robin wall kimmerer family

As a writer and scientist interested in both restoration of ecological communities and restoration of our relationships to land, she draws on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge to help us reach goals of sustainability. But at its heart, sustainability the way we think about it is embedded in this worldview that we, as human beings, have some ownership over these what we call resources, and that we want the world to be able to continue to keep that human beings can keep taking and keep consuming. Robin tours widely and has been featured on NPRs On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of Healing Our Relationship with Nature. Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. And it comes from my years as a scientist, of deep paying attention to the living world, and not only to their names, but to their songs. Randolph G. Pack Environmental Institute. The Rights of the Land. Kimmerer: I have. 2013 Where the Land is the Teacher Adirondack Life Vol. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 123:16-24. The Bryologist 107:302-311, Shebitz, D.J. They make homes for this myriad of all these very cool little invertebrates who live in there. Kimmerer, R.W, 2015 (in review)Mishkos Kenomagwen: Lessons of Grass, restoring reciprocity with the good green earth in "Keepers of the Green World: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Sustainability," for Cambridge University Press. An herb native to North America, sweetgrass is sacred to Indigenous people in the United States and Canada. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Kimmerer 2002. African American & Africana Studies Its good for land. The Pause is our Saturday morning ritual of a newsletter. Not only to humans but to many other citizens. Island Press. It was while studying forest ecology as part of her degree program, that she first learnt about mosses, which became the scientific focus of her career.[3]. Robin Wall Kimmereris a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. A recent selection by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants (published in 2014), focuses on sustainable practices that promote healthy people, healthy communities, and a healthy planet. 36:4 p 1017-1021, Kimmerer, R.W. Robin Wall Kimmerer: Returning the Gift. It is centered on the interdependency between all living beings and their habitats and on humans inherent kinship with the animals and plants around them. Spring Creek Project, Kimmerer, R.W. Potawatomi History. The public is invited to attend the free virtual event at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 21. June 4, 2020. Committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world, Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, State University of New York / College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 2023 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Plant Sciences and Forestry/Forest Science, Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Kimmerer,R.W. We want to bring beauty into their lives. Kimmerer: Yes. Keon. (1984) Vegetation Development on a Dated Series of Abandoned Lead-Zinc Mines in Southwestern Wisconsin. and Kimmerer, R.W. You talked about goldenrods and asters a minute ago, and you said, When I am in their presence, their beauty asks me for reciprocity, to be the complementary color, to make something beautiful in response.. She is also a teacher and mentor to Indigenous students through the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York, Syracuse. "Just as we engage with students in a meaningful way to create a shared learning experience through the common book program . The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy . It means a living being of the earth. But could we be inspired by that little sound at the end of that word, the ki, and use ki as a pronoun, a respectful pronoun inspired by this language, as an alternative to he, she, or it so that when Im tapping my maples in the springtime, I can say, Were going to go hang the bucket on ki. As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. Kimmerer then moved to Wisconsin to attend the University of WisconsinMadison, earning her master's degree in botany there in 1979, followed by her PhD in plant ecology in 1983. Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives on creating unmet desires. Maintaining the Mosaic: The role of indigenous burning in land management. Tippett: What is it you say? Braiding Sweetgrass Summary and Study Guide | SuperSummary Or . Kimmerer teaches in the Environmental and Forest Biology Department at ESF. Windspeaker.com "Witch-hazels are a genus of flowering plants in the family Hamamelidaceae, with three species in North America, and one each in Japan and China. I was a high school junior in rural upstate New York, and our small band of treehugging students prevailed on the principal to let us organize an Earth Day observance. So, how much is Robin Wall Kimmerer worth at the age of 68 years old? "Moss hunters roll away nature's carpet, and some ecologists worry,", "Weaving Traditional Ecological Knowledge into Biological Education: A Call to Action", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robin_Wall_Kimmerer&oldid=1139439837, American non-fiction environmental writers, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry faculty, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry alumni, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, History. We are animals, right? As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. Kimmerer, R.W. McGee, G.G. She is also founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. I dream of a time when the land will be thankful for us.. Journal of Forestry. 2004 Environmental variation with maturing Acer saccharum bark does not influence epiphytic bryophyte growth in Adirondack northern hardwood forests: evidence from transplants. Kimmerer, R.W. Under the advice of Dr. Karin Limburg and Neil . Language is the dwelling place of ideas that do not exist anywhere else. The Bryologist 94(3):284-288. Shebitz ,D.J. Im finding lots of examples that people are bringing to me, where this word also means a living being of the Earth., Kimmerer: The plural pronoun that I think is perhaps even more powerful is not one that we need to be inspired by another language, because we already have it in English, and that is the word kin.. She serves as the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. ", "Robin Wall Kimmerer: Americans Who Tell The Truth", "Robin Wall Kimmerer: 'Mosses are a model of how we might live', "Robin W. Kimmerer | Environmental and Forest Biology | SUNY-ESF", "Robin Wall Kimmerer | Americans Who Tell The Truth", "UN Chromeless Video Player full features", https://www.pokagonband-nsn.gov/our-culture/history, https://www.potawatomi.org/q-a-with-robin-wall-kimmerer-ph-d/, "Mother earthling: ESF educator Robin Kimmerer links an indigenous worldview to nature". She has served on the advisory board of the Strategies for Ecology Education, Development and Sustainability (SEEDS) program, a program to increase the number of minority ecologists. DeLach, A.B. They work with the natural forces that lie over every little surface of the world, and to me they are exemplars of not only surviving, but flourishing, by working with natural processes. She shares the many ways Indigenous peoples enact reciprocity, that is, foster a mutually beneficial relationship with their surroundings. . She brings to her scientific research and writing her lived experience as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and the principles of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). Kimmerer likens braiding sweetgrass into baskets to her braiding together three narrative strands: "indigenous ways of knowing, scientific knowledge, and the story of an Anishinaabekwe scientist trying to bring them together" (x). As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. To love a place is not enough. Kimmerer is a proponent of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) approach, which Kimmerer describes as a "way of knowing." [laughs]. She is a mother, plant ecologist, writer and SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. You wrote, We are all bound by a covenant of reciprocity. The Bryologist 103(4):748-756, Kimmerer, R. W. 2000. In April 2015, Kimmerer was invited to participate as a panelist at a United Nations plenary meeting to discuss how harmony with nature can help to conserve and sustainably use natural resources, titled "Harmony with Nature: Towards achieving sustainable development goals including addressing climate change in the post-2015 Development Agenda. Im a Potawatomi scientist and a storyteller, working to create a respectful symbiosis between Indigenous and western ecological knowledges for care of lands and cultures. And so thats a specialty, even within plant biology. Journal of Forestry 99: 36-41. It ignores all of its relationships. Connect with the author and related events. (1994) Ecological Consequences of Sexual vs. Asexual reproduction in Dicranum flagellare. Kimmerer, R.W. That we cant have an awareness of the beauty of the world without also a tremendous awareness of the wounds; that we see the old-growth forest, and we also see the clear cut. In 2022, Braiding Sweetgrass was adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith. 2012 Searching for Synergy: integrating traditional and scientific ecological knowledge in environmental science education. Plant Ecologist, Educator, and Writer Robin Wall Kimmerer articulates a vision of environmental stewardship informed by traditional ecological knowledge and furthers efforts to heal a damaged. North Country for Old Men. In 2022 she was named a MacArthur Fellow. But reciprocity, again, takes that a step farther, right? Winner of the 2005 John Burroughs Medal. Nelson, D.B. and R.W. Kimmerer, D.B. and C.C. I think thats really exciting, because there is a place where reciprocity between people and the land is expressed in food, and who doesnt want that? She is the author of the New York Times bestselling collection of essays Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants as well as Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. And theres such joy in being able to do that, to have it be a mutual flourishing instead of the more narrow definition of sustainability so that we can just keep on taking. Any fun and magic that come with the first few snows, has long since been packed away with our Christmas decorations. High-resolution photos of MacArthur Fellows are available for download (right click and save), including use by media, in accordance with this copyright policy. Kimmerer, R.W. Her delivery is measured, lyrical, and, when necessary (and. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer. Q & A With Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ph.D. Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Questions for a Resilient Future: Robin Wall Kimmerer Center for Humans and Nature 2.16K subscribers Subscribe 719 Share 44K views 9 years ago Produced by the Center for Humans and Nature.. Adirondack Life. The ebb and flow of the Bayou was a background rhythm in her childhood to every aspect of life. and R.W. The Michigan Botanist. Robin Wall Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. The school, similar to Canadian residential schools, set out to "civilize" Native children, forbidding residents from speaking their language, and effectively erasing their Native culture. But that is only in looking, of course, at the morphology of the organism, at the way that it looks. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild. The language is called Anishinaabemowin, and the Potawatomi language is very close to that. She is currently Distinguished Teaching Professor and Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry. (n.d.). Native Knowledge for Native Ecosystems. Spring Creek Project, Daniela Shebitz 2001 Population trends and ecological requirements of sweetgrass, Hierochloe odorata (L.) Beauv. 2002 The restoration potential of goldthread, an Iroquois medicinal plant. (1982) A Quantitative Analysis of the Flora of Abandoned Lead-Zinc Mines in Southwestern Wisconsin. Kimmerer: Thank you for asking that question, because it really gets to this idea how science asks us to learn about organisms, traditional knowledge asks us to learn from them. Tippett: And were these elders? Just as the land shares food with us, we share food with each other and then contribute to the flourishing of that place that feeds us. To clarify - winter isn't over, WE are over it! American Midland Naturalist. 2011. Kimmerer: Id like to start with the second part of that question. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, botanist, writer, and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, and the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. 39:4 pp.50-56. Kimmerer: It certainly does. Dr. Kimmerer serves as a Senior Fellow for the Center for Nature and Humans. The Fetzer Institute,helping to build the spiritual foundation for a loving world. By Robin Wall Kimmerer 7 MIN READ Oct 29, 2021 Scientific research supports the idea of plant intelligence. Youre bringing these disciplines into conversation with each other. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 2(4):317-323. I wonder, was there a turning point a day or a moment where you felt compelled to bring these things together in the way you could, these different ways of knowing and seeing and studying the world? She holds a BS in Botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. She describes this kinship poetically: Wood thrush received the gift of song; its his responsibility to say the evening prayer. But in Indigenous ways of knowing, we say that we know a thing when we know it not only with our physical senses, with our intellect, but also when we engage our intuitive ways of knowing of emotional knowledge and spiritual knowledge. And I wonder if you would take a few minutes to share how youve made this adventure of conversation your own. 111:332-341. And I sense from your writing and especially from your Indigenous tradition that sustainability really is not big enough and that it might even be a cop-out. There are these wonderful gifts that the plant beings, to my mind, have shared with us. All of my teachings come from my late grandmother, Eel clan mother, Phoebe Hill, and my uncle is Tadodaho, Sidney Hill. And so we are attempting a mid-course correction here. The Bryologist 94(3):255-260. Krista interviewed her in 2015, and it quickly became a much-loved show as her voice was just rising in common life. And thats a question that science can address, certainly, as well as artists. Her grandfather was a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and received colonialist schooling at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Kimmerer, R.W. Krista Tippett, host: Few books have been more eagerly passed from hand to hand with delight in these last years than Robin Wall Kimmerers Braiding Sweetgrass. She works with tribal nations on environmental problem-solving and sustainability. 1993. Kimmerer, R.W. 3. Kimmerer is the author of Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (2003) as well as numerous scientific papers published in journals such as Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences and Journal of Forestry. Kimmerer: Yes. And shes founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Annual Guide. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, plant ecologist, nature writer, and Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology at the State University of New York's College of Environment and Forestry (SUNY ESF) in Syracuse, New York. Oregon State University Press. Lets talk some more about mosses, because you did write this beautiful book about it, and you are a bryologist. Braiding Sweetgrass was republished in 2020 with a new introduction. Part of that work is about recovering lineages of knowledge that were made illegal in the policies of tribal assimilation which did not fully end in the U.S. until the 1970s. [11] Kimmerer received an honorary M. Phil degree in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic on June 6, 2020. Kimmerer, R.W. Robin Wall Kimmerer | Northrop She serves as the founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both . In the English language, if we want to speak of that sugar maple or that salamander, the only grammar that we have to do so is to call those beings an it. And if I called my grandmother or the person sitting across the room from me an it, that would be so rude, right? We've Forgotten How To Listen To Plants | Wisconsin Public Radio Faust, B., C. Kyrou, K. Ettenger, A. Robin Wall Kimmerer, John Hausdoerffer, & Gavin Van Horn Kinship Is a Verb T HE FOLLOWING IS A CONVERSATION between Robin Wall Kimmerer, John Hausdoerffer, and Gavin Van Horn, the coeditors of the five-volume series Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations (Center for Humans and Nature Press, 2021). Tippett: I want to read something from Im sure this is from Braiding Sweetgrass. But the way that they do this really brings into question the whole premise that competition is what really structures biological evolution and biological success, because mosses are not good competitors at all, and yet they are the oldest plants on the planet. Tippett: Im Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Tippett: Sustainability is the language we use about is some language we use about the world were living into or need to live into. . Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Its good for people. The Bryologist 108(3):391-401. I've been thinking about recharging, lately. And I was just there to listen. And Id love for you to just take us a little bit into that world youre describing, that you came from, and ask, also, the question I always ask, about what was the spiritual and religious background of that world you grew up in of your childhood? And yes, as it turns out, theres a very good biophysical explanation for why those plants grow together, so its a matter of aesthetics, and its a matter of ecology. The Bryologist 97:20-25. You say that theres a grammar of animacy. Kimmerer is also the former chair of the Ecological Society of America Traditional Ecological Knowledge Section. Kimmerer, R.W. and Kimmerer R.W. I have photosynthesis envy. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Colette Pichon Battle is a generational native of the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. She has a keen interest in how language shapes our reality and the way we act in and towards the world. Robin Wall Kimmerer: Greed Does Not Have to Define Our Relationship to Transformation is not accomplished by tentative wading at the edge. (1991) Reproductive Ecology of Tetraphis pellucida: Population density and reproductive mode. Shes written, Science polishes the gift of seeing, Indigenous traditions work with gifts of listening and language. An expert in moss a bryologist she describes mosses as the coral reefs of the forest. Robin Wall Kimmerer opens a sense of wonder and humility for the intelligence in all kinds of life we are used to naming and imagining as inanimate. In English her Potawatomi name means Light Shining through Sky Woman. While she was growing up in upstate New York, Kimmerers family began to rekindle and strengthen their tribal connections. What was supposedly important about them was the mechanism by which they worked, not what their gifts were, not what their capacities were. Some come from Kimmerer's own life as a scientist, a teacher, a mother, and a Potawatomi woman. That would mean that the Earth had agency and that I was not an anonymous little blip on the landscape, that I was known by my home place. Robin Wall Kimmerer The Intelligence of Plants Kimmerer, R.W. Im Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. Kimmerer, RW 2013 The Fortress, the River and the Garden: a new metaphor for cultivating mutualistic relationship between scientific and traditional ecological knowledge. Trained as a botanist, Kimmerer is an expert in the ecology of mosses and the restoration of ecological communities. Her books include Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. It is a preferred browse of Deer and Moose, a vital source . They do all of these things, and yet, theyre only a centimeter tall. Is there a guest, an idea, or a moment from an episode that has made a difference, that has stayed with you across days, months, possibly years? Mosses are superb teachers about living within your means. Kimmerer: Yes, it goes back to the story of when I very proudly entered the forestry school as an 18-year-old, and telling them that the reason that I wanted to study botany was because I wanted to know why asters and goldenrod looked so beautiful together. Robin is a botanist and also a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. The center has become a vital site of interaction among Indigenous and Western scientists and scholars. It is distributed to public radio stations by WNYC Studios. Balunas,M.J. They were really thought of as objects, whereas I thought of them as subjects. It is the way she captures beauty that I love the most. This conversation was part of The Great Northern Festival, a celebration of Minnesotas cold, creative winters. 55 talking about this. Robinson, S., Raynal, D.J. at the All Nations Boxing Club in Browning, Montana, a town on the Blackfeet Reservation, on March 26, 2019. So one of the things that I continue to learn about and need to learn more about is the transformation of love to grief to even stronger love, and the interplay of love and grief that we feel for the world. PhD is a beautiful and populous city located in SUNY-ESF MS, PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison United States of America. But that, to me, is different than really rampant exploitation. And its, to my way of thinking, almost an eyeblink of time in human history that we have had a truly adversarial relationship with nature. 2011 Witness to the Rain in The way of Natural History edited by T.P. In the dance of the giveaway, remember that the earth is a gift we must pass on just as it came to us. She is engaged in programs which introduce the benefits of traditional ecological knowledge to the scientific community, in a way that respects and protects indigenous knowledge. Jane Goodall praised Kimmerer for showing how the factual, objective approach of science can be enriched by the ancient knowledge of the indigenous people. [music: If Id Have Known It Was the Last (Second Position) by Codes in the Clouds]. She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental . They have persisted here for 350 million years. Robert Journel 2 .pdf - Reflective Kimmerer, "Tending Robin Wall Kimmerer - Amazon.com The sun and the moon are acknowledged, for instance. Its such a mechanical, wooden representation of what a plant really is. So it broadens the notion of what it is to be a human person, not just a consumer. Schilling, eds. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim.Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding . Thats how I demonstrate love, in part, to my family, and thats just what I feel in the garden, is the Earth loves us back in beans and corn and strawberries. (1991) Reproductive Ecology of Tetraphis pellucida: Differential fitness of sexual and asexual propagules. Shes written, Science polishes the gift of seeing; Indigenous traditions work with gifts of listening and language. An expert in moss, a bryologist, she describes mosses as the coral reefs of the forest. She opens a sense of wonder and humility for the intelligence in all kinds of life that we are used to naming and imagining as inanimate. To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Two Ways Of Knowing | By Leath Tonino - The Sun Magazine It will often include that you are from the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, from the bear clan, adopted into the eagles. If citizenship means an oath of loyalty to a leader, then I choose the leader of the trees. Tippett:I was intrigued to see that, just a mention, somewhere in your writing, that you take part in a Potawatomi language lunchtime class that actually happens in Oklahoma, and youre there via the internet, because I grew up, actually, in Potawatomi County in Oklahoma. So I really want to delve into that some more. Again, please go to onbeing.org/staywithus. Her second book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, received the 2014 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. She is active in efforts to broaden access to environmental science education for Native students, and to create new models for integration of indigenous philosophy and scientific tools on behalf of land and culture. This beautiful creative nonfiction book is written by writer and scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer who is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. It turns out that, of course, its an alternate pronunciation for chi, for life force, for life energy. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. I hope you might help us celebrate these two decades. Please credit: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Find them at fetzer.org; Kalliopeia Foundation, dedicated to reconnecting ecology, culture, and spirituality, supporting organizations and initiatives that uphold a sacred relationship with life on Earth. Kimmerer 2010. Kimmerer: I am. Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. The On Being Project is located on Dakota land. So I think, culturally, we are incrementally moving more towards the worldview that you come from. Kimmerer: It is. And thats all a good thing. I sense that photosynthesis,that we cant even photosynthesize, that this is a quality you covet in our botanical brothers and sisters. She is a member of the Potawatomi First Nation and she teaches. The Bryologist 105:249-255. Rambo, R.W. In addition to her academic writing on the ecology of mosses and restoration ecology, she is the author of articles for magazines such asOrion, Sun, and Yes!. and R.W. Dr. Kimmerer is a mother, plant ecologist, writer and SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a plant ecologist, educator, and writer articulating a vision of environmental stewardship grounded in scientific and Indigenous knowledge. She is the author of numerous scientific articles, and the books Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (2003), and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (2013). That's why Robin Wall Kimmerer, a scientist, author and Citizen Potawatomi Nation member, says it's necessary to complement Western scientific knowledge with traditional Indigenous wisdom.