The fundamental difference between the lives of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples can be seen in their relationship to land. For indigenous people, earth is their mother, they are born of the earth, and each individual carries responsibility for particular streams, grasslands, trees, crops, animals, and even seasons. Indigenous life is devoted to continuance, hence decisions on land and resource management consider the lives of generations to follow.

 

The historical narrative originating from colonial and imperial conquests of indigenous people as primitive hunter gatherers, and having no organised systems of living is disproven by a few honest and awe-inspiring accounts by the early explorers. In the diary of Charles Sturt among others, sophisticated house and dam building, agriculture and aquaculture, and nature preservation methods such as controlled burns with landscapes uninterrupted by boundary walls, are chronicled in eloquent passages accompanied by drawings of vast indigenous societies sharing language and knowledge peacefully and without war.

 

By comparison, Western Societies created systems which view the planet as an infinite resource, an earth that can be exploited without consequence. As a result, in just a few hundred years we face the existential threats of a biodiversity and climate crisis. Our terrestrial and oceanic ecosystems are now so depleted of the species they depend on, and so saturated in toxic pollutants, it’s affecting their survival, and ours. 

 

Starting today, the world would be wise to reflect on our past and choose which of these relationships with nature is the more prosperous for our future. At Replant World, we choose to live and work by the principles of the worlds indigenous people, in harmony and in deference of the natural world.