Access and Management Issues for Cultural Plant Harvests

Project Description

This project serves to identify and document existing federal agreements between the U.S. Forest Service and federally recognized American Indian tribes in the Pacific Coast states (California, Oregon, and Washington). The goal is to collate, summarize, and evaluate agreements that address how tribal harvesters can access federal land to gather forest products (flora and fauna).

Image: Splitting willow bark (Salix sp) (credit J. Johnson 2015) 

Image: Stripped bark from willow (Salix sp) prepared for weaving (Photo credit J. Johnson 2015)

Purpose and Scope

No central repository exists of cooperative agreements between the U.S. Forest Service and federally recognized tribes of American Indians in the Pacific Coast states. Moreover, no list exists of unit staff with responsibility for tribal relations. Such information is vital, however, for the agency to uphold its trust responsibilities to tribes. In identifying and documenting existing tribal-federal agreements that address harvests of culturally important flora and fauna, this research uses mixed methods. Namely, it interviews all tribal liaison staff in Regions 5 and 6 using open-ended questions, reviews the existing scholarly and other relevant literature (including grey matter and case law) regarding agreements between U.S. tribes and federal land management agencies, and assesses the agreements with qualitative and ethnographic methods. The study is focused at an organizational level (for example with Native American weavers’ associations or with tribal-agency staff groups).

Image: Roots from red cedar (Thuja plicata) dug in preparation for weaving (Photo credit J. Johnson 2015).