as one important solution to this health crisis. The ability to obtain fish, meat, and plant foods without purchasing them is both economically important for many tribal members and a right guaranteed by many tribes’ reserved treaty rights. As multiple court cases have demonstrated, tribes regard the exercise of those reserved treaty rights as essential to their material, cultural, and spiritual survival. Prioritizing fishing, gathering, and hunting in tribal forest management is fundamental to the exercise of those reserved treaty rights. Fishing, gathering, and hunting are central to tribes’ spiritual and cultural practices. From the prayers that are said before harvesting an animal or plant, to the wood used to build fires for ceremonies and the foods that are eaten at them, fishing, gathering, and hunting are embedded in spiritual practices and help to keep tribal cultures alive. As such, it is not a stretch to interpret managing forests to provide healthy populations of plants, animals, and fungi used by tribes as contributing to compliance with the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (42 U.S.C. § 1996.). Given the importance of NTFPs to tribal identities and spirituality, programs to teach youth to fish, hunt, and/or gather are a high priority for many tribes. Language programs also play a role in these efforts. A striking feature of these programs is how often they engage multiple tribal departments, with tribal forestry and natural resource departments often working closely with cultural staff to organize and run them. This underscores the importance of tribal forestry and natural resource programs
Wild ramp harvest for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. PHOTO CREDIT: MICHAEL DOCKRY
to tribal cultural programs and the importance of tribal cultural programs to tribal forestry and natural resource programs. Firewood is important to tribes for heating homes and processing food, including smoking fish and game meat, and parching wild rice. The organizational structure of tribal firewood programs differs from tribe to tribe, but they commonly provide critical sources of heat in winter for many tribal members, especially for elders. In general, firewood is delivered free of charge to elders and others in need. Most tribes allow members to harvest firewood. Some tribes have large scale firewood operations, which are a source of some income. The composite list generated a total of 148 species or groups of species (Appendix iii). There is some possibility of over-counting if multiple common names are used for a single species or
species group (e.g., ramps, wild onions, and wild leeks probably all refer to Allium tricoccum ). Likewise, there is a possibility of under counting if the same name is used to refer to multiple species (e.g., “sweetgrass” is used for both Hierachloe odorata and Muhlenbergia filipis . Given those uncertainties, the fact that there are many species in diverse taxa is apparent from the interviews. A few key takeaways from the composite list include: 1) There are dozens to hundreds of plant, animal, and fungi species that are important to tribes; 2) These species are important as sources of food, medicine, craft, cultural, and utilitarian materials; 3) Some are so important they are considered fundamental to the cultures and identities of a tribe (cultural keystone species); 4) These species are rarely prioritized in BIA forest planning and management. This oversight is especially true in the
Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) 39
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