Braiding Sweetgrass

fingers. I ask them what we can possibly offer cattail or birch or
spruce. Lance snorts at the idea: “They’re just plants. It’s cool that
we can use them, but it’s not like we owe them anything. They’re
just there.” The others groan and then look at me, waiting for a
reaction. Chris is planning to go to law school, so he takes over the
conversation like a natural. He says, “If cattails are ‘free’ then
they’re a gift and all we owe is gratitude. You don’t pay for a gift,
you just graciously accept.“ But Natalie objects: “Just because it’s a
gift, does that make you any less beholden? You should always
give something back.” Whether it’s a gift or a commodity, you still
have incurred an unpaid debt. One moral, the other legal. So, were
we to act ethically, don’t we have to somehow compensate the
plants for what we received?
I love listening to them consider such a question. I don’t believe
that average Walmart shoppers stop to consider their debt to the
land that has produced their purchases. The students ramble and
laugh as we work and weave, but come up with a long list of
suggestions. Brad proposes a permit system in which we do pay for
what we take, a fee to the state that goes to support wetland
protection. A couple of kids take the route of generating
appreciation for wetlands, proposing school workshops on the
values of cattails. They also suggest defensive strategies: to
reciprocate with protection against the things that threaten cattails,
to organize pulls of invasive species like phragmites or purple
loosestrife. To go to a town planning board meeting and speak up
for wetland preservation. To vote. Natalie promises to get a rain
barrel at her apartment, to reduce water pollution. Lance swears
that he’ll boycott fertilizing the lawn next time his parents give him
that chore, to stop runoff. To join Ducks Unlimited or the Nature
Conservancy. Claudia vows to weave coasters of cattail and give