#<- i think settler colonists really need to unlearn what i think is an unspoken norm: | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lilies-of-the-fields · 10 months ago

Text

[ID: a color-enhanced photo of a bluejay perched on stone. "Copyright Glynn Wilson, LocustFork.Net, 2010" written in small text at bottom left]

look at me. listen to me. this is directed at americans for the record. the reason you think North American animals are boring is because you live here. there are so many cool and beautiful animals here. we have beavers. we have wolves. we have moose. we have sea lions. we have armadillos. we have mountain lions. we have alligators. we have foxes. we have bighorn sheep. we have manatees. we have bears. we have ocelots. we have BISON. and that’s not even touching on the birds! or the turtles! or the snakes! we have amazing beautiful and diverse wildlife right here and it deserves to be appreciated and protected

#image described #ecology #decolonization #<- i think settler colonists really need to unlearn what i think is an unspoken norm:#that abundance devalues living creatures and things. it does not.#just because you see pigeons everyday does nothing to diminish their value #ibises and other wading birds were once SO abundant across south Florida that flocks could darken the sky #(this is according to oral history of the Miccosukee Seminole)#settlers werent fussed about them until many were nearly extinct thanks to hunting them so their plumage could be used in hats #you see it in the way that people make a big stink over charismatic megafauna whose populations are threatened #think wolves or panthers. they were menacing threats while abundant. then nearly extinct. now protection and active efforts to restore their #populations have their numbers rising again. and as they do you see opinion shift to categorize them as nuisances to be controlled again #i would be remiss not to mention the American buffalo. which colonizers slaughtered by dozens/hundreds/+++ in their attempted genocide #of Indigenous peoples in the Plains/NW of Turtle Island aka North Am.#anyway. I'm incapable of bein concise.#I'm guilty of this also!!!! i took for granted many animals native to my home region and was awed by white tail deer as a child #but we are not apart from nature. and this attitude contributes directly to environmental and climate justice to this day #+ to be explicit. those injustices include the continued displacement marginalization and theft of land from Indigenous people

64K notes · View notes