Healing Diné, restoring Diné Bikéyah: Desertification mitigation and indigenous cultural renewal through traditional agriculture practices on the Navajo Nation

Kletzing, Daniel Enoch

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115394 Copy

Description

Title

Healing Diné, restoring Diné Bikéyah: Desertification mitigation and indigenous cultural renewal through traditional agriculture practices on the Navajo Nation

Author(s)

Kletzing, Daniel Enoch

Issue Date

2022-04-22

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

• O’Shea, Conor
• Pendall, Rolf
• McGuire, Mary Pat

Department of Study

Landscape Architecture :: Urban & Regional Planning

Discipline

Landscape Architecture

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.L.A.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• Desertification
• Climate Change
• Climate Action Research
• Traditional Soil Conservation
• Navajo Nation
• Indigenous Cultural Agriculture
• Ancestral Puebloan

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine native traditional soil conservation and planting practices in their desertification mitigation efficacy for the Navajo Nation. It also explores the indigenous cultural rediscovery effects of traditional agriculture for Navajo. The Navajo Nation lists among North America’s most susceptible regions to climate change fueled drought and heat, evident in desertifying reservation land of which one third has become sand dunes (Redsteer et al., 2010). Denuded fields and stream edges see fertile topsoil erode through ephemeral washes and off reservation land. Yet over 16,000 Navajo Nation farmers and ranchers depend on healthy soils (USDA, 2017). Traditional planting and soil conservation customs may prove crucial to desertification mitigation. However, this knowledge is not well documented and effective relationship building tools are not available for landscape architecture practitioners and educators seeking to foster positive connections with Native American communities to collaborate on land remediation projects. Through fieldwork and 19 interviews, my research examines traditional agriculture methods and shares experience developing positive relationships as a licensed landscape architect with Navajo and Zuñi. I designed the graphics and layout for a Navajo traditional farming instructor’s teaching guides and created a series of models to envision traditional agriculture methods implementation. Landscape architecture curriculum should incorporate these practical climate change mitigation strategies (Kiers et al., 2020). My photographs of Mesa Verde’s Ancestral Puebloan check dams and reservoirs (890 – 1280 AD), obtained through a National Park Service research permit, and application of the Munsell System reveal fertile soil captured behind check dams. Construction parallels modern retaining walls and swale erosion control BMPs yet synthesizes natural processes, central to ecological design (Cooper, 2020; Shannon, 2013; Meyer, 2015). During runoff events, the Navajo Nation’s ephemeral washes lose topsoil that could be opportunistically captured via Puebloan-prototypical check dams. Two phone interviews with Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture staff show support for traditional practices. Sixteen interviews were pandemic-adapted via Zoom, over email and onsite in New Mexico, over one year with James and Joyce Skeet, the founders of Spirit Farm, a Navajo traditional agriculture and soil conservation organization. Spirit Farm is a demonstration farm which teaches traditional heritage agriculture to local Navajo and Zuñi. Recorded with permission, two Zoom interviews with the organization’s two founders were coded with concept frequencies through content analysis. My research and visit with the Zuñi Youth Enrichment Project reveal a 1200-year continuity of agriculture methods that mitigate desertification (Cushing, 1974; Diego, 1929; Doolittle, 2000; Ford and Swentzell, 2015). Indigenous agriculture traditions’ low cost and cultural amenability to Navajo (and thus high growth scalability) encourage their inclusion in desertification attenuation policy conversations. My highlighting personal accounts of Navajo and Zuñi traditional agriculturalists aids their visibility to public and private funders.

Graduation Semester

2022-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2022 Daniel Kletzing

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