Progress 01/01/04 to 12/31/04
Outputs
The PhD student on this project moved to the reservation vicinity and was successful in building a number of supportive contacts among Tribal elders, Council members, staff, teachers and others. Further, she was able to identify maps, records and other sources of information about earlier plant communities that supported geophytic food plants. Methods for documenting ecological knowledge were developed that would not require naming of exact locations of plant populations as this is very privileged information, even within families. Questions about interest in reestablishing cultural plant populations provided key insights. There was no interest, nor were we able to provoke interest in reestablishing communities of cultural species that were "put there by the Creator", even if they had been lost through human actions. During previous work in Brazil and Tanzania, the PI had found similar responses to this idea when the species in question were native trees that provided
excellent fruit and forage. In both cases, there was a much greater desire to get seeds of exotic trees that were not well suited to that environment, but that were being promoted by agricultural development programs. Our recent work with Antenosy farmers in Madagascar provided yet another example of this phenomenon with medicinal plants and the palm used for roofing. No spiritual element of this preference was reported in Brazil, Tanzania or Madagascar. It appears that many people in "traditional" cultures would develop an acceptable substitute rather than cultivate native species. This occurs even among agricultural communities and in cases where cultivation techniques have been developed. The reasons for this are not clear, but this behavior is important to understand when doing ecosystem restoration. Several funding proposals were prepared and submitted jointly with the tribe. Academic seminars on concepts and examples of restoration ethnobotany were presented in the Anthropology
Department at Washington State University and the College of Natural Resources at University of Idaho.
Impacts
Awareness of native food plants and their cultural and ecological importance has been advanced among Indian and non-Indian people on the reservation and within the scholarly community.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
|
Progress 01/01/03 to 12/31/03
Outputs
This project has been initiated. A project coordinator was hired and located at the project site. Two research funding proposals were developed, submitted and are pending, One invited scholarly presentation was made. Plant materials have been collected. New tribal and other landowner contacts have been established. A discussion has been conducted with Business Sub-committee of the Tribal Council and research permits are being submitted to the Tribal Council. This project has been revised and is being continued for an additional year.
Impacts
Awareness of native food plants and their cultural and ecological importance has been advanced among Indian and non-Indian people on the reservation and within the scholarly community.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
|
|