definition of NTFPs is broadened to include traditional practices of fishing, gathering, and hunting, as well as uses of firewood, because of the similarities in their cultural and livelihood importance to tribes and tribal members. Another similarity between NTFPs derived from plants, animals, fish, and fungi is that they “have not been fully incorporated into management, policy, and resource valuation” in the United States (Chamberlain et al., 2018: xi), including on Indian forest lands. However, more than a century of US case law bears witness to the importance of
NTFPs to American Indians and Native Alaskans. For example, in its 1905 decision in United States v. Winans (198 U.S. 371 (1905)), the US Supreme Court described access to wildlife (including plants, animals, fish, and fungi) as “not much less necessary to the existence of the Indians than the atmosphere they breathed’’. In the two decades from 1970 to 1990, federal courts decided nearly seventy cases involving tribal hunting, fishing, and gathering rights (Pevar 1992 as cited in M. Emery & Pierce, 2005). Indeed, some NTFP species are so fundamental to
the cultural identity of a people because of their diverse roles in diet, materials, medicine, and spiritual practices that they may be thought of as cultural keystone species. Loss of access to these species presents a risk to the material and cultural survival of a people (M. R. Emery et al., 2014; Garibaldi & Turner, 2004). Notwithstanding lack of attention to them in forest management and planning, NTFPs continue to provide important benefits to Indian peoples. These benefits include, but are not limited to (Chamberlain et al., 2018: 85):
Forest management for blueberry fields on the Grand Portage Reservation in Minnesota. PHOTO CREDIT: VINCENT CORRAO
36 Assessment of Indian Forests and Forest Management in the United States
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