In Chapter 24, Kimmerer tells the story of Franz Dolp, who built a home in deforested land and set to restoring the forest. First Franz had to clear blackberries and salmonberries that had taken over in the absence of tree cover, and Kimmerer uses a simile comparing colonists to these berries:

In five hundred years we exterminated old-growth cultures and old-growth ecosystems, replacing them with opportunistic culture. Pioneer human communities, just like pioneer plant communities, have an important role in regeneration, but they are not sustainable in the long run. When they reach the edge of easy energy, balance and renewal are the only way forward, wherein there is a reciprocal cycle between early and late successional systems, each opening the door for the other.

Kimmerer has just explained that berries are well adapted to spreading far and wide over open ground because animals, especially birds, can easily scatter their seeds. The berries have their role in restoring life to an area where trees have been cut down en masse. However, as Franz finds, these "pioneer" plants are "opportunists" that use up all the resources they find and leave nothing behind for other plants. They create an ecosystem that cannot sustain itself because it does not have any sense of "balance and renewal." In order to begin restoring the diverse ecosystem of the old-growth forest, Franz must clear the ground of the berries that have taken over.

Kimmerer compares the berries to "pioneer human communities." Based on context, she is referring especially to communities of European-American settlers who have spread out across North America over the past several hundred years. These communities, like berries, have taken over everywhere they could find or make clear ground. They have used up all the resources in the process. Now, there is nothing for them to do but learn the art of sharing space and resources.

Kimmerer writes that both pioneer plant communities and pioneer human communities "have an important role in regeneration." This gentle remark invites the reader to reflect on how they might be like a berry, striving for a good life without thinking about their impact on the rest of the world. Kimmerer makes room for the fact that many people, like the berries, are trying to live well but are caught in the capitalist, colonial systems that have destroyed so much. Still, she argues that we have "reach[ed] the edge of easy energy" and that now we must form new, more inclusive and reciprocal communities.