P-Values & Cultural Values: Creating Symbiosis Among Indigenous & Western Knowledges

Robin W. Kimmerer, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor, Department of Environmental Biology and Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Ecological restoration is a powerful tool for repair of ecosystem structure and function but is not equipped to heal the broken relationship between land and industrial society, which continues to produce environmental degradation. Traditional ecological knowledge offers an alternative to the dominant exploitative worldview based in biocultural reciprocity. Kimmerer respectfully engages Indigenous ecological knowledge and cultural values to guide models of reciprocal restoration-the mutually reinforcing restoration of land and culture. Repair of ecosystems contributes to cultural revitalization and renewal of culture promotes restoration of ecological integrity. Elected in 2023, Kimmerer represents Class VI's section on Human Environmental Sciences.