How’s the market?
Wow, you got such a great interest rate.
Congratulations.
Your yard – it’s so nice.
How’s your house?
How are the repairs going?
How blessed that you own this home.
How lucky.
(Yet, you know
That nothing can be owned, including land and its lifeways
You don’t bring this up with your parents, colleagues, or in-laws
As the conversation, the history, is too deep –
Maybe they wouldn’t understand.
Or if they did, maybe they wouldn’t care,
Wouldn’t want to see reparations, land back, justice.
Recognition of the people who came before, whose lands were stolen.
And consideration of solutions to help them.
“This land is your land,” they’d say,
“You earned it.”
But, really?
What does it mean to “earn” something
Especially land itself?
We belong to the lands, not the other way around.
We are of this Earth, our mother
Born/arising following generations of emergence, life’s persistence, and struggle.
It’s wonderful that we have arrived
But we could never claim, own, or take this land
from itself.)
—
Dr. Rachel Golden Kroner is an interdisciplinary conservation scientist and practitioner. Her career path is inspired by a deep appreciation and concern for the (human and non-human) natural world – and belief in the moral and societal imperatives for action to address the biodiversity, climate, and inequality crises. She draws from and integrates diverse approaches in the natural and social sciences to better understand complex problems and applies insights to conservation policy and practice.
