Survive and Thrive | John Mohawk

Bioneers: Indigenous Knowledge

In this expansive tour of human civilization leading to today's climate crisis, Native American scholar John Mohawk explores the interrelationship of climate change and human evolution. For most of our history as hunter-gatherers and farmers, we retained an intimate knowledge of the natural world that supported us, especially plants. That knowledge, he observes, is being lost at radical rates today. Re-establishing our intimacy and kinship with the plant world is key to surviving dramatic climatic changes. He shares insights about the "Native American pragmatism" that successfully balanced the practical with the spiritual for thousands of years. "All of the survival techniques we learned about our relations to cultivars and everything at this hour stands in peril. And our relationship to wild plants stands in peril. The big human relationship to our cultural heritage is on the verge of extinction, and we need to change that." This speech was presented at the 2004 Bioneers National Conference and is part of the Indigenous Knowledge, Vol. 1 and Nature, Culture and Spirit, Vol. 1 Collections. Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges. To experience talks like this, please join us at the Bioneers National Conference each October, and regional Bioneers Resilient Community Network gatherings held nationwide throughout the year. For more information on Bioneers, please visit http://www.bioneers.org and stay in touch via Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Bioneers.org) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/bioneers).