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Aligning environmental management with ecosystem resilience: A First Foods example from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Oregon, USA
Abstract
The concept of “reciprocity” between humans and other biota arises from the creation belief of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR). The concept acknowledges a moral and practical obligation for humans and biota to care for and sustain one another, and arises from human gratitude and reverence for the contributions and sacrifices made by other biota to sustain human kind. Reciprocity has become a powerful organizing principle for the CTUIR Department of Natural Resources, fostering continuity across the actions and policies of environmental management programs at the CTUIR. Moreover, reciprocity is the foundation of the CTUIR “First Foods” management approach. We describe the cultural significance of First Foods, the First Foods management approach, a resulting management vision for resilient and functional river ecosystems, and subsequent shifts in management goals and planning among tribal environmental staff during the first decade of managing for First Foods. In presenting this management approach, we highlight how reciprocity has helped align human values and management goals with ecosystem resilience, yielding management decisions that benefit individuals and communities, indigenous and nonindigenous, as well as human and nonhuman. We further describe the broader applicability of reciprocity-based approaches to natural resource management.
... As described by Quaempts et al. (2018), the concept is focused on a reciprocity-based approach to natural resources where humans ensure resilience of organisms and the environment that provide subsistence over generations. This First Foods concept is maintained in serving rituals of traditional meals that are centered around water as the beginning and end of ritual meals, followed by a serving order of salmon, wildlife (big game), roots, and berries with all of these foods providing critical cultural resources for native tribes (Quaempts et al., 2018). ...
... As described by Quaempts et al. (2018), the concept is focused on a reciprocity-based approach to natural resources where humans ensure resilience of organisms and the environment that provide subsistence over generations. This First Foods concept is maintained in serving rituals of traditional meals that are centered around water as the beginning and end of ritual meals, followed by a serving order of salmon, wildlife (big game), roots, and berries with all of these foods providing critical cultural resources for native tribes (Quaempts et al., 2018). ...
... western pearlshell Margaritifera falcata; western ridged mussel Gonidea angulate). However, the multiple species of Pacific salmon that return annually to the Columbia River from spring through fall have been central to tribal cultures (Quaempts et al., 2018). These salmon species provided subsistence for regional tribes, and knowledge was passed over generations on best practices for harvesting fish but also protecting runs of salmon for future sustainability. ...
Indigenous tribes of the interior Columbia River have developed a mutual relationship with native fishes since time immemorial. However, extensive disruption to the natural ecosystem has occurred as European settlement of North America extended westward to utilize abundant natural resources in ways that conflicted with millennia of indigenous protection. This anthropogenic disturbance has led to dramatic declines in native fish species that are central to tribal cultures, but efforts are underway to enable these fishes and the people that rely upon them to persist for future generations. Here, we describe how pairing indigenous knowledge and western science have been applied to assist with fisheries recovery in the Columbia River. Parallel understanding of information passed across generations is central to this effort, from tribal elders with their historical grasp of the natural ecosystem and fisheries, to molecular genetic approaches that track DNA that is passed from parents to offspring and subsequent generations. Examples are provided that illustrate how both indigenous knowledge and genetic tools have been applied to support fisheries recovery in the Columbia River Basin.
... Olden et al. 2013 Freshwater mussel filtration removes coliform bacteria, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and algal toxins. Downing et al. 2014;Ismail et al. 2014Ismail et al. , 2015Ismail et al. , 2016 , historically harvested mussels in association with harvest of other food resources (e.g., salmon and plants; Quaempts et al. 2018;CTUIR 2020). The Umatilla named a site on the Columbia River Išáaxuyi, which means ''covered with mussel shells,'' due to the high abundance of mussels (Hunn et al. 2015). ...
... The Umatilla named a site on the Columbia River Išáaxuyi, which means ''covered with mussel shells,'' due to the high abundance of mussels (Hunn et al. 2015). Freshwater mussels are still considered a first food, a food of significant cultural and ecological importance, by the CTUIR and are actively managed and protected (Quaempts et al. 2018;CTUIR 2020). Freshwater mollusks remain an important food resource in other parts of the world, especially Southeast Asia (Zieritz et al. 2018), where both freshwater mussels and gastropods are a common commodity in markets (Bolotov et al. 2014;Dee et al. 2019). ...
Ecosystems provide essential services to people including food, water, climate regulation, and aesthetic experiences. Biodiversity can enhance and stabilize ecosystem function and the resulting services natural systems provide. Freshwater mollusks are a diverse group that provide a variety of ecosystem services through their feeding habits (e.g., filter feeding, grazing), top-down and bottom-up effects on food webs, provisioning of habitat, use as a food resource by people, and cultural importance. Research focused on quantifying the direct and indirect ways mollusks influence ecosystem services may help inform policy makers and the public about the value of mollusk communities to society. The Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Society highlighted the need to evaluate mollusk ecosystem services in their 2016 National Strategy for the Conservation of Native Freshwater Mollusks, and, while significant progress has been made, considerable work remains across the research, management, and outreach communities. We briefly review the global status of native freshwater mollusks, assess the current state of knowledge regarding their ecosystem services, and highlight recent advances and knowledge gaps to guide further research and conservation actions. Our intention is to provide ecologists, conservationists, economists, and social scientists with information to improve science-based consideration of the social, ecological, and economic value of mollusk communities to healthy aquatic systems.
... Meek and Tarlau 2020;Myers 2015; NBFJA 2022;Trauger 2018;Williams et al. 2017). Native American scholars have demonstrated how revitalizing Indigenous foodways restores health as well as cultural knowledge and stewardship of the environment (Angarova 2020; Huambachano 2019;Kant et al. 2015;LaDuke 2005;Menzies 2016;Mihesuah and Hoover 2019;Morrison 2011; Peña et al. 2017;Quaempts et al. 2018;Segrest and Krohn 2010; Settee and Shukla 2020), while African American anthropologists have addressed food access, adequacy, and sovereignty within racist food systems(Garth 2020;Garth and Reese 2020;Myers 2015) ...
All humans need food to stay alive, but food is also a complex social fact. As such, it is central to how people’s individual and collective identities are constructed and how others see us. Food is also associated in multiple ways with production and consumption processes; consumers influence these processes, whether they are motivated primarily by nourishment or by identity. Anthropology has been concerned with the study of food through different angles in connection with nourishment and identity, including the “classic” approaches (food taboos, gifts, and commodities, recurring commensality, food as material culture, hunger, food insecurity), while also taking new directions (the senses, culinary and food tourism, the nutrition transition, food sovereignty, food activism). Food consumption is embedded in webs of power that constrain food’s physical and social meanings. Food is nestled in systems of racism, sexism, and colonialism, resulting in embodied trauma. Yet, food also lies at the heart of reciprocity. Sharing food brings people together in their struggle for connection and agency. Whether we focus on physical nourishment or identity construction, food consumption is never separate from power.
Anthropology provides an effective way to study these complexities. The broad range of anthropological approaches allows for a deep understanding of food consumption’s complexities and power inequalities. Whether the question is approached from a physical nourishment angle or that of social identities, anthropological research has shown how the two cannot be divided. Similarly, anthropologists have taken a broad view of consumption, noting how recurrent commensality constructs the deep relationships that form the basis of human society. They have also shown the critical role that consumption plays in food production, distribution, and preparation. Robust critiques of the global food system have emerged from this work. They have led many anthropologists to work side by side with people attempting to improve their food systems to be more localized, nutritious, and fair.
... ntegrated into the zoning of land and forest use and conservation for the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) which hold significant cultural importance to several first nations in British Columbia, Canada. The use of the first nation's data on conservation has helped improve the existing habitat maps that are used for conservation(DeRoy & Darimont, 2019).Quaempts et al. (2018) examined the Umatilla communal IEK in the conservation of the forest in the USA. ...
Globally, forests supply important environmental benefits within and across ecosystem boundaries and despite institutional management, forest ecosystems are subjected to land-use changes which diminish their role. In Kenya, the current institutional management instruments are largely in place but there is a continuous reduction of forest cover presently estimated at 5.7% of the national land area as opposed to the desired > 10.0%. The integration of indigenous ecological knowledge into forest management may provide a much-needed bridge between indigenous communities and institutional understanding of sustainable forest management. Thus, the study examined the role of IEK in the management of forest among the Sengwer community living next to the Cherang’any forest, Elgeiyo-Marakwet County, Kenya. The study targeted older community members who were purposely sampled as key informants. The study used focus group discussion as the main instruments for data collections and thus qualitative analysis was more appropriate. The output was presented in thematic format. The study established that the Sengwer indigenous forest management techniques are compatible with institutional techniques applied in the management of the forest to the extent that institutionalized methods are more pervasive in the management of the forest. Based on the discussions, the study concluded that the indigenous conservation practices need to be formalized and integrated with the modern forest management practices. IEK can be included in the sustainable conservation of forests if the socio-economic status of the community is improved through economic empowerment. Further, the study recommends that Kenya’s Forest Conservation and Management Act of 2016 provides a basis for the integration of IEK into modern forest management techniques.
Objective
The Pacific Lamprey Entosphenus tridentatus is a First Food for members of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and other Columbia Plateau tribes in the Pacific Northwest. Declines in Pacific Lamprey abundance have prompted restoration efforts, including development of artificial propagation. Laboratory rearing of larvae has focused on maximizing survival and growth to conserve resources and increase production. To test the hypothesis that bacterial supplements increased the survival and growth of first‐feeding larval Pacific Lamprey, we conducted two controlled experiments.
Methods
First, a probiotic supplement (EPI‐CIN G2; Epicore, Bionetworks) was added to a standard food ration (yeast and Otohime mix) at two levels (2 and 5 mg/L) in a replicated, randomized design.
Result
Growth at 10 weeks was measured, and larvae that were fed probiotics at both levels grew significantly faster (2 mg/L: 11.0 μm/day; 5 mg/L: 13.3 μm/day) than controls that were fed the standard ration alone (6.6 μm/day). Larvae that received the probiotic supplement also had a higher survival (2 mg/L: 36%; 5 mg/L: 44%) than those fed the standard ration (24%). Next, a different cohort of larval lamprey was fed the same two levels of probiotic (at the same rate as in the first experiment), but the lamprey was kept in larger rearing pans and were fed for 28 weeks. Overall growth rates in the second experiment (2 mg/L: 4.6 μm/day; 5 mg/L: 5.7 μm/day; control 3.4 μm/day) were lower than those in the first experiment, but growth and survival (2 mg/L: 71.4%; 5 mg/L: 78.6%; control: 55.7%) were both highest in the treatments with probiotic. Moreover, in both experiments, we observed the highest growth in the probiotic treatments that also had high larval density.
Conclusion
This suggests that probiotics may help to overcome density‐dependent growth, which is a common problem in lamprey culture. Successful artificial propagation and culture of Pacific Lamprey are vital to the long‐term restoration goals for this imperiled First Food.
North America is a global center for native freshwater
mussel (order Unionida, hereinafter “mussels”) diversity, with
more than 350 species. Mussels are among the most imperiled fauna on the planet. Reasons for both local and widespread declines in mussels are mostly unknown, although the threats may include habitat loss and fragmentation, diseases, environmental contaminants, altered flow regimes, migration barriers to larval hosts, nonnative species, and climate change. Over the past three decades, research on mussels has been substantial. Nevertheless, current conservation and management efforts are limited by significant information gaps. For example, the effects of emerging stressors on mussels are largely unknown and identifying when habitats are rehabilitated and suitable for reestablishment of mussels remains challenging. Additionally, historical and current information on the distribution, taxonomy, and life histories are often unreliable or lacking altogether, and more reliable information is needed for many species. We identified focal research themes, goals, and objectives where research on mussels is needed based on information gaps identified through conversations with resource partners across local, regional, and national organizations. Research on biodiversity seeks to enhance the diversity of mussel species and populations to support healthy aquatic ecosystems. Research on emerging stressors seeks to improve the understanding of how mussel species, populations, and communities respond to emerging stressors, including environmental contaminants and climate change. Research on conservation seeks to enhance the recovery of species and populations and to identify data gaps limiting the conservation of mussels and their habitats. Mussels are in urgent need of proactive conservation because they are an integral part of our natural heritage, enhance biodiversity, and provide vital ecological services that support freshwater ecosystems. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has been, and continues to be, a leader in mussel research. Although the USGS
is well suited to address the broad-scale multidisciplinary research needed to conserve mussels, the USGS has had substantial loss of scientists with mussel expertise over the past 20 years. However, the breadth of the USGS expertise on mussels
can be leveraged internally across other USGS mission and program areas and externally across research partners. Given the breadth and scope of the issues facing mussels across the United States, the research themes outlined in this science vision can only be accomplished through extensive collaborations between the USGS and the full spectrum of natural resource partners, including other Federal and State agencies, Tribal organizations, universities, industries, and nongovernmental organizations.
This document has been prepared in cooperation with Federal, Indigenous, and State malacologists (mollusk scientists), environmental toxicologists, restoration specialists, and other subject matter experts to provide best practices for freshwater mussel injury determination, early identification of restoration
opportunities, injury quantification and damages determination (also referred to as claim development), and restoration planning, implementation, and monitoring. The experts address the effects of hazardous substance releases and oil spills on freshwater mussels’ complex life histories and essential ecological roles, and offer solutions that will lead to the restoration, recovery, and protection of these organisms that provide important ecosystem services.
Objective
The Pacific Lamprey Entosphenus tridentatus is considered a first food of Native American tribes, such as the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Populations of this imperiled species have declined such that harvest for traditional use is limited. As a result, propagation and culture of Pacific Lampreys have been initiated to supply animals for restoration and recovery efforts. These efforts require transport and periodic holding of both adults and larvae under static (no‐flow) conditions. Hence, guidelines for ensuring an adequate oxygen supply are needed for all life stages of this species.
Methods
We measured oxygen consumption rates of mature adults, first‐feeding larvae, and yearlings under static conditions at 12–15°C. In addition, we recorded indicators of stress during hypoxia for adults and estimated routine respiration rates during and after larval feeding.
Result
Adults exhibited surprisingly high metabolic rates when at rest in static chambers. At 12°C, a single adult typically reduced dissolved oxygen levels in 10 L to <2 mg/L in just 90 min (oxygen consumption rates of 100–200 mg/kg/h). Adults often started to climb the walls of open chambers when dissolved oxygen levels approached 2 mg/L, allowing them to raise their branchiopores into air. Larvae remained quiescent, even when oxygen levels dropped below 1 mg/L, and costs of feeding increased routine respiration by 22–56%.
Conclusion
Based on these observations, we recommend that adult Pacific Lampreys always be transported in aerated containers and with access to air at the top of the tank. Although larvae exhibited hypoxia tolerance, care should be taken to ensure adequate oxygen availability, particularly during and immediately after feeding.
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is an understanding of natural systems acquired through long-term human interactions with particular landscapes. Traditional knowledge systems complement western scientific disciplines by providing a holistic assessment of ecosystem dynamics and extending the time horizon of ecological observations. Integration of TEK into land management is a key priority of numerous groups, including the United Nations and US public land management agencies; however, TEK principles have rarely been enshrined in national-level US policy or planning. We review over 20 years of TEK literature to describe key applications of TEK to ecological understanding, conservation, restoration and land management generally. By identifying knowledge gaps, we highlight research avenues to support the integration of TEK into US public land management, in order to enhance conservation approaches and participation of historically underrepresented groups, particularly American Indian Tribes, in the stewardship of ancestral lands critical to the practice of living cultural traditions.
The struggles of diverse EJ and Indigenous movements reaffirm that other worlds are possible. This section highlights how, emergent within these global struggles, there are insights and strategies for reshaping energy research on the unjust dimensions of contemporary energy systems. Studying energy from EJ perspectives further involves engaging with discrimination and the distribution of power, in all its forms, across societies. This section details conceptual, historical, and theoretical approaches that reassess energy’s role in producing injustices, drawing in particular on (i) critiques of extractivism, anti-politics, racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and the political implications of energy when understood as the capacity to do commodifiable work, and (ii) closer engagement with autonomous, prefigurative, and sovereignty-based movements. These repoliticized perspectives on energy underline how multiple strands of EJ inquiry and action come together to identify, resist, and resolve environmental inequalities.KeywordsEnergy historiesExtractivismLabor exploitationRacial capitalismSettler colonialismAutonomy
This article develops a reciprocity ethics of the environment through a discussion of ethnobotanical medicines used in the treatment of cancer. The moral virtue of reciprocity, defined as the returning of good when good is received or anticipated, is central to the posthumanist rethinking of human relationships to the plant world. As herbal medicines are used progressively more around the globe and as plant diversity decreases as a result of habitat loss and climate change, an ethics of reciprocity should be a concern for environmental philosophers and conservationists. Aldo Leopold’s land ethic and J. Baird Callicott’s distinction between deontological and prudential environmental ethics provide theoretical contexts for the development of a reciprocity ethics vis-à-vis ethnobotanical species. While this article does not necessarily specify modes or forms of reciprocity, it does outline some of the more prominent ethnobotanical species used in the treatment of cancer, including those from Native American, African, Chinese, and Indian traditions. In the form of a dialogue between the fields of ethnobotany, herbal medicine, and environmental philosophy, this article presents a position from which further articulations of reciprocity can be developed, particularly those involving the rights of indigenous cultures and plants.
Among the most visually striking river restoration projects are those that involve the creation of a new channel, often in a new alignment and generally with a form and dimensions that are different from those of the preproject channel. These channel reconstruction projects often have the objective of creating a stable, single-thread, meandering channel, even on rivers that were not historically meandering, on rivers whose sediment load and flow regime would not be consistent with such stable channels, or on already sinuous channels whose bends are not symmetrical. Such meandering channels are often specified by the Rosgen classification system, a popular restoration design approach. Although most projects of this type have not been subject to objective evaluation, completed postproject appraisals show that many of these projects failed within months or years of construction. Despite its, at best, mixed results, this classification and form-based approach continues to be popular because it is easy to apply, because it is accessible to those without formal training in fluvial geomorphology, and probably because it satisfies a deep-seated, although unrecognized, cultural preference for single-thread meandering channels. This preference is consistent with 18th-century English landscape theories, which held the serpentine form to be ideal and led to widespread construction of meandering channels on the country estates of the era. The preference for stability in restored channels seems to be widely accepted by practitioners and funders despite the fact that it is antithetical to research showing that dynamically migrating channels have the greatest ecological richness. Copyright © 2006 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance.
Because resilience of a biological system is a product of its evolutionary history, the historical template that describes the relationships between species and their dynamic habitats is an important point of reference. Habitats used by Pacific salmon have been quite variable throughout their evolutionary history, and these habitats can be characterized by four key attributes of disturbance regimes: frequency, magnitude, duration, and predictability. Over the past two centuries, major anthropogenic changes to salmon ecosystems have dramatically altered disturbance regimes that the species experience. To the extent that these disturbance regimes assume characteristics outside the range of the historical template, resilience of salmon populations might be compromised. We discuss anthropogenic changes that are particularly likely to compromise resilience of Pacific salmon and management actions that could help bring the current patterns of disturbance regimes more in line with the historical template.
The article provides an in-depth perspective on environmental sustainability in the US. The often-repeated classic definition of sustainability is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It is succinctly accurate and fully valid. Generally moving in this direction means making positive meaningful change to reduce and negate the impacts of their operations, products and services. Indeed some specific practices have been eliminated based on a determination that they are truly not sustainable, such as continuing to sell a species of fish that is close to being endangered. But most sustainability improvements are really a matter of making changes to reduce and void negative environmental impacts. From a sustainability consulting perspective, the ideal way to address the subject is with a comprehensive strategy that is based on the specific operation of the company and the products or services it sells.
Returning the river to a more natural state runs counter to the management philosophy that has guided salmon restoration in the Columbia River Basin (CRB) for much of the 20th century. For this reason, restoration or improvement of the ecological conditions will require an examination of the values that underlie Columbia River management. However, the conceptual foundation provides a scientific basis for that debate. In the recent past, failure of the scientific community to resolve key restoration issues was often used to justify maintaining the status quo and avoid the necessary public debate over the social and economic costs of salmon recovery. However, expecting scientists to agree on each of the key questions is an unrealistic assumption. The healthy exercise of scientific debate should not be used as an excuse to hold progress hostage to the unattainable goal of a perfect scientific consensus. If the region is genuine in its desire to restore Pacific salmon in the Columbia Basin, continuing the status quo is not an option. The first step in developing a scientifically-sound restoration program for salmon is to clearly articulate the conditions needed for salmon relative to the region's salmon recovery goals. The next step is to determine what changes in the federal hydropower system and other uses of the river are needed to achieve these conditions. The next step is the difficult job of debating the cost and benefits of salmon restoration. Significant changes will require painful decisions, perhaps even congressionally mandated alteration of federal hydrosystem project operations. Other lesser changes might limit; however, not eliminate, the region's ability to use the Columbia River as a navigation corridor and to supply some irrigation needs.
The inherent power dynamic between academic researchers and those they study is the focus of this article. Author K. Tsianina Lomawaima analyzes the shift in the balance of power between scholars and American Indian tribes that has occurred over the last four decades. She argues that issues such as access to subjects, data ownership, analysis and interpretation, and control over dissemination of findings all reflect what amounts to a struggle for power and tribal sovereignty. Lomawaima maintains that understanding the historical relationship between Native communities and academia, as well as the relatively new research protocols developed by various tribes, is necessary for responsible and respectful scholarship.
1. River–floodplain systems are among the most diverse and complex ecosystems. The lack of detailed information about functional relationships and processes at the landscape and catchment scale currently hampers assessment of their ecological status.
2. Intensive use and alteration of riverine landscapes by humans have led to severe degradation of river–floodplain systems, especially in highly industrialised countries. Recent water‐related regulations and legislation focussing on high standards of ecological integrity back efforts to restore or rehabilitate these systems.
3. Most restoration projects in the past have suffered from a range of deficits, which pertain to project design, the planning process, the integration of associated disciplines, scaling issues and monitoring.
4. The so‐called `Leitbild' (i.e. a target vision) assumes a key role in river restoration and the assessment of ecological integrity in general. The development of such a Leitbild requires a multistep approach. Including explicitly the first step that defines the natural, type‐specific reference condition (i.e. a visionary as opposed to an operational Leitbild), has great practical advantages for restoration efforts, primarily because it provides an objective benchmark, as is required by the European Water Framework Directive and other legal documents.
5. Clearly defined assessment criteria are crucial for evaluating ecological integrity, especially in the pre‐ and postrestoration monitoring phases. Criteria that reflect processes and functions should play a primary role in future assessments, so as to preserve and restore functional integrity as a fundamental component of ecological integrity.
6. Case studies on the Kissimmee River (U.S.A.), the Rhine River (Netherlands and Germany), and the Drau River (Austria) are used to illustrate the fundamental principles underlying successful restoration projects of river–floodplain systems.