Gonna sound like an obvious and condescending statement, but: Names are weapons. Language about land, ecology, people, other-than-human lifeforms; that language has strong influence and dire consequences. ”Utilizing, employing, extracting, engaging Indigenous traditional knowledge … ecosystem services … the valuable contributions of forests.” Blah blah blah. Not passively insulting and harmful; actively harmful.
A response to this post i did:
Yes, 110% with you (”colonizer vibes” commenter). “Ecosystem services” is one of the worst terms/concepts, and it is especially insulting and so far beyond tone-deaf when “environmental” groups or ecologists/scientists, thinking themselves to be woke-as-hell, then employ it to justify environmental preservation of an area otherwise already advocated for by Indigenous/local people, especially because there is a kinda unstated juxtaposition in that term/concept, a juxtaposition between “valuing” land for what is heavily implied to be sentimental or superstitious reasons (”Native people want to preserve this place because it’s aesthetically pretty or connected to story/myth or something idk sounds fine”), and instead “valuing” land in the “right” and “scientific” way (Western/Euro-American/neoliberal) for its “important contributions” to something like “carbon sequestration.”
Before any (fellow) ecologists/naturalists/gardenrs get really upset with me, please know that I acknowledge that there will be pivotal (and necessary, and good) moments when: (1) collecting measurable hard data about carbon, chemistry, etc. and (2) translating/abstracting ecological data for the sake of publicity and mainstream/popular presentation are necessary and vital. It’s why communicators like Robin Wall Kimmerer are true godsends who, honestly, aren’t just preempting the saving of human communities but are also preventing death of other-than-human beings, by “bridging the gap” or “translating” data, by taking what might appear to be “cold” numbers and communicating the global, life-and-death consequences. Collecting info about how soil death or atmospheric moisture influence marine algae blooms provides true revelations that certainly matter for diverting mass death and extinction. But these kinds of “translations” (of sometimes-difficult-to-grasp complex ecology, converted into a more accessible story) don’t need to rely on framing ecology so-called “services” and “value.” Those concepts are not innocent. Instead, they are actively harmful. Just my opinion. They play into extractivism, anthropocentrism, speciesism, empire, racism, etc.
We can talk about the vital importance of carbon sequestration with better language.
One implication of settler-colonial activists/institutions/scientists talking about “ecosystem services” or “learning from Indigenous traditional knowledge” is that Indigenous autonomy is “good” primarily because it’s good for everyone else, too. It leaves open to questioning and doubt, whether or not there is an innate justice in or right to Indigenous autonomy, and instead at best skirts the issue by saying: “Well, Indigenous culture is a wellspring of time-tested environmental information and sophisticated knowledge …” Which implies: “… and therefore, Indigenous autonomy might be good because it can help us to have more sustainable agriculture, gardens, Carbon Sequestration Services, etc.” Which some people have convinced themselves is respectful of autonomy.
And when you criticize the framing you will hear retorts from Euro-American academic/conservation/research institutions that sound like:
“But, look, we’re on your side. We get it. In fact, behind closed doors, we do actually respect that there are valid sentimental justifications for preserving a forest stand for no other reason than sentiment/culture/history. but, see, we have to talk about ecosystem services, we have to convert or appeal to these other dominant/entrenched industries and government/institutional bodies, we have to sell the justification to a out-of-work miners and settler-colonial public who might scoff at Indigenous knowledge unless that knowledge is presented as pragmatic and valuable to them, so we have to frame it as a matter of value/economics/profit. Gradually, over time, we might incrementally change the language to be better. But for now, we have to play the game. To our Indigenous friends: It’s just an optics and publicity thing, we actually respect you bro. We gotta market preservation/conservation to the government agencies and timber industry and local small businesses, bro. In order to preserve this wonderful landscape, sometimes we have to insult Indigenous people and their cosmology. But ultimately, if you want your Indigenous community to persist, we have to start by undermining you, first. But it’s all for The Greater Good.”
This is some S!erra Club-style arrogance. “But we’re the good guys, right? We’re trying to help.” Kinda stuff.
A similar thing is happening when you see what ostensibly appears to be a “progressive” media outlet or scientific/research institution make statements like: “Check it out! Indigenous people knew how to manage this landscape with cultural burning! We can actually support our agriculture industry or help mitigate climate change and vegetation loss – we can Save The World! – by utilizing, extracting, employing, engaging Indigenous traditional environmental knowledge!”
Like, aside from the obvious colonial/imperial entitlement and appropriation of Indigenous knowledge inherent in that kinda statement, this is also a statement that basically says: “Indigenous knowledge ought to be considered/respected because it’s useful, valuable to us, it can save our agriculture industry, it can prevent widespread woody debris in forest fire fuels, it can support our community too.”
The term/concept is ubiquitous in Canadian/US-American environmental studies academic departments and activist groups. (Probably in UK/Australia.Aotearoa/Hawaii, though I’m less familiar.). And sure, the disk horse seems to be improving since “the decolonial turn” (1990s) or “ontological turn” (2000s) in academia, but still, it’s almost as if settler-colonial institutions are simply learning how to better recuperate, how to use the friendly language of respect/reconciliation without making any fundamental change in hierarchy or their relationships with settler-colonial land management agencies. And I’m gonna cut myself off here, because I’m not Indigenous.
This is a paradigm that implies Indigenous knowledge, that a landscape, that living beings ought to be respected because they are valuable.
Valuable to whom? Who decides, and how?
Everyone ought to be insulted by these kinds of framings. Hopefully primarily out of respect and compassion for, and solidarity with, Indigenous people. And also out of reverence for all those lives already extinguished by Euro-American plantation systems. And also out of respect for all of those other-than-human lifeforms destroyed, many of them permanently extinct. And also because these paradigms (”an ecosystem is cool because it has measurable value”) represent some extractivist/neoliberal recuperation of environmentalist sentiment and a genuine heartfelt interest in ecology/landscape. And those ecosystems will not be saved from extractivist/colonial institutions if we continue to concede language. That language, how we choose to talk about other lives (human and other-than-human), has real material, immaterial, dire consequences.
When you’re alone, at dusk, sitting against a lichen-covered boulder in the shade of the larch and fir, and you’re watching a slug slowly meander across the moss bed atop a rotting log, salamander undulating in the debris of the forest floor, you’re not thinking:
“Damn, look at all that carbon sequestration. The nearby local plantations are gonna be SO sustainable. How many wild thimbleberries can I harvest, can I take? Sure is some valuable Ecosystem Services happening tonight.”
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