Interview with Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed ~ On our relationship with native plants
Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed
This week I spent some time chatting with Latifa Pelletier-Ahmed, a human I have always admired for having an intricately autonomous perspective of the world. She was gracious enough to send a short clip for the “Powerful Women” music video, and here we discuss our relationship with our immediate biological environment, as women, humans, and animals.
LATIFA:
I hate having to describe myself to others, to be honest I always feel quite self conscious about it. I feel like I'm in this weird experience where I'm just trying to make the most of it. I'm trying to live as a decent human being in a world where a lot of weird stuff happens.
There are a lot of obvious problems, but I think for me the environmental issues are really critical. I'm not perfect, I don't want to say everything I do is in alignment with that. I mean look at my plastic clothes, You know, many of us are in a transitional space, unable to live 100% sustainable in our lifestyles. I still drive a car, because it's a means to an end, and I need it to do the other things that I perceive as beneficial. So, you know, I am aware that what I do doesn’t always align with my values, and that I can be better, but I simply don’t have the financial capacity to purchase the most sustainable fuel efficient vehicle. Privilege can allow access to resources for sustainable ways of being so, you know, I do the best I can.
So how would I describe myself? As someone who strives to be ethical, and strives to be better. I try to improve my understanding of myself, to be more patient with myself and more connected to others, and not just human beings. I think there's a real spiritual element to the depth of my being, and a sense of longing for a greater connection and purpose, and that is what drives me at the inner core.
CLEA:
One of my next questions was to ask you about the driving forces that motivate you within your work, so I am glad you just touched on that. Can we backtrack, so you can tell us about the kind of work you do?
LATIFA:
Yeah! I have so many hats! It's hard to explain all the hats that I wear.
I will start chronologically.
I studied herbal medicine in London, I did a postgraduate degree, and I chose this field over becoming a naturopath, because I really wanted to actually work with plants. My previous degree was in botany, and I realized that I didn't just want to work in data collection; I wanted to understand plants as individual living beings, as sentient, and explore our relationship with them.
Plants are massively important for our very existence as animals, for the functioning of the planet, period. I've always been really interested in wild edibles, and thinking beyond the colonized mindset of what we should be eating, and how we should subsist and interact with the land. Our general mindset around food is actually a very imposed perspective, and not really in line with the biological systems that actually exist around us, and their inherent value.
I still practice herbal medicine a little bit privately. More recently, a hat I wear involves doing workshops and teaching people how to make medicines, or harvest medicines sustainably. I do plant walks where I talk about what things are, and what you can eat. I teach people how to use plants medicinally, how you identify the plant, how to harvest it, and how the plant works.
CLEA:
Once COVID has kind of cleared up, will you have more educational walks again?
LATIFA:
I'll probably do a couple this year, but only once a month. Times will be available on my website: www.latifasherbs.com
I also do public talks, I have one coming up, but it's centered around the Botanical Gardens in Vancouver, and very specific to people in Vancouver.
So in previous years I would take people out to do foraging, but most of my energy goes into a newer business we have now, the plant nursery called ALCLA Native Plants, which we took over in 2019. So we have moved away from harvesting, and now provide options for people to grow in their gardens in sustainable ways.
Unfortunately the educational walks, and owning a plant nursery, compete with each other, because prime growing season is an insane amount of work. We grow all the plants, planting all the seeds, caring for them, watering them, and do all the sales and marketing, as well as client relations. That's why I don't have capacity to do foraging anymore in June, even though that's the best time to forage in Alberta, at least for like, edible greens.
CLEA:
Who comes to see you at the nursery and for what kind of plants?
LATIFA:
Well we have almost 200 plants, most of them are native to Alberta, and we have a couple Saskatchewan natives also.
We supply for home gardens, but also work with restoration and reclamation projects, and sometimes the scale is very very large. Gardens are a big one, school yards, community spaces, municipalities.
This ties into the reasons we want to have native plants, we have reached pretty critical levels when it comes to environmental degradation. The Parkland ecoregion has only 5% of the original vegetation remaining. Temperate grasslands are considered the most endangered ecosystem on earth by many conservation agencies. Less than 20% of our grasslands are remaining in Alberta, and that equates to the third biggest piece in North America, of the Great Plains that are left. Less than 2% of this land is actually protected. It's still being plowed under all the time, and 75% of our endangered species are in the grassland. Right now there are massive declines in all wildlife. This decline is around 90% for many species, and we are talking about the pollinators, like butterflies, that people like, but also many more life forms. It's pretty significant environmental degradation… So why should we plant native plants? Because we're on the edge of an ecological crisis, and this is something small that we can all do.
CLEA:
Are you driven then, by fear, or by hope?
LATIFA:
Hope, ya I think hope! For example the City of Calgary has a mandate now by 2025 to convert 30% of boulevard spaces and empty green spaces, and move away from turfgrass, which is not a native species, and has to be mowed and maintained and watered, which is expensive.
People often have a mindless mindset, they don’t ask themselves, “do we actually need to have turfgrass over everything?”, they just think that's what they are supposed to do. Thankfully, this mindset is changing, we are seeing more people naturalize spaces with the hope of improving biodiversity, and helping to increase insect populations and bird populations. Also, native grasses and wildflowers can be considerably more attractive.
Non native grasses like Kentucky Blue Grass or Smooth Brown, are not currently regulated as weeds in the province, even though they are very weedy and aggressive and threaten our grasslands. They aren’t regulated because they are economically significant. That’s the reality of our invasive species legislation.
CLEA:
I guess that is part of why the education piece is so valuable, I'm sure people are constantly surprised by this information, for most people a front lawn would be something you grew up with and wouldn’t necessarily question.
LATIFA:
Yeah, absolutely.
CLEA:
A lot of people’s work really centres on humans, but your work extends far beyond that into a relationship with the environment. Do you feel like you connect with that relationship through the lens of being a woman?
LATIFA:
What I have noticed over time is that I am way more connected to cycles, to seasons, than I was before. There are inherent bodily realities of having a uterus, that lend to feeling connected to nature. Even my own hormone regulation helps me to be aware of these external cycles, and in the business of plants I have to be quite connected. I have to know what temperature it is at night because that will dictate how things go with the plants. I don't get to rest until the winter. My life is very much intuitive, I need to sleep at night, and I have to be awake in the day for the plants.
These are cycles that modern society tries to pretend are not important, but just like the plants, many of our hormones and internal cycles are regulated by this. We are still really connected to the earth, but we are pulled away by a conceptual idea of what it is to be human in the modern world. Being in a woman's body reminds you of that deeply embodied connection to our environment, and that this connection is alive and real.
CLEA:
You were kind enough to send a clip for the “Powerful Women” music video, thank you for that! What was your initial reaction to the track?
LATIFA:
I really liked it. It was quite moving, I listened to it like 20 times over and over again. There was something very moving, moments when I felt quite touched by it.
CLEA:
Are there any women who you tap into for energy or who fuel the work you do?
LATIFA:
Two women immediately come to my mind. Robin Wall Kimmerer who wrote “Braiding Sweetgrass”, and also Lee Maracle who is a Sto:lo author. Their work really inspires me, because decolonization is an important piece of the work that I do, we work to build good relationships with folks in Treaty Seven, in Alberta. This is happening slowly, and we can support restoration processes through plants and seeds. Although these authors write about different things, their words ring in my mind because there is a sense of ethics that is not always inherent in Western thinking. There is a genuine accountability, not just to yourself and your bank account, but to other living beings, and other ways of knowing, and other people. In my work I really want to honor those principles, I really want to honor the plant itself, and that traditional knowledge creates a framework which invites you into a reciprocal relationship with landscape. All of this adds a layer of depth to what I'm already trying to do, it feeds my desire to honor the landscape, as well as the plants that sustain and provide my livelihood.
