8 Books to understand planet earth and the co-existing livelihoods
Originally published at merrative.com
“The biggest challenge we face is shifting human consciousness, not saving the planet. The planet doesn’t need saving. We do.” — Xiuhtezcatl
3rd March is celebrated as World Wildlife Day and this year the theme; “Forests and Livelihoods: Sustaining People and Planet” spotlight the major role of forests, the biodiversity in sustaining the livelihoods of millions of people globally, and most importantly, the small population of Indigenous and local communities with historic co-existence to forested and forest-adjacent areas.
The planet Earth is a self-healing place and doesn’t need us, humans, for its existence. As a native proverb goes, “We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors; we borrow it from our children”. To understand climate change and the unvoiced, to see a future ahead for humanity, we must understand those who help us protect them.
Here, I have personally chosen 8 books you can read to take a small step to get an insight into our forests and their protectors. :
Braiding Sweetgrass
by Robin Wall Kimmerer
“In some Native languages the term for plants translates to “those who take care of us.”
Member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation (federally recognized tribe of Potawatomi people located in Oklahoma), Kimmerer narrates the knowledge of gaining ecological consciousness which crucially needs to be heard and talked about.
She reminds us that plants and animals are the oldest teachers of humans and that we need to hear and understand their languages to have a healthy circular relationship.
“A mesmerizing storyteller with deep compassion and memorable prose.” -Publishers Weekly
Out of This Earth
by Felix Padel, Samarendra Das
This book unfolds the hidden experiences of the Kond Adivasis in Odisha, India and their history with the ongoing mining projects in their sacred haven.
Odisha’s largest mountains are known for the world’s best bauxite deposits. The book unveils how the government uses it as a resource to be exploited via capitalist notions of promising the tribals opulence.
A must-read to understand one of the neglected tribals in India.
“The wait was well worth it: Out of This Earth is an amazing book — a monumental exploration of a subject that is of critical importance, not only to the people who are directly affected by aluminium mining, but indeed to all of us.” -Amitav Ghosh
As We Have Always Done
by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
“Recognition for us is about presence, about profound listening, and about recognizing and affirming the light in each other as a mechanism for nurturing and strengthening internal relationships to our Nishnaabeg worlds.”
The book is written for the Canadian Indigenous people and culture, Simpson educates us about how their community doesn’t tolerate colonialism and how they aim together, being strong and resilient, to accomplish biiskabiyang.
Instead of seeking recognition, this book demands freedom from the injustices the Indigenous community faces by the privileged and higher authorities.
“As Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg, kwe, and academic, Simpson lets us into her thought processes, entwining her own embodied experiences, cultural knowledges, and academic approaches. She offers us an alternative methodology for political resistance and a more comprehensive process for personal transformation.” — Frontiers
The Hidden Life of Trees
by Peter Wohlleben, Tim Flannery
“An organism that is too greedy and takes too much without giving anything in return destroys what it needs for life.”
Wohlleben speaks for the unspoken in his book, The Hidden Life of Trees. He shares his love for the flora and fauna and the ecosystem around it.
Taking examples from the discoveries in science, he explains how trees communicate with each other, how parent trees nurture their relationships with their children, how happy forests lead to healthy forests, and many other previously unknown secret abilities.
“The Hidden Life of Trees” explains that trees use scent to talk, “agree” to bloom together and take communal action against pests. — Andrea Wulf, Critic (The Washington Post)
Kocharethi: The Araya Woman
by Narayan
“We want to be understood… and allowed to live with dignity.”
Narayan portrays the unheard, raw world of Keralite tribals in India, the Malayarayars.
Translated beautifully by Catherine Thankamma, along with the engaging illustrations, Kocharethi narrates the unheard stories of Aryans, their co-existence with nature, the exploitation they face, and how the constantly changing world is fading away from their tradition and culture.
“Kocharethi calls upon us to ethically engage with it, to question our complicity in the systemic conditions that produce these lives, to reflect on our own reactions to the tale, to our expectations of the form and genre and to unlearn our frames of understanding.” — The Hindu
Imagining Extinction
by Ursula K. Heise
Imagining Extinction explains the uncooked version of the narratives around biodiversity, the sixth-mass extinction, and the endangered species.
Ursula explains how despite so much awareness and stories about biodiversity conservation, even and especially in its scientific and legal dimensions, it is shaped by cultural assumptions about what is valuable in nature and what is not. These assumptions negatively affect the legal databases which help in protecting the soon-to-be-extinct species.
“Ursula Heise, who takes the time to unravel the philosophical contradictions that riddle the field with landmines. She’s very good at asking difficult questions. . . . Her book breaks interesting ground, examining the role of archives and databases as cultural mechanisms for establishing meaning as important as science fiction, ethnography, and theories of justice. All of these are woven together in the book, producing some refreshing new ways of thinking about our predicament.” —Nowtopian
The Adivasi Will Not Dance
by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar
“And we Santhals, our men are beaten and thrown into police lockups, jails for flimsy reasons and on false charges. Our women are raped, some sell their bodies on Koyla road. Most of us are fleeing our places of birth. How united are we? Where are our Santhal leaders?”
The Adivasi Will Not Dance is a collection of short stories based majorly on the plight of tribals in Jharkhand, India. Written by an Adivasi himself, Shekhar paints a beautiful textual portray of the Santhal community. This book was found to be controversial because of the raw depiction of exploitation of the women in the community. Nonetheless, tribal literature lovers and other book lovers gave all the support they needed.
‘Shekhar, one of the five writers shortlisted for The Hindu Prize 2017, produces a no-holds-barred work on the life of the marginalized that seems less fiction and more the stuff of life. He doesn’t veil these voices in literary flourishes or what he calls “classic literary tropes”. His characters are flesh and blood, the stories difficult to stomach, the language brutal.’ — The Hindu
The Right to Be Cold
by Sheila Watt-Cloutier
“The modern world arrived slowly in some places in the world, and quickly in others. But in the Arctic, it appeared in a single generation. Like everyone I grew up with, I have seen ancient traditions give way to southern habits. I have seen communities broken apart or transformed dramatically by government policies. I have seen Inuit traditional wisdom supplanted by southern programs and institutions. And most shockingly, like all my fellow Inuit, I have seen what seemed permanent begin to melt away.”
The memoir depicts the past and ongoing accounts of the Inuit community in Canada, and how the climate has changed the aura of their native region, Nunavik.
The Right To Be Cold takes a deep dive into the story of a woman activist’s life, her protection towards the Inuit community’s culture, their resistance against the colonial world, and dealing with climate change in the Arctic.
“Loss, suppression and ultimate rediscovery of voice are themes that run through this courageous and revelatory memoir.”
— Naomi Klein, The Globe and Mail
Happy reading!
I hope you get your perfect match in the above list and enjoy reading it.❤
