Indigenous harvesting practices are environmental factors plants depend on for survival

Evidence

The study revealed that the sweetgrass was suffering not from over-harvesting but from under-harvesting. The species had co-evolved with specific indigenous harvesting practices, which in turn had specifically evolved to increase the success of the plant. A specific type of human attention, use, and stewardship had become environmental factors on which the plants depended on, and without these things, they’ve begun to disappear. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 499

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly extends the trees-as-infrastructure theme — human stewardship practices as co-evolved environmental conditions, analogous to tamarisk groves or bark-cloth harvesting.
• DEFINE: Grounds the book’s core definition of attention as a material, reciprocal force with survival consequences, not a mere subjective focus.
• XREF: connects to: Indigenous agriculture adapts plants to land while industrial agriculture adapts land to cloned plants — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 483; A plant species persists where it is harvested respectfully and departs where ignored. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 546; Sweetgrass persists only near Native communities that still harvest it — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 579 (+9 more)