Cascadia refers to our abundant water, or cascades. We are here because of this water.
Cascadia is the name for the bioregion of interrelated lands, watershed, plants, people, and all the species and abiotic factors which exist in the regions currently known as British Columbia, Washington and much of Oregon and Idaho, and the Northern part of California. Most maps also include Southeast Alaska and follow the Continental Divide as the border which includes the westernmost parts of Montana and Wyoming. Like the rivers, it transcends and flows through and beyond state and national borders.
Cascadia is an effort to define and delineate this region ecologically. But Cascadia is also a mindset, an affinity for our region, an irresistible biophilia, an emphasis on conservation and celebration of the biocultural diversity of these areas, a great love and unwavering solidarity for this place that so many call home.
Connections and relationships to these places are as much a part of Cascadia as the places, plants, wildlife, water, wind, fire, and soil that make up this region. Indigenous and colonial histories, borders and broken treaties, land rights, Native rights, and the rights of the land itself are all part of this complicated territory.
This is Native land. Cascadia is salmon, rain, cedar, fire, wolf, and eagle country. We look mutually to the sea and the mountains, to the magma and the sky, to the rhizosphere and the atmosphere as we draw in our breath and exhale our deeds.
Why learn about plants in your yard?
If you do not own the land, why should you care about working on the land around your home?
Why should we work to improve our yards when it is overseen by a landlord, when our labor contributes to their monetization and exploitation of that space?
Rematriation
Native people have tended to and maintained relationships with this land and water since time immemorial.
We do not "own" land; we are caretakers and stewards. Restoring and maintaining a relationship to the land restores and maintains ourselves. As many people who have taken on rescued animal companions have noted, these animals saved them. We do not own pets, but we consciously take on the role of co-habitating with them for our mutual thriving. Similarly, caring for the land is an act of mutual reciprocity. Indigenous professor and author Robin Wall-Kimmerer asks us to consider a relationship in which water and land is as grateful for human presence as we are for their gifts. It is everyone's responsibility to steward the land. We can steward our surroundings for its own benefit, not just our own, returning the benefits it has given us.
Caring for the land can be an act of decolonization, to respect these traditional Indigenous lands despite current land claims. We caretake the land for the Native people who belong to this land, for the sake the land and creatures themselves, for biocultural continuity, for sovereignty, to give back to the land, and to give land back.
Gardening is exercise, meditation, and therapy. Gardening increases food and economic security. But there are other benefits besides that which flows to yourself or other humans. These include practicing conservation in your own yard, increasing biodiversity and decreasing monocultures, sequestering carbon, managing water and erosion, providing, stewarding, and connecting habitats which support pollinators and other species of plants and wildlife, and creating a more low-maintenance outdoor space.
Cascadian Botany
P.O. Box 17656
Portland, OR 97217-0656
USA
Call/text/WhatsApp:
(503) 240-0260
11am to 6pm Pacific Time
Monday through Sunday cascadianbotany (at) gmail.com
