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Robin W. Kimmerer
(1953 - )
American botanist and writer in the field of Environmental and Forest Biology with special interest in the ecology of mosses and restoration ecology. Her books have won awards for Nature Writing.
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Science Quotes by Robin W. Kimmerer (6 quotes)
I do recall that the strong sense of curiosity about the botanical world came from family canoe trips where we would just drift through boggy rivers and wetlands, without any goal except for looking at things. I learned that curiosity could be a pursuit. And the plants there were so unlike any I’d ever seen, the pitcher plants, the sundews, the brightly colored Sphagnum mosses, I couldn’t help but wonder why the world was so full of different beings and what their lives were like.
— Robin W. Kimmerer
From interview with Stephanie Muise (19 May 2015) published on web site of Northland College.
One gram of moss from the forest floor, a piece about the size of a muffin, would harbor 150,000 protozoa, 132,000 tardigrades, 3,000 springtails, 800 rotifers, 500 nematodes, 400 mites, and 200 fly larvae. These numbers tell us something about the astounding quantity of life in a handful of moss.
— Robin W. Kimmerer
In 'In the Forest of the Waterbear', Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (2003), 55.
The interior of the rain forest is overwhelming in its complexity. There is not a bare surface anywhere. Branches are hung with curtains of mosses and sprays of orchids dangle among them. Tree trunks are filmed over with algae, studded by giant ferns, and wound about with vines. Ants travel in convoys across the ground and up the trees, and metallic beetles glint in sun-flecks on the forest floor. The forest itself is richly textured, stems embossed with every manner of protuberance, leaves ornamented by spines and pleats, scales and fringes. Long shafts of sunlight cut through the dark canopy and catch the flash of iridescent butterfly wings before diffusing in the vegetation below.
— Robin W. Kimmerer
In 'In the Forest of the Waterbear', Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (2003), 55.
The Native writer and educator Greg Cajete has written that we humans have the gifts of using mind, body, emotion, and spirit to understand the world—and that we cannot claim to truly understand unless we learn to use all four.
— Robin W. Kimmerer
From interview with Stephanie Muise (19 May 2015) published on web site of Northland College.
The rain forest beckons to botanists like Mecca to the faithful.
— Robin W. Kimmerer
In 'In the Forest of the Waterbear', Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (2003), 52.
To honor the multiple ways of knowing which are available to us: indigenous knowledge, scientific knowledge, artistic knowledge to master more than one so we can be fluent and flexible and creative and whole. Each kind of knowledge is a lens, each gives us a different tool—and then its up to us to learn how to find a balance among them.
— Robin W. Kimmerer
From interview with Stephanie Muise (19 May 2015) published on web site of Northland College.
See also:
- Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, by Robin W. Kimmerer. - book suggestion.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
