risaleel's review

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.5


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katharina90's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

This book beautifully summarizes: 
 -the pervasive settler colonialism and anti-Indigenous racism in areas like academia, environmental sciences and 'conservation' (which includes National Parks--louder for the people in the back!)
 -the continued colonization of Indigenous knowledge, from invalidation and erasure to theft and co-optation (especially in academia)
 -human supremacist delusion a.k.a. the Western failure/ unwillingness to recognize that we, as human animals, are part of nature and everything is interconnected
 -that capitalism commodifies everything, incl. our animal and plant kin, when we should only be taking what we need and live in right relationship
 -settler colonial capitalist extraction is why 'conservation' is needed in the first place 

Informed by her cultural teachings the author reframes conservation as healing, and non-native invasive species as displaced relatives, amongst many other nuggets of Indigenous wisdom shared so generously in this book. 

I love that she calls out the audacity of white people to deride non-native plants when WE brought them to these lands. 
As well as the hypocrisy of settlers to imply only native plant species belong here, while failing to apply that same principle to other species.

Meanwhile, the genocide of Indigenous peoples in the Americas is ongoing.

"Due to all the beliefs and value systems colonizers introduced into the Americas, Indigenous rights and land protectors are a threat to every settler government." 

LAND BACK. 
A livable planet depends on it.

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sarah984's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.0

There is a lot of good, valuable information in this book, but the lack of editing makes it a difficult read, both on the basic prose level (words and sentences repeated) and on the level of the information provided (misattributed quotation, mixing up fair and free trade, describing England as an Eastern European nation).

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galexy_brain's review

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challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

This book is so important. I truly believe any non-indigenous person in a conservation/environmental etc. field needs to read this book. The way I think about conservation issues has changed because of this book. I especially appreciated reading a book written about indigenous experiences by an indigenous person whose ancestry is not from North America, because I don't think I've had much exposure to perspectives from those cultures before. There was definitely room for a bit more editing throughout this book, but there were still passages I wish I could have underlined (if only it wasn't a library book!)

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