
When Aboriginal Burning Practices Meet Colonial Legacies in Australia
Aboriginal burning regimes have become popular as a solution to prevent catastrophic wildfires in Australia. Mardi Reardon-Smith argues that Aboriginal peoples’ fire knowledge is not static and contemporary burning regimes result from colonial histories and the intercultural co-creation of environmental knowledges.

The Cold Never Bothered Native Hawaiians Anyway: A Conversation with Hi’ilei Julia Hobart
How do certain temperatures come to be normalized and idealized in Hawai'i? Dr. Hiʻilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart shares critical insights at the intersection of Indigenous dispossession and resistance.

A Love Letter to Weeds
Weeds are maligned as useless, or even harmful, plants. But Tabitha Faber has always had an affection for them, and thinks they can teach us something about how communities of all kinds can practice better relationships.

Unearthing the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming: A Conversation with Liz Carlisle
Liz Carlisle shares stories from her latest book, which uncovers the history of regenerative agriculture and the farmers of color who practice it.

Faculty Favorites: Readings For an Anticolonial Environmental Syllabus
Traveling from the Pacific Islands to Lake Superior, six instructors share recommendations for thinking through the complex relationships between colonialism and environmental change.

What Minnesota’s Mineral Gaze Overlooks
Minnesota state agencies have a history of seeing the landscape with an eye toward extraction, writes Andrew Hoyt, ignoring water resources and Indigenous sovereignty in favor of risky mining.

To Conserve Nature, Recognize Its Rights
The Biden administration wants to conserve 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. Austin Miles asks: what might that conservation look like if it recognizes the rights of nature?

Who’s Afraid of Wisconsin Wolves?
With the future of wolf protection being debated on the national stage, Ground Truths editors Clare Sullivan and Marisa Lanker speak with local experts and advocates about wolf stewardship in Wisconsin.

Faculty Favorites: Books That Go Beyond the Classroom
Six scholars from campuses across the country recommend new environmental books about the blue humanities, environmental justice, the histories of bikes and blockades, and more.

Paul Bunyan and Settler Nostalgia in the Northwoods
Kasey Keeler and Ryan Hellenbrand think beyond tourism to show how logging and forestry have impacted a tribal nation in Minnesota—and how storytelling and placemaking can be tools of both colonialism and Indigenous resistance.

It’s Time to Decolonize the Great Lakes
Caitlin Joseph argues that Indigenous water governance practices are necessary to creating a more equitable Great Lakes.

Faculty Favorites: Books for a Return to Campus
Seven scholars from a variety of fields recommend new books and classics to read this fall, with topics ranging from Indigenous resistance and Afrofuturism to Irish coastal history and nineteenth-century surfing.

A Map of Point Reyes
In this genre-queer meditation on mapping, Tori McCandless interrogates the colonial ramifications of the map while exploring processes of embodied and intertextual mapping that account for the interwoven histories of California's coast. They ask: how can we know a place through touch and text?

At the Mouth of the Menominee River: A Conversation with Anahkwet (Guy Reiter)
Anahkwet (Guy Reiter) discusses how Menominee language, culture, and history shape his work protecting the Menominee and Wolf Rivers.

Seeing Beyond the Joshua Trees in the East Mojave
Tracing the ecological history of the Mojave National Preserve, Julia Sizek questions what was really lost in the Cima Dome Fire that killed swathes of Joshua trees.

On Ojibwe Lands, Protecting Water and Life from the Line 3 Pipeline
The new Enbridge Line 3 pipeline poses a slew of threats on treaty land. Ojibwe people lead the movement against its construction in Minnesota.

Beowulf in Teejop
The way early American scholars studied Beowulf reveals their investments in white Anglo-Saxonism and stolen land. Maxwell Gray considers the consequences of white settler scholarship on Native American lands.

Eating with Relatives in the Fort Peck Reservation
European colonization dramatically altered the Montana landscape. Becca Dower, Turtle Mountain Ojibwe, shows how two community agriculture projects are restoring native ecologies and Indigenous food sovereignty.

Legacies of the Sagebrush Rebellion: A Conversation with Jonathan Thompson
Robert Lundberg talks with journalist Jonathan P. Thompson about land management, settler colonialism, and the legacies of the Sagebrush Rebellion in the American West.

How Wendy Red Star Decolonizes the Museum with Humor and Play
“When talking about Indigenous history you can just devastate yourself," says Apsáalooke artist Wendy Red Star. "And so, humor has been a way for me to cope with that." Drawing from an original interview with the artist, Nicole Seymour and Salma Monani examine how Red Star uses humor, play, and collaboration to subvert museum stereotypes of Indigenous peoples and reanimate Indigenous pasts—and futures—through art.

Colonial Theft and Indigenous Resistance in the Kleptocene
The term Anthropocene does not address centuries of violent colonial theft. Kyle Keeler proposes a new title: the Kleptocene.

The Environmental Injustices of Forced Migration
Guadalupe Remigio Ortega shares her family's histories and describes how Mixtec forced migrations are part of a global story of environmental injustice.

La Lucha Yaqui: A Conversation with Mario Luna Romero
In Spanish and English, activist Mario Luna Romero discusses the Yaqui struggle for water and land rights with Ben Barson and Gizelxanath Rodriguez.

Cryogenics
A poetic meditation on glaciers and glacial worldings in Eyak, Alaska, "Cryogenics" reflects on human and more-than-human kinships at low temperatures.

John Wesley Powell’s Settler-Colonial Vision for the West
John Wesley Powell is celebrated for his proposed land use reforms in the American West. But his vision did not include Indigenous peoples.

What Justice We Can Achieve: Five Questions for Dan Lewerenz
The Native American Rights Fund works toward multiple forms of justice: legal, environmental, and social. Staff attorney Dan Lewerenz explains how.

The Land Remembers Native Histories
The University of Wisconsin–Madison was constructed through the erasure of Native monuments. But the land remembers. Graduate student Kendra Greendeer (Ho-Chunk) considers histories of settler erasure and contemporary efforts to commemorate Indigenous presence.

The Land Is a Teacher: A Conversation with Jeff Grignon
In his decades of work in forestry and cultural heritage for Menominee Nation, tribal member Jeff Grignon reads the lay of the land to find an ancient trail system.

In Hawaiʻi, Plantation Tourism Tastes Like Pineapple
The Dole pineapple plantation has a destructive history of transforming the Hawaiian Islands. Mallory Huard describes how that continues today in the tourism industry.

Drone Warriors: The Art of Surveillance and Resistance at Standing Rock
Part of the Water Protectors movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Drone Warriors use drone photography as a form of protest. An exhibit curated by Adrienne Keene and Gregory Hitch spotlights their work.

What One Court Case Could Mean for Tribal Sovereignty: A Conversation with Rebecca Nagle
Rebecca Nagle's podcast, This Land, examines tribal sovereignty and how the future of Muscogee (Creek) Nation may hinge on a case before the Supreme Court.

Managing the Rights of Nature for Te Awa Tupua
The settlement over the Whanganui River, Te Awa Tupua, in Aotearoa New Zealand has been hailed as a victory for the "rights of nature." But context matters.

Who Gets to Have Ecoanxiety?
Anthropocene anxiety about uncertain climate futures is on the rise. For the Indigenous Haida Nation, ecoanxiety arrived 150 years ago.

Plantation Housing Isn’t the Answer to Homelessness in Hawaiʻi
A "plantation-style community" might ease houselessness in Hawaiʻi. But it also erases violent histories of labor exploitation and Native dispossession. Leanne Day and Rebecca Hogue discuss Kahauiki Village and the dangers of plantation nostalgia.

Pollution Doesn’t Care About Borders: A Conversation with Elizabeth Hoover
An anthropologist uses community-based research methods to investigate environmental justice, reproductive health, and food sovereignty in Indigenous communities like the Akwesasne Mohawk in upstate New York.

Weaving Diné Design from the Desert Landscape
A Diné (Navajo) artist finds inspiration in the Dinétah landscape of New Mexico where she grew up. Her artwork brings the language of Diné weaving to the fine art world.

Plantation Legacies
The Anthropocene gives a name to human-caused environmental change. The Plantationocene puts colonialism, capitalism, and enduring racial hierarchies at the center of the conversation and asks what past and future modes of resistance might emerge.

Where Have All the Fish Gone?
Subsidized fishing fleets are rapidly depleting fishing stocks and harming communities in the Central Pacific. It’s time island nations get a seat at the negotiating table on global trade and climate change.

Citation in the #MeToo Era
An ecocritic had just finished a book chapter on Sherman Alexie’s poetry when accusations about his sexual misconduct went viral last spring. She asks if environmental humanities scholars should continue to engage with the work of abusers, and why certain writers and scholars come to dominate our archives in the first place.

Indigenous Youth and the Changing Face of Settler Colonialism: A Conversation with Jaskiran Dhillon
An anthropologist and activist discusses her work with Indigenous youth and how social services and other state programs may be colonial intervention by another name.

Five Reasons Why Henry Ford’s Failure in Brazil Still Matters Today
In this quick guide to Henry Ford's lasting impact in the Amazon, the director of Beyond Fordlândia shares the untold stories of violence, pollution, and activism he uncovered while filming the new documentary.

Citizen Management in a Contested Landscape
An ecologically diverse nature reserve in Wisconsin's famed Driftless Area thrives today because of state, tribal, and local collaboration.

We Are the Seventh Generation: A Conversation with Winona LaDuke
Two centuries ago, Ojibwe people planned for seven generations to come. Today that seventh generation is fighting for the treaty rights their ancestors established and a just, sustainable future.

A History Buried at Wounded Knee: A Conversation with Louis Warren
A new history of the Ghost Dance shows Native Americans preparing to live within industrial capitalism and impoverished landscapes without succumbing to assimilation.

Bittersweet Catch: Korea’s Diving Women and the Pitfalls of Cultural Preservation
While attending a school set up to train the next generation of haenyeo divers, one woman grapples with the historical and ongoing complexities of maintaining the traditional practice.

Loaves and Fishes at Standing Rock
A senior scholar of North American indigenous history visits the Oceti Sakowin camp and finds cause for hope. Up to a point.

Is the Arctic Out of Time? A Conversation with Andrew Stuhl
Andrew Stuhl discusses how we can “unfreeze” the Arctic's history and gain new insight into climate change and future possibilities.

The Land Doesn’t Hate: A Conversation with Lauret Savoy
A geologist turned award-winning writer reflects on the marks racism has left on the American landscape.

The Ethics of Ceremony at Standing Rock
Activists at Standing Rock bring a sense of ceremony to environmental politics.

Where Land, Water, and Militants Meet: A Conversation with Nancy Langston
Dr. Nancy Langston speaks about the current conflict in Oregon's Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and about hopeful collaborations for conservation.

The Stories and Languages of Home: A Conversation with Robin W. Kimmerer
Dr. Robin W. Kimmerer speaks about indigenous knowledges, traditional science, and the stories and words that connect us to our nonhuman homes.

The Faces of Itaipu: Community, Memory, and Struggle in Rural Brazil
A photo essay explores the realities of life and struggle in rural Brazil.

The Art of Offering: A Woodworker’s Lessons on Collaboration
What can art teach us about fieldwork? Sometimes the stories we tell belong to others.