Native Americans and the Environment : Perspectives on the Ecological Indian

Abstract

Native Americans and the Environment brings together an interdisciplinary group of prominent scholars whose works continue the conversations that Shepard Krech started. The essays examine topics as divergent as Pleistocene extinctions and the problem of storing nuclear waste on modern reservations; the image of the "ecological Indian" and its use in natural history displays alongside a consideration of the utility and consequences of employing such a powerful stereotype for political purposes; the nature and evolution of traditional ecological knowledge; and the divergence between belief and practice in Native resource management.