But as an Indigenous person who studies environmental humanities, this sort of effort, and the debate about it, misses a key ecological perspective. Biologically speaking, it is normal, and even critical, for nature to do more during the brighter months and to do less during the darker ones. Animals go into hibernation, plants into dormancy. Humans are intimately interconnected with, interdependent on, and interrelated to nonhuman beings, rhythms and environments.
In 2020, while writing her PhD dissertation on bringing land-restoration efforts in urban settings in Seattle under the management of Indigenous peoples, the Indigenous scientist Jessica Hernandez noticed that many of the articles and books she wanted to incorporate were not written by Indigenous people. Moreover, those that were were often not written in English. She wrote her first book, Fresh Banana Leaves (2022), as a way to help Indigenous peoples feel represented and to integrate Indigenous knowledge into scientific research.
Organizations such as UNESCO have raised questions around AI, especially concerning the increasing digitization of content on the Internet that often complicates the relationship with traditional knowledge systems.