Want to save the planet? Finger Lakes Native American author offers ideas how

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

CANANDAIGUA, NY — For author and botany professor Robin Wall Kimmerer, the "drill, baby, drill” rhetoric adopted by President Donald Trump and his supporters is painful to hear.

The slogan refers to increased drilling for petroleum and gas from the Earth. Kimmerer instead offers that Mother Earth is a generous relative and not an objective for exploitation.

“It’s as if it’s a stick in the eye to everything we love,” said Kimmerer, who on March 2 spoke at Fort Hill Performing Arts Center as part of the George M. Ewing Canandaigua Forum speaker series. “What if we said, ‘plant, baby, plant?”

Planting is definitely more Kimmerer’s style. Her garden outside Syracuse, of which she said she is the “lucky steward,” is 7 acres of old field, woods and wetlands yielding gifts such as blackberries, elderberries, black walnuts and more.

“It’s a forager’s paradise,” Kimmerer said.

Kimmerer, an Indigenous scientist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, director of the SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry Center for Native Peoples and the Environment in Syracuse, author of the award-winning “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants,” came to Canandaigua during a time in American history when notions of saving the land — and the value of science seemingly — are being shortchanged, to put it mildly, in certain circles.

Here are ways of protecting land in the Finger Lakes

Robin Wall Kimmerer,right, shares insights on Native American wisdom and plants during a George M. Ewing Canandaigua Forum talk March 2 at Fort Hill Performing Arts Center in Canandaigua. She is the author of "Braiding Sweetgrass" and the director of the SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Trish Corcoran, an educator at the Harley School in Pittsford, was the moderator.

Kimmerer knows people are buying into the ideas and practices of land restoration and preservation. She hears about it all the time and she is hopeful the movement continues, despite the current political climate.

Changing the perspective of even a fairly small fraction of people, and if those people are vocal and practice stewardship and other skills, then other people will be inspired and say, "‘Oh! That’s how we’re doing things,’” Kimmerer said in a short interview after the talk.

Kimmerer shared the story of a Wall Street financier who had had enough and wanted to shift gears. So, he bought land and started an organic farm.

Others have similar stories, large and small, of eschewing manicured grass lawns and rewilding them or even starting a forest preschool, for youngsters to learn about the outdoors in a natural classroom.

One person alone can do something. All together, “we can do everything,” Kimmerer said. "It’s really gratifying to hear those stories.”

Kimmerer: 'Create a ruckus' through gratitude in the Finger Lakes

To embrace the “plant, baby, plant” ethos, create a ruckus, Kimmerer suggested.

One way, of course, is by planting. Think of plants as teachers who know how to heal the land.

One of Native American author and scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer's calls to action is to raise a "ruckus" in protecting the Earth, which this demonstrator in Canandaigua on March 3 took to heart.

Join tree justice and food sovereignty movements. Become part of or create a community garden. When it teems with produce, create a community garden farmstand. Go to public hearings and write letters.

Practice a small-community economy based on reciprocity and gift giving — a tenet of her most recent book, "The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the New World”— not hoarding.

"Mother Earth showers us with gifts that we have not earned or paid for," said Kimmerer, adding that all she asks for in return are "gratitude and reciprocity."

Plants as voices of environmental movements

Harley School educator Trish Corcoran (left), who served as moderator of the recent Ewing Canandaigua Forum talk by author Robin Wall Kimmerer, presents her with a a gift of a wampum belt

Moderator Trish Corcoran, an educator at the Harley School in Pittsford and a member of the Tonawanda Onondowaga Bear Clan, also serves on the board of Friends of Ganondagan.

Corcoran called Kimmerer a “rock star.” She is, in her own way. Kimmerer is a frequent lecturer and has spoken with the likes of the music artist Bjork and Jane Goodall, who famously studied primates.

Not bad for someone whose first book, “Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Moss,” was about, well, moss. And her second was about, well, sweetgrass. Her most recent book is well, about serviceberries.

Well, actually, they’re more about calls to actions, culture, embracing different persepctives, land restoration and respect, and so much more. But plants, Corcoran noted, are the main characters.

“I feel a responsibility to be a voice for those plants,” Kimmerer said. “If I could make people fall in love with mosses, maybe then I could help people fall in love with the world.”

Mike Murphy covers Canandaigua and other communities in Ontario County and writes the Eat, Drink and Be Murphy food and drink column. Follow him on X at @MPN_MikeMurphy.