Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science

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You cannot preserve the whole banana leaf as it is. So, cut the leaf using scissors. Then you can fold the leaf pieces.

Fresh Banana Leaves - Jessica Hernandez Fresh Banana Leaves - Jessica Hernandez

Here you can use a polythene bag too. But make sure to enclose the bag loosely. It helps to limit your banana leaves for the cold air. The plastic bag will protect your leaves from drying out. I particularly loved how Hernandez interweaves her research and reflections with stories of her family (especially her father and grandmother) and interviews. There is a beautiful flow throughout this book and it is just incredibly rich with many layers. This book is great for every one interested in ecological justice, restoration (ot healing as Hernandez prefers) and the climate crisis (and shouldn't that be somehow all of us?). Some researchers are now taking a community-based approach to conservation, in which Indigenous people participate in project planning instead of serving as study subjects. But this still doesn’t go far enough, Hernandez argues: In such studies, non-Indigenous people often end up speaking for Indigenous communities.

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I was expecting to learn more about what I, as a white person living on indigenous land, could do to “heal indigenous landscapes through indigenous sciences.” But I didn’t get that. I recognize it is not the responsibility of every POC to educate white people on what we need to do to support communities of color. However, based on the book description that’s what I was expecting. I was eager to learn how I could play an active role in decolonizing environmentalism but I don’t feel like I gained that knowledge. At the end of chapter 5 Dr. Hernandez asks reflective questions to urge us to think about how we can help indigenous communities. I just remember being like, what? That’s why I’m reading this book? SANDY GRANDE, professor of political science and Native American and Indigenous studies, University of Connecticut Hernandez: Invite them to the table or let them lead their own table. Indigenous peoples know their lands, know their environments, know some of the changes resulting from climate change. When you’re connected to your environment, you know best how to approach it. Conservationists should include Indigenous peoples as stakeholders, as opposed to always focusing on governments as the stakeholders. Westerners, [Dr. Hernandez] writes, fall short on including Indigenous people in environmental dialogues and deny them the social and economic resources necessary to recover from ‘land theft, cultural loss, and genocide’ and to prepare for the future effects of climate change.”

Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes - Science Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes - Science

In certain areas of Thailand, most notably the southern regions, Banana Leaf features high on the list of staple ingredients used in the preparation of local dishes. One distinct difference between Banana Leaves and other ingredients, is that the Banana Leaf is most often used as a wrapping or container for the completed item of food. For example, they may be used to wrap fish before it is barbequed or to hold rice which is being steamed or baked. Using Banana Leaf in this way also adds a flavour and aroma to the food during the cooking stage. SN: You write about how ecocolonialism — when non-Indigenous “settlers” govern Indigenous lands without consulting Indigenous people — can exacerbate climate change and result in Indigenous displacement and ecological grief. What is ecological grief?

Tip 4# Pack with paper and preserve banana leaves

An Indigenous environmental scientist breaks down why western conservationism isn't working--and offers Indigenous models informed by case studies, personal stories, and family histories that center the voices of Latin American women and land protectors. SN: You also write about how many non-Indigenous scientists practice helicopter research. How does this affect Indigenous communities? It saddens me that people continue to impose that we have to make our race "better" by living in and adopting western ways. This book excelled in talking about this issue and the consequences it brings. Conservation is very linear, focused on one species, and doesn’t necessarily look at the entire landscape. Look at the contributors of why a certain species is declining, and sometimes it’s not even that people are overharvesting — it’s climate change and other environmental impacts we tend to ignore. Inspiring and sobering, philosophically powerful and practically grounded, this book weaves together storytelling, razor sharp critiques of oppression, and liberatory pathways for how we can achieve transformation in solidarity. Dr. Hernandez offers the instructions so many environmental protectors and conservationists need toknow.

Banana Leaves — Melissas Produce Banana Leaves — Melissas Produce

it truly pains me to rate this book so low. i was SO excited to read this--i've been looking for writing on this topic for a few months--and It's true that Hernandez doesn't directly romanticize the Indigenous cultures that she comes from. She calls out xenophobia in Mexico and the ways in which her cultures have internalized colonizer concepts of misogyny and queer-phobia. At the same time, the deepest she digs into the ways in which her cultures practice science (ostensibly the point of the book) is that they consider all natural phenomena to be their relatives. This is not revelatory; this is a sound bite and a t-shirt. Leaving it at that practically invites people who have no acquaintance with Indigenous science to romanticize and commodify it. Adding to the problem, Hernandez puts Desmond Tutu's quote about swapping the land for the Bible, along with less well attributed truisms, into the mouth of her wise grandmother; and she translates interviews with her father into English nearly literally, making him sound ignorant and fractured in ways I'm sure he didn't in the original. Both of these things further contribute to the tendency to cast her Indigenous relatives as Noble Savages. I found this book repetitive (with the same examples and explanations used in multiple chapters) and in need of more citations. I know the author discusses (twice) that she doesn't believe that her personal experience as an Indigenous woman needs citations, and I agree! However, there were statistics and references to reports or historical events throughout the book that weren't cited at all. To me, the writing needed an editor to help tighten things up and make sure things flowed together. Some of the chapters felt very separate from each other (as though they were written as individual chapters out of context of the whole book and then stitched together in manuscript format), which could explain the repetitiveness of parts of it. But after they buy them or cut the banana leaves from the plant, the greenish and fresh appearance will lose within a short time. Mostly just around 1-3 days, you may have to throw them away. So, people are searching for methods to preserve banana leaves. Jessica Hernandez, an environmental scientist, draws parallels between her father’s story and that of the banana tree. The banana tree’s journey from Southeast Asia via colonial European ships forced the resilient plant to adapt to its new home in the Americas. Similarly, her father adjusted to being displaced, eventually settling in the United States, often experiencing less-than-warm welcomes along the way.She also talks more about the classic construct of conservation as we know it today saying, “conservation is a western construct that was created as a result of settlers over exploiting indigenous lands, natural resources, and depleting entire ecosystems.”. Therefore, people love to eat food that are wrapped with banana leaves. Due to its biodegradable and eco-friendly properties, banana leaves are famous worldwide. Hernandez: When I talk about ecological grief, I’m talking about the longing that many [displaced] Indigenous peoples have to return to their lands. Another way to look at that is the relationships that we [Indigenous people] have with nature — especially with our plants, animals and nonliving relatives. When the impacts of climate change destroy them, there’s a mourning that we all undergo as Indigenous peoples. Another popular use of Banana Leaves in Thai cuisine is to wrap whole leaves around a fresh fish, which has been gutted and stuffed with a mixture of herbs and garlic and spices. The fish is then baked in a hot oven for around 20 minutes, the moisture from the Banana Leaf keeps the fish from becoming too dry, and the result is a succulent, aromatic and tasty dish, which could not be prepared in any other way.

Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Thro… Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Thro…

I personally have always taken the view that although some invasive species are bad, they aren’t all terrible and could actually be useful in certain contexts. During the civil war in El Salvador that began in the 1970s, an injured Victor Hernandez hid from falling bombs beneath the fronds of a banana tree. The child soldier, a member of the Maya Ch’orti’ group indigenous to the region, made a crutch from a branch of the tree and limped toward Guatemala, toward freedom. “I strongly believe that it was this banana tree that saved my life,” he told his daughter, Jessica Hernandez, who shares the story in Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science. “It is ironic because banana trees are not native to El Salvador,” he said. To speed up the process, you can use a towel or tissue. They will absorb the excess water and dry it out immediately. This book delivers two important messages. Primarily, that Indigenous ways of learning and knowing differ from European-derived science, and that Indigenous science should be respected for its longevity, depth, adaptability, and place-specificity. Secondarily, that those who are most oppressed have the most to teach us, and the world has the most to gain in uplifting them. i wanted to like this soo bad, but it was just so disorganized. i think i was expecting something similar to Braiding Sweetgrass, but that wasn’t really what this book was

This is a convenient way to keep your banana leaves fresh for a long time. Believe me; you can keep them at their original state for six months. On a positive note, the personal anecdotes and references did make my blood boil, and I feel called to do more for indigenous communities. I just wish this book educated me more on how I could do that. For example, Dr. Hernandez talks about community based participatory research (CBPR) which is excellent, but I wanted more suggestions like that that weren’t limited to an academic setting. What can a “regular” person do to support indigenous people? That was the question I wanted answered and I feel like this book fell short when it could’ve been an invaluable resource. Or else, you can keep banana leaves in the sink and turn on the tap. The leaves will wash off faster under the running water.