THE DIRT

“Indigenous Peoples were the first landscape architects of this continent,” said Lyla June Johnston, during the opening general session of the ASLA 2024 Conference on Landscape Architecture in Washington, D.C. “We have been stewards of this land and made it beautiful and edible. We fed the Earth instead of just letting it feed us.”

Chestnut forests once spanned the east coast from Maine to Georgia, before a blight decimated the trees. “These were not wild forests, but planted by Indigenous Peoples. And Native land stewards evolved those landscapes over time.” Scientists know this from studying soil core samples and fossilized charcoal going back 10,000 years. The data shows that chestnut and hickory trees dramatically spiked 3,000 years ago, and black walnut 2,000 years ago.

In the Pacific Northwest, there were once vast, cultivated clam gardens. “You can see them from ancient clam garden walls that augmented natural clam habitat.” These gardens were co-designed with clams because “they are equal to us and have their own nationhood status.”

In the Illinois region, Indigenous People burned prairies for thousands of years to “maximize productivity and regain nutrients,” Johnston said. “Fire brings new life to the prairie. Flowers emerge in the spring.” Ash from fires also nourished soils and created nutrient-rich grasses that made habitat for bison and deer. “Indigenous Peoples passed on this great heirloom for thousands of years to their children— a living soil system.”

In the Washington, D.C. area, Indigenous Peoples cultivated oyster fisheries for more than 3,000 years. Oyster populations of the Chesapeake Bay are less than 1 percent of what once was.

Johnston is an Indigenous Artist, Musician, Scholar, and Community Organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne), and European lineages. She argues that land stewardship should be restored to Indigenous Peoples given they are far better at creating and restoring habitat than Western people.

“People can be a gift, not a virus. We can be creators and a keystone species. We can be in service to the land. We can create edible landscapes that support the well-being of all,” she said.

But to become a keystone species and support global regeneration once again, people need to “first landscape their inner world before they landscape the outer world.” Our global society needs to shift its mindset. Instead of exploiting nature, we need to be its guardian. “Think of a bird bath — it’s not for us, but lets birds rest, drink, and bathe.”

Johnston argued that communities could give more land back to Indigenous Peoples because their guardian mindset is so crucial to protecting biodiverse places and restoring them. “Worldwide, Indigenous Peoples are 5 percent of the population but we manage 80 percent of global biodiversity. Give us more land to manage. We are good at this.”

Johnston was followed by Julia Watson, Author, Lo—TEK Design by Radical Indigenism; Principal, Julia Watson llc; and Co-founder Lo—TEK Institute. She understands traditional ecological knowledge as “inter-related networks of knowledge.”

After many years of working with Indigenous communities and designers, “I came to understand this knowledge is relational and shaped by time and place. It’s different from Western science; Indigenous knowledge is interconnected.”

“There are vast networks of knowledge developed over long periods of time. These networks of knowledge enabled ancestral people to survive and adapt to climate change over thousands of years. You can’t separate their technologies from the people; they are co-evolutionary.”

Watson offered an example: the sea fishing techniques of the Yap people of Micronesia. They created artificial reefs and weirs that catch fish in the outgoing tides. “The technology is 1,000 years old.”

With the colonization of the region, this Indigenous technology was no longer used for fishing. But even after falling into disrepair, the legacy of the infrastructure forms breakwaters that protect these communities today.

Watson said these systems can be brought back along with other traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) systems created by Indigenous communities around the world.

After the success of her book Lo-TEK, Watson has written a follow-up – Lo-TEK: Water, which focuses on ancestral aquatic technologies. It will be released in the spring of next year. The new book includes 22 case studies of traditional infrastructure and 22 contemporary projects infused with TEK that “rebuild ancient knowledge and highlight Indigenous traditions of adapting to climate change.” She organized these technologies in multiple categories: living, co-evolutionary, sovereign, symbiotic, and cyclical.

Watson’s goal is to bring ancestral technologies back into the global discussion about solutions to the biodiversity and climate crises. “Ancestral infrastructure has been deliberately excluded from these conversations. There has been an unlearning of these histories, even though Indigenous People have created the oldest man-made structures on Earth.”

Books are just one way she advocates for the inclusion of Indigenous design knowledge. The Lo-TEK Institute also offers a Living Earth curriculum for high-school and college level students, featuring 10 Indigenous, nature-based innovations.

And she’s working with firms like Buro Happold to “co-create hybrid technologies of the future” and with attorneys like Comar Molle to protect the intellectual property of Indigenous Peoples. “We can co-create infrastructure with Indigenous knowledge,” protecting their intellectual property at the same time.

Watson used her keynote to announce a historic call to action with ASLA and Indigenous partners: Co-create a future that heals land and culture. The call to action was developed by Watson, Johnston, the Indigenous Society of Architecture, Planning, and Design (ISAPD), and ASLA and its Biodiversity and Climate Action Committee. It outlines three key strategies:

• Respect Indigenous Knowledge
• Empower Future Generations
• Help build an Indigenous landscape architects’ network of ASLA members and work in collaboration with groups like ISAPD

During a follow-up conversation with Watson and Johnston, José de Jesús Leal, ASLA, Principal and Director, Native Nation Building Studio, MIG, and member of the ASLA Biodiversity and Climate Action Committee, kicked-off the discussion by asking: “Can Indigenous knowledge outpace our current problems?”

Paul Fragua, a Tribal Elder and architect at MIG, said that while landscape architects and ASLA are celebrating 125 years of American practice this year, Indigenous Peoples have 3,000 years of experience stewarding landscapes. “We need to get started on the next 3,000 years. There is an urgency not for me, but for future generations.”

Johnston sees the landback movement, which has grown in the past five years, as a key way to address our current challenges.

While Native communities are buying land themselves, it’s usually less than 100 acres at a time. “The U.S. government, churches, and private landowners in the U.S. have hundreds of thousands of acres that could be returned to Native stewardship.”

In a few instances, public parks are now being co-managed by the National Park Service and Native Nations. “Having Native Americans in positions of leadership in the Department of Interior and National Park Service enabled that,” she said.

“There are two barriers — getting land back plus a lack of resources,” Leal said. “Native Nations have to be able to take care of the land they get back. It’s not just the actual property, but deep collaboration with the land.”

One approach may help increase resources. In the San Francisco Bay Area, there’s a voluntary land tax people can pay to support local tribal communities. “You can pay it whether you rent or own,” Johnston explained. The funds enable Native communities to buy back more land. Johnston wants to see more of those kinds of funds go directly to grassroots Native community leaders and non-profits that are “revitalizing land and culture.”

To outpace our problems, Watson thinks the “software” that runs our societies needs to change. “A value system is a compass of how to live. These value systems are rooted in a cultural worldview.”

In New Zealand, the Maori have a “software that guides how they take care of the land.” That software shapes their language, which is place based. In effect, their beliefs and worldview and how they communicate are tied to places. “So when we design systems in these places, we need to build the cultural framework of the communities. The belief system is the core.”

Fragua noted that in New Mexico, Pueblo peoples view some mountain peaks as sacred. They are places that transcend this world and connect us to the spiritual world. That is another example of a belief system rooted to a place.

Landscape architects asked the group questions about how to implement these ideas in contemporary projects.

Johnston and Watson said it’s important to hire Indigenous designers. And Leal added that it’s important to set those relationships in truth. “We need to start fresh relationships and beat stereotypes.” When reaching out to Indigenous designers and communities, “reach out and ask for their voice, but respectfully.”

They also noted that Indigenous design doesn’t necessarily mean creating room for nature at the expense of people. “Indigenous people designed some of the most densely populated cities in South America,” Johnston said. And it’s also not about rewilding landscapes. “American landscapes were never wild to begin with. They were always managed.”

Non-Indigenous designers can also work to “interrupt the harm,” Watson said. “You can document what has been erased and ensure Indigenous landscapes aren’t forgotten.”

Fragua said that many Indigenous communities follow the “great law of peace because there has been so much war. Resilience comes now from resistance [against inequality]. The creator wants us to live as equals.”

And for too long, there has been a separation between people and nature. “We need an integrated approach, a unity where we are part of the world,” Johnston said. Communities need to return to an ancient Indigenous philosophy: “We live in Earth and are born of the Earth. Landscape is a part of ourselves.”

“Culture is living and can change.”