Land Stewardship is a Practice of Liberation

“What does it mean to return? Is return possible? Is it desired? And if it is, under what conditions and for whom?” — Dr. Christina Sharpe

Growing up in Oakland, CA, a city named after its abundance of oak groves and grassy plains, incited a specific curiosity in me. I was fascinated with the earth. Its textures. Sounds. Rhythms. Tastes. I made mud pies in front yards in The East next to half full beer cans, cigarette butts and an ant farm structure my mom bought on sale at Toys R Us. I captured butterflies, convinced that they wanted to stay safely pocketed in jars. I caught crawdads with thin sticks, rubber bands and hotdogs across the street from my grandmother’s house near the creek, socks and pants wet, flannel dry, eyes alight with wonder.

But even then, I was conscious of boundaries, of the places I could (and couldn’t) reach, of front yards with grass that wasn’t dead, of trampolines instead of mattresses to jump on, of parks that weren’t places to get high in, of streets that couldn’t be walked, of attendees following me through stores even though I had money in hand and the products I’m purchasing in the other, clear as day, so as not to be accused of theft. Of never camping as a child, of not knowing how to swim, of not knowing about cub scouts and outdoor sports. Of having a limited sense of direction and getting lost often.

Though my family is from Louisiana and Alabama, places known for their trees and love of seafood, I knew the crawdads would be re-released. A creek is not the sea and there was an oil refinery a short distance away, spurting chemicals everywhere.

Still, the time we had together shaped me. The creek was a place where I could express curiosity safely. A place the birds, water spiders, other beings and I traded secrets. Even the light creeping through the trees had a tale to share.

At the height of the pandemic, summer of 2020, my short foraging walks became cross-city adventures. Those cross-city, multi hour adventures quickly turned into day trips. I was enveloped in a “new,” more compact world. My days and nights were shaped, in large part, by the excitement I experienced those hours I could get outside and the hours I spent reading about the outdoors (when I couldn’t).

Eventually, I was preparing for my first camping trip ever at Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Though the trip lasted one night, I was hooked and ready to go on a longer, more involved Pacific Northwest trek. In preparation for travel, I took basic navigation classes at REI and read about safety, camping tips, hiking etiquette, encounters with bears, and watched documentaries on surviving outdoors.

The creek was a place where I could express curiosity safely. A place the birds, water spiders, other beings and I traded secrets. Even the light creeping through the trees had a tale to share.

It’s interesting now, as I reflect on what I learned then in 2020 — about hiking etiquette, communication, and camping culture, the city-based communities I belong to were already practicing an expanded, daily, multilayered version of community care. In short: we are responsible for each other.

It wasn’t until I started recognizing myself as part of the natural landscape that I understood, on a visceral level, what my adolescent body knew moving around Oakland: Place matters.

In the late 80’s and early 90s, crack cocaine flooded Black and Brown communities as redlining and structural racism tag teamed to ensure unequal distributions of resources, and more. These in effect acted as their own systems of segregation, where warehoused poverty was (and is) produced alongside high concentrations of air pollution, divestment and diminished quality of life for inhabitants, both human and nonhuman.

Organizations that fight against environmental racism work to replenish the curiosity and sense of belonging that are taken from residents by design. It is no coincidence that lower income neighborhoods have less access and proximity to public green spaces, with most edible trees located in middle and higher income neighborhoods. Areas such as Deep East Oakland also are, on average, ten degrees hotter, due to the presence of less trees and more pavement, have toxic water, and more air pollution. Not only are there more edible trees in higher income areas of Oakland, lower income residents pay higher prices for produce. The disparities in community recreational areas are dependent on class and race.

It wasn’t until I started recognizing myself as part of the natural landscape that I understood, on a visceral level, what my adolescent body knew moving around Oakland: Place matters.

In outdoor spaces, the familiar sense of not knowing where I am, which direction points east, west, north, south, disappears. Earth and its beings guide me, becoming central support systems to the formation of my internal and external compass.

But it isn’t just that. Memories started coming back. Like yearly family visits to Allensworth, CA, 240 miles south of Oakland, in Tulare County. Allensworth was the first city established by and for African Americans in 1908, and was founded by Colonel Allen Allensworth who was born into slavery in 1842. I’d forgotten that my great grandfather, who was born in Hawaii fifty three years before it became a state, was one of the first Black troop masters on the west coast. And that my grandfather (his son) and uncle were assistant scoutmasters who traveled several thousand miles by caravan and on foot to explore the outdoors.

Learning about the more-than-human world is interesting. I experience time differently. I have learned to truly listen to the city, when at first, the drone of its developers, who have a particular way of narrating and conceptualizing life by disorienting the awareness of time and place — dominated my senses.

Whether foraging, camping, or simply remembering that I have a body that breathes — I am no longer a place made of forgetting. Instead, in order to be in deeper relationship with nature, tapping into ancestral memory and collective wisdom is prerequisite. I am called to embody an older version of myself, a special connection, or tether, that pulls while outdoors, which encourages more investigation and less fear. I pause when the birds pause, curious of what new (or old) delight and mischief they’ll invite me into for the day.

Even with all the magic of earth’s tempo, I still wonder about my general safety, especially as a Black woman who hikes alone. Is it possible for me to do so without being surveilled, being threatened with violence, or being interrogated and asked (directly in indirectly) if I belong, if I am lost?

Now those questions are nuanced and shaped by my ancestors’ audacity to claim space, belonging and alliances with the natural world, which is different from claiming ownership, a practice white supremacy is so insistent on continuing.

Whether foraging, camping, or simply remembering that I have a body that breathes — I am no longer a place made of forgetting. Instead, in order to be in deeper relationship with nature, tapping into ancestral memory and collective wisdom is prerequisite.

Foraging, for me, is an act of resistance. It is an embodied, wild, riveting experience to be invited into acknowledging the sacred stewardship of land and the interdependent relationships of the beings that inhabit it.

My time in nature allows for an intimate reimagining of connection and community that is not always possible when living under systems of oppression. I consider it a practice of abolition to have the space to choose to change my relationship to everything that is, or was, alive.