robin wall kimmerer quotes
Robin is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation who combines her heritage with her scientific and environmental passions. She is a professor of environmental and forest biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
Her writings and research are grounded in the principles of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), which is based on Indigenous peoples’ relationship to the natural world. It is centered on a deep kinship with plants and animals, on the interdependency of all living things, and on the understanding that humans are not separate from their environment.
She teaches, writes, and practices this TEK in her life on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild, and is deeply engaged with restoring ecological communities. She is also dedicated to bringing Indigenous wisdom and knowledge to bear on the environmental issues that affect us all.
robin wall kimmerer’s background in botany and mainstream science, combined with her lived experience as an enrolled member of the Potawatomi Nation, has shaped her vision of environmental stewardship grounded in scientific and Indigenous knowledge. Her book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants is widely acclaimed as an important work in nature literature.
Among her many awards, she is the recipient of the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her essays have been published in Adirondack Life, Stone Canoe, and Orion. She also teaches at SUNY, and raises two daughters. Her writings are a rich blend of science and storytelling, often incorporating her potawatomi heritage in the form of language and stories from her past.
