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Restore ecosystems and the sustainability of communities, cultures, and economies.
PANEL 4 of 7
November 15, 2023 | 2:50-4:15pm
Converging Perspectives for Indigenous Ecological Stewardship
Program Description
The fusion of Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (ITEK), academic scientific research, restoration ecology, adaptive management and restoration practice is a powerful combination that enhances forest and watershed restoration initiatives. Panelists will discuss this synergy and the integration of the art and tribal science of ITEK into ecosystem management, ecocultural restoration, First Foods, and climate adaptation for holistic outcomes in planning, analysis, prioritization, implementation, and multi-party monitoring.
Moderator: Marko Bey • Lomakatsi Restoration Project Founder & Executive Director
Presentation Recording
Panelists and Presentation Summaries
Dr. David Lewis • Takelma, Santiam, Chinook • Oregon State University, Asst. Professor of Anthropology and Indigenous Studies
Dr. David Lewis patched into the conference via Zoom. He presented research on Tribes of the Willamette Valley and western Oregon and his recent focus on historical reconstructions of the indigenous environment before native people were moved to reservations and settlers changed the landscape, including ethnographic evidence of indigenous fire in dry forest and oak-prairie habitats, agriculture-associated impacts to First Foods and wetland resources, and pre-settlement historic reference as a key perspective for guiding present-day environmental restoration. He gave examples of grassroots partnerships between private landowners and Grand Ronde tribal members to restore land with self-recovering culturally beneficial foods and talked about the importance of a holistic approach to salmon habitat restoration across the Columbia River Basin.
“We need to understand more about the unique interplay between fire and water for salmon, native plants, and animal health. There are also unique Tribal cultural adaptations to wetlands and swales to understand better.”
About David
Dr. David Lewis is a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, a descendant of the Takelma, Chinook, Molalla, and Santiam Kalapuya peoples of western Oregon. Dr. Lewis engages in research on the tribal histories of Northwest Coastal peoples, specializing in the Western Oregon Tribes. He served as the Director of the Southwest Oregon Project Collection at the University of Oregon and was then Culture Department manager of the Grand Ronde Tribe for 8 years. Dr. Lewis’s current research is to reconstruct the Willamette Valley Environments which were changed by settlers in the last 180 years with the removal of water and fire. On November 14, 2023, he released his first book, Tribal Histories of the Willamette Valley.
Dr. James O’Connell • University of Utah, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Indigenous Studies
Dr. James O’Connell shared about the 20-year evolution of the Surprise Valley geophyte project, a collaboration of academics and the Bureau of Land Management. The project focuses on important geophytes in the region, nutritional characteristics, effects of landscape burning on resource abundance, and applying the history of pre-European geophyte use as a nutrient-rich indigenous seasonal plant resource to present-day academic research. He talked about the dynamic and complex impacts of recent land management, shifting administrative attitudes, and livestock and wild horse grazing on plant distribution and abundance, and the positive, temporary effects of burning on plant density. He spoke to goals for gathering data on the effect of tillage in ongoing study through 2029 and the continued integration of community-based Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge with scientific perspectives for ecosystem restoration.
“Geophytes…roots, corms, tubers and so on, these are important resources throughout the intermountain West and into California at the time of European contact.”
About James
Dr. James O’Connell is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology (Emeritus) at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. He earned his doctorate studying western North American archaeology at UC Berkeley in 1971 and has worked extensively with traditional hunter-gatherers in Central Australia and East Africa. Dr. O’Connell’s research deals with three broad topics: variation in hunter-gatherer foraging and food sharing practices; the relationship between hunter-gatherer behavior and its archaeological consequences; and the implications of findings in these two domains for research on past human ecology and evolution. He is a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Kerry Metlen • The Nature Conservancy, Forest Ecologist
Dr. Kerry Metlen highlighted collaborative partnerships between nonprofits and agencies that accomplish ecological thinning and prescribed fire. He spoke to The Nature Conservancy’s new Indigenous Lands and Communities Strategy and goals to build organizational competency to support indigenous land authority and the transformation of conservation practice by integrating ITEK and science and better recognizing the human role in natural processes. He talked about his research into the fire regimes of southwest Oregon, including indigenous and lightning-caused fire, and the impacts of a 100-year period of fire exclusion, forest densification, and the resulting loss of important indigenous subsistence resources. He talked about current stand reconstruction research with OSU graduate student Sven Rodne, and the accumulated data as a foundation for understanding how fire systems supported indigenous values and future land management decision-making, such as identifying restoration targets.
“At the beginning, we have to start with this model of how we think we should be engaging with that landscape. So, we look to Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge, we look to narratives about that landscape and how things function, we look at paleoecology, we look at reconstructing stands…and fire scars that record important information about historical fire regimes, so even if you can’t go talk to the people that were there, you could know something about how frequently the fires came.”
About Kerry
Dr. Kerry Metlen is Senior Forest Scientist for The Nature Conservancy in Oregon. Kerry engages with diverse partners to provide scientific grounding for forest management decisions, supported by robust monitoring and ongoing adaptation. He has the good fortune to work at state and regional scales in support of The Nature Conservancy’s dry forest initiatives. At more local scales he helps lead forest adaptation efforts as part of the Rogue Forest Partners, working together for resilient forests and communities.
Dr. Frank Lake • Karuk descendant • USFS Pacific Southwest Research Station Fire and Fuels Program, Research Ecologist
Dr. Frank Lake spoke to his positionality as an indigenous knowledge holder and government scientist of more than 20 years, and how his responsibilities as an ecocultural practitioner inform the integration of ITEK into the creation of the best-available science. He talked about data sovereignty and knowledge protection as central to current national-level policy work and federal decision-making regarding the inclusion of indigenous knowledge, referencing his work as Co-Chair of the Indigenous Knowledge/Co-Production of Knowledge & Co-Stewardship Working Group with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Dr. Lake favored an interdisciplinary approach to ecocultural revitalization and restoring cultural stewardship regimes to meet future climate adaptation and reshape the way communities live with fire. He talked about best practices for respecting indigenous partners when including indigenous knowledge at the intersection of research and policy, such as protecting sacred sites and including elders, and gave examples of mutually beneficial research partnerships with Tribes that studied both fire effects and impacts on cultural practices.
“Being trained certain things about our culture, that influences the way that I see the world, how I walk in the world, how I have a responsibility for my knowledge in that, but also very much the way that I come from my own Western academic training in what we call now two-eyed seeing.”
About Frank
Dr. Lake received a Bachelor’s Degree from University of California-Davis in Integrated Ecology and Culture with a minor in Native American Studies. In 2007, Frank completed his PhD through Oregon State University’s Environmental Sciences Program. He is currently working for the US Forest Service – Pacific Southwest Research Station on tribal and community forestry and related natural resource issues. His research focuses on restoration ecology and the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge into landscape restoration strategies, wildland fire and forest management in the Pacific Northwest and northern California. He is a fireline qualified Resource Advisor and has worked with tribes, agencies, organizations, and Incident Management Teams on wildland fire assignments. Intertribal Timber Council. Mr. Colegrove holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Forest Resource Science from Humboldt State University.
Resources
- Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 [Link]
- Ashland Forest Resiliency Stewardship Project [Link]
- Indigenous Knowledge, Research, and Data Sovereignty: Challenges & Opportunities [Link]
- Karuk Traditional Knowledge and the Need for Knowledge Sovereignty [Link]
- Karuk-UC Berkeley Collaborative [Link]
- Oregon Department of Forestry Landscape Resiliency Program Final Report [Link]
- PSW Ecologist Frank Lake Shares How Indigenous Knowledge Promotes Healthy Forests [Link]
- Tribal Histories of the Willamette Valley by David G. Lewis [Link]