'Fresh Banana Leaves' spotlights Indigenous science for a warming planet

As the world looks for ways to slow and adapt to climate change, solution-seekers need to turn to the insights and lived experiences of Indigenous people.

Jessica Hernandez makes that argument in the new book “Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science.”

Hernandez, a University of Washington postdoctoral fellow from the Maya Ch’ortí and Zapotec nations, says Indigenous people are often viewed as research subjects, not experts in their own right.

“Indigenous peoples hold on to the knowledge that can holistically protect our environments, especially as we continue to see how climate change impacts are drastically shifting our weather patterns,” she says.

Hernandez titled her book after her father’s experience as a child soldier during the Central American civil wars.

At 11 years old, her father was forced to fight. In his spare time, he sought refuge under a nearby banana tree, to which he fled one day during a bombardment.

“He decided to do was to go under this banana tree that he had built a reciprocal relationship with … and he saw a bomb drop on the tree,” says Hernandez. “And the leaves kind of wrapped themselves to prevent the bomb from igniting. So my father says,