At 7:00 a.m. on September 14, 2024, dozens of people in colorful skirts and dress pants begin gathering around a small brick duplex at the Michigan/Wisconsin state line in the westernmost Upper Peninsula, just down the road from a series of budget strip clubs and adult video stores. This may seem like a strange place for a Native American ceremony, but not so: just beneath the bridge flows the Montreal River, and anywhere with Nibi is sacred.

Lake Superior — or Gichigami, as the Anishinaabe call her — is a mighty spirit. She has cast a forcefield around the Upper Midwest, protecting it from development by bestowing us with atrocious farming soil, and indeed I have dented my shovel trying to dig a four-inch hole. But this is where the plot thickens. Because Lake Superior’s protection is not absolute, and rich geology doesn’t just attract agate hunters…

It also brings mines.

In biomes hurt by urban sprawl and agricultural advancement, understanding the potential of solutions that integrate human and agricultural systems will help bridge the well-being of the population and the environment. That is why agroforestry has attracted the attention of farmers, researchers and policy makers in the last decade as a new horizon for forest conservation in tropical regions like the Atlantic biome.