Landscapes Lost and Found - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 26

its 800 to 1000 Cherokee-only readers finally lost their only national
language paper. During the 18th and 19th centuries, according to Miles,
nearly every Native American community embraced opportunities to write
and read their own languages: 'from the Micmacs of Newfoundland to the Sioux
of the plains, from the Apaches, Navajos and Yaquis of south-west and the Luiseños of
California to the Aleuts and Eskimos of the Atlantic' .
It is, of course, easier to lose, intentionally or by accident, stories
handed down by word of mouth. Once they have gone, there is no one
to oppose those who dominate with their own narrative. Then we forget
why one thing is present in a landscape, why it used to be valuable, and
what reasons we may have for looking after it.
Concluding Comments
In this chapter, my aim has been to set the scene for a sustainable
agricultural revolution by indicating that agricultural and food systems,
and the landscapes they shape, are a common heritage to us all. For all
our human history, we have been shaped by nature, while shaping it in
return. In recent times, that shaping has been destructive, with food seen
as a commodity and no longer part of culture. In our modern and
industrial age, we are losing our languages, memories and stories about
land and nature. These disconnections matter because they serve to
promote a persistent dualism - that nature is separate from people, that
nature can be conserved in wildernesses, and that economies can succeed
without regard to the fundamental significance of agricultural and food
systems.