Red maple
Red maple is the most common species of tree in America, with an enormous range and adaptability to many different site conditions. It is fast-growing and can quickly shade out its neighbors; in the past, Native Americans used fire to manage it, keeping the thin-barked tree in check with low-intensity prescribed burns that favored the oak and hickory on which Indigenous peoples relied. These cultural burning practices are returning to the center of conversations about our forests at a crucial moment in climate history.
“I put it in the ground myself with the help of a handyman. Imagine three women with a little box in the kitchen discussing whether it was even worth putting it in the ground. I said let’s give it a try…The Covid pandemic had just ended in 2021 and there was more emphasis on going out and spending time on the street. I guess you could say it was an optimistic time and an optimistic move on our part.”
— Mimi Keghida, Resident
Building Brooklyn: Like Coming Home
The Borrowed & Returned podcast
“I think what is most important for audiences to understand is that the traditional beliefs of the Lenape people are based on generosity and beauty and relations. And one of the challenges for not just Lenape people, but all Native people, is that the dominant culture has so often wanted to present us as people of the past. […] And we would offer that the real excitement of our individual communities, which are vital, which are diverse, which embrace the full range of all the professions, can be a really contributing factor to the common good of all people. And we would want to be included in those contemporary conversations and understood as contemporary people.”
— Joe Baker, co-founder and executive director of The Lenape Center
