Culture and conservation thrive as Great Lakes tribes bring back native wild rice

Indigenous seed banks preserve and reintroduce native agricultural varieties, which in some cases are more nutritious than other varieties. Qachuu Aloom runs a one-room seed bank that provides raw materials for its 500 active members, 80% of whom are women, to practice agroecological farming. The Cherokee Nation Seed Bank preserves more than 100 different kinds of seeds, distributing over 10,000 packets to growers in 2019. Several international organizations are working with seed banks to drive more resilient and diversified food production with native varieties as a way to address food insecurity.

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe is in the middle of a multi-decade effort to restore an important wetland that will make the local environment more resilient to climate change. Using tribal knowledge and expertise, they’re encouraging beavers to return, reintroducing salmon, planting trees, and building connections between people and the land.

Indigenous peoples across the western United States are bringing back native plants that disappeared many years ago by practicing natural regeneration. By slowly bringing ecosystems that were disrupted by human activity back to their natural state over time, the seeds and roots preserved underground are given the chance to flourish.

At Expo Amazonica in Lima, chefs are working to build a taste for traditional Amazonian foods, in an effort to promote biodiversity conservation and slow deforestation. But against a huge global demand for palm oil, growing wild food crops can be difficult for communities struggling to make ends meet. One big question is whether small farmers can create demand for Amazonian cuisine beyond the Amazon?

The Mvskoke 4-H Ocmulgee Club, in collaboration with Oklahoma State University and MCN Food Distribution, teaches Muscogee (Creek) Nation students hands-on pecan tree planting and food sovereignty skills rooted in Mvskoke cultural tradition.

Heritage Growers, a 200-acre nonprofit native seed farm founded in 2021, is addressing California's critical shortage of locally adapted native seeds by producing 30,000-40,000 pounds annually of seeds. They have already helped restore thousands of acres with native plants, including the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge (2,500 acres).

Cal Poly Humboldt's Native American Studies Department created an Indigenous food sovereignty research lab through a student-led, community-driven process that now supports Indigenous students' cultural connections, advances traditional ecological knowledge research, and demonstrates how Indigenous knowledge can be valued in higher education.

Like standard drug courts, the Penobscot Nation's Healing to Wellness Court refers people facing drug-related criminal charges to substance abuse counseling as an alternative to punishment. But this court and other tribal wellness courts are steeped in indigenous customs, blended with restorative justice approaches, to emphasize rehabilitation based on trust, support, and native traditions. The threat of punishment looms over participants should they fail in their counseling program. But no one has been jailed in the past two years in the Penobscot program.

Indigenous Peoples Burn Network, is a collaboration of Native nations, academic researchers, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations that advocate for and train fire-lighters in the indigenous practices of controlled forest burns. Under careful supervision, fire-lighters spread lines of fire beneath trees to create fuel-free areas and protect old growth trees from burning. Controlled burns preserve resources that are part of Native cultures, encourage and protect wildlife and biodiversity, and decrease the frequency of largescale, out-of-control forest fires.

Food bartering helps families during times of food insecurity, which is often exacerbated by crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Families with lower incomes have bartered for food for a long time but the pandemic has brought diversity to the families exchanging food with friends and neighbors. Food bartering is part of the cultural fabric of different groups, such as the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, which hosts workshops on cultivating gardens. Food bartering is an inclusive and community-building practice but when bartering is the only way to get food, the communal reliance can be an emotional drain.