November's Book is: Fresh Banana Leaves by Jessica Hernandez.
After an inspiring first Book Club session we continue with the book Fresh Banana Leaves by Jessica Hernandez who is an Indigenous environmental scientist. In her book Hernandez breaks down why Western conservationism isn't working–and offers Indigenous models informed by case studies. Tea and homemade cookies will be available.
This is a hybrid book club. Please contact Barbara at bshatara@burlingtonvt.gov to obtain the Zoom link.
About This Month's Book:
Despite the undeniable fact that Indigenous communities are among the most affected by climate devastation, Indigenous science is nowhere to be found in mainstream environmental policy or discourse. And while holistic land, water, and forest management practices born from millennia of Indigenous knowledge systems have much to teach all of us, Indigenous science has long been ignored, otherized, or perceived as “soft”–the product of a systematic, centuries-long campaign of racism, colonialism, extractive capitalism, and delegitimization.
Here, Jessica Hernandez–Maya Ch’orti’ and Zapotec environmental scientist and founder of environmental agency Piña Soul–introduces and contextualizes Indigenous environmental knowledge and proposes a vision of land stewardship that heals rather than displaces, that generates rather than destroys. She breaks down the failures of western-defined conservatism and shares alternatives, citing the restoration work of urban Indigenous people in Seattle; her family’s fight against ecoterrorism in Latin America; and holistic land management approaches of Indigenous groups across the continent.