Active human replanting can restore species time and chance never will

Evidence

The Skywoman woods across the valley have never been plowed, so they still have their full glory, but most other woods are missing their forest floor. Leek-laden woods have become a rarity. Left to time and chance alone, my cutover woods would probably never recover their leeks or their trillium. The way I see it, it’s up to me to carry them over the wall. Over the years, this replanting on my hillside has yielded small patches of vibrant green in April and nurtures the hope that the leeks can return to their homelands and that when I’m an old lady I’ll have a celebratory spring supper close at hand. They give to me, I give to them. Reciprocity is an investment in abundance for both the eater and the eaten. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 730

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Parallel to the trees-as-infrastructure article: active human guardianship restoring ecological communities rather than hands-off preservation.
• DEFINE: Reciprocity as ‘an investment in abundance for both the eater and the eaten’ is a compact definitional anchor across all four courses.
• XREF: connects to: Sustainable communities never interfere with natural systems’ self-regeneration — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 123; Some plants now depend on specific human harvesting practices to survive — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 499; Civilizational decay is reversible through intentional renewal — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 836

Broader Connections

• Civilizational decay is reversible through intentional renewal #corroborates (0.75) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 836
• Some plants now depend on specific human harvesting practices to survive #exemplifies (0.72) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 499