“I’m really trying to convey plants as persons.” Key to this is restoring what Kimmerer calls the “grammar of animacy”. This means viewing nature not as a resource but like an elder “relative” – to recognise kinship with plants, mountains and lakes. The idea, rooted in indigenous language and philosophy (where a natural being isn’t regarded as “it” but as kin) holds affinities with the emerging rights-of-nature movement, which seeks legal personhood as a means of conservation. Kimmerer understands her work to be the “long game” of creating the “cultural underpinnings”.

~ James Yeh, An Interview with Robin Wall Kimmerer in The Guardian

Hoodos, Bryce Canyon National Park – photo by encrier, bigstockphoto.com