The valley floor of Yosemite, and it's technicolor wildflower mind blow, is a direct result of generations of clearing and burning by the Ahwahneechee nation: the Garry Oak and Camas meadows of the northwest, if left untended, become forests of fir: their openness is also a result of generations of cultivation by native groups, primarily to harvest the bulbs of camas. Entire ecologies we latter day settlers tend to emotionally identify with as 'pristine/wild/native' are in fact cultivated landscapes; though this notion certainly renders the term 'cultivated' as something different from, and gentler than, our common expectation. Perhaps the term 'native' when applied to ecologies is better concieved as also referring to the people whose efforts co-created them: and perhaps, from this broader understanding, our efforts towards a true 'permaculture' will be placed in a context which supersedes the limitations of the subjective 'native/exotic' duality.