in the moment – not least for those living in densely populated cities – as the nation began to ask questions about use of, and access to, #GreenSpace.

"The results of this research produced some surprising findings. For example, although a considerable number of golf courses in Greater London are held in private ownership, the figure is less than half, at 45%. This turns out to be only slightly larger than the number owned by councils (42%). After several decades in which councils, schools, and other public institutions have been forced to sell off green space – including school playing fields and county farms – it seems pertinent to ask why so many golf courses have remained untouched.

"Happily, there are signs of progress. In #Cheshire, the #WoodlandTrust recently purchased a former golf course, and have been busy planting trees. The vision is for the site to 'develop as native broadleaf woodland' and to link with other woodland sites as part of the larger #NorthernForest, providing green space and fighting #ClimateChange.

"And further east, on the #Lincolnshire coast, the #NationalTrust is busy converting a disused golf course – #Sandilands – to 'create new habitats for a variety of #wildlife, especially migrating birds like black-tailed #godwit, spotted #redshank and #spoonbills, along with breeding birds such as #snipe, #lapwings and #oystercatchers' This environmental mission is coupled with the social objective of providing 'a space where everyone can enjoy the benefits of being in nature.'

"More controversially, perhaps, the London-based architecture firm #RCKa has developed a proposal to build housing on an existing golf course in #Enfield, at the northern end of the city. Understandably, not everyone agrees with this vision, arguing that green space, once built upon, is lost forever. However, faced with an acute and growing housing crisis, it may be useful to ask whether some compromise solutions might begin to develop at the edges. [Yes, like housing with LOTS of Green Space, including #CommunityGardens , #FoodForests , and #WildlifeCorridors ! Problem solved!]

"What the above examples demonstrate is a growing interest in the potential for repurposing golf courses, for reasons ranging from climate change mitigation and biodiversity benefits, to providing space for housing and food growing.

"Which brings us to #Glasgow, where the #GlasgowCommunityFoodNetwork (#GCFN) are leading on a proposal to transform a disused golf course into a food growing space, with much of the land restored as a richly biodiverse space where wildlife can thrive."

Read more:
https://www.stirtoaction.com/articles/from-fairways-to-fair-use

#SolarPunkSunday #MoreGreenSpace #LessGolfCourses #CommunitySpaces #CommunityGardens

#Wabanaki group restoring 245-acre farm in #SwanvilleME as food hub

#Niweskok, a Wabanaki-led #FoodSovereignty organization, recently bought the farm to aid its work reinvigorating traditional crops and land management.

by Gillian Graham, May 8, 2025

"A Wabanaki-led food sovereignty organization recently acquired a 245-acre farm in Swanville, marking the return of Wabanaki stewardship to ancestral lands in the Penobscot Bay region.

"Niweskok: From the #StarsToSeeds, a collaboration of Wabanaki #FoodAndMedicine providers, has focused for years on reinvigorating #TraditionalCrops and #LandManagement strategies, distributing #TraditionalFoods and hosting workshops. But they did not have a permanent land base until buying the farm.

" 'Now, with this land, we have permanency of place — and the ability to continue this work for generations to come,' said #AliviaMoore, a #PenobscotNation citizen and Niweskok co-director.

"Niweskok (which translates to 'dried seeds for planting' in the Penobscot language) raised more than $1.8 million in just three months to buy the farm, which had been used to raise cattle and board horses. The group continues to raise money toward its $3 million capital campaign goal.

"Acquiring the land in January was a major step toward restoring the #PenobscotBay region as a Wabanaki food hub and allows Indigenous communities to reconnect with #TraditionalFoodways, #medicines and #ecological #stewardship. Niweskok sees the land as an intergenerational center where Wabanaki values of care, reciprocity and sustainability can flourish.
Moore said the land will allow Niweskok to go much deeper in its food production work. The group’s plans for the land include educational programming, #SeedSaving, #WildHarvesting and cultural camps.

"Moore said the land itself would determine the name of the farm. The farm was selected because it is close to the ocean and Penobscot territory.
'Penobscot people have been, through the process of #colonization and #genocide, thoroughly removed from coastal access,' Moore said. 'So for us to truly have healthful economies, healthful social structures and political systems, we need to be able to engage in our coastal ecology.'

"The land, with access to the #GooseRiver, includes agricultural #fields, 140 acres of #forest, #wetlands and ponds. There are miles of riding trails through the woods, which Niweskok staff will map and decide which to maintain and whether more are needed for waterway access.

"Niweskok staff members have been preparing the soil for future planting and harvesting. Moore has been working on a 1-acre welcome garden that includes #perennials, #FruitTrees, #SweetGrass, #blueberries and other plants. Last week, she planted 70 #asparagus seedlings and 35 #rhubarb plants.

"Plans also are underway to spruce up a #farmstand where Niweskok will share #FreeProduce with neighbors.

"Moore has also been focused on working to restore the forests as #FoodForests — a process that will take years — and has started selective cutting to support existing #hazelnut groves and #BlackCherries.

"Niweskok will also create outdoor classrooms for community members to engage with the land, including demonstrations on plantings and #agroforestry techniques.

" 'An outdoor kitchen is one of our high-priority areas because so much of our time and how we want to support our community is being with our foods and outside as much as possible,' Moore said. 'Cooking over open fire is not only a way we want to engage with folks, but an important, culturally significant and really beautiful way to be together.'

"Niweskok this month was awarded the #EspyHeritageAward from the #MaineCoastHeritageTrust, an annual award that recognizes those who make outstanding contributions to #LandConservation while inspiring others. It was the first time the award was given to an #Indigenous-led group.

"Angela Twitchell, director of partnerships and public policy for Maine Coast Heritage Trust, said Niweskok’s work to restore the Penobscot Bay region as a Wabanaki food hub is 'an inspiring example of how land conservation is evolving.'

"For decades starting in the 1950s, land conservation was centered on ecological and species protection and protecting lands from people and development. It has since evolved to center its work in community, Twitchell said.

" '(Niweskok’s) work embodies resilience and a deep commitment to healing and nourishing both the land and the community,' she said. 'The collaborative work between #LandTrusts and Niweskok stands as a model to be replicated.'

"Moore said the award acknowledges the leadership of Niweskok, and added that other incredible Wabanaki-led land work is happening in the region. Moore hopes the award indicates that Maine conservation groups will continue to find ways to support Wabanaki leadership in conservation.

"Having the land has been a 'beautiful invitation' for the #NonWabanaki community 'to support Wabanaki food sovereignty and be in support of our leadership in care of the land,' Moore said."

Source:
https://www.pressherald.com/2025/05/08/wabanaki-group-restoring-245-acre-farm-in-swanville-as-food-hub/

Archived version:
https://archive.md/Ii0au

#WabanakiConfederacy
#MaineFirstNations #LandBack #FoodSecurity #FoodSovereignty #sovereignty #Wabanakik #WabanakiAlliance #Decolonize #SolarPunkSunday #LandStewards #stewardship #NatureEducation #Foraging #Maine #IndigenousPeoplesDay