First Foods and Climate Change: A collaborative Project of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the Umatilla National Forest.

The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) Department of Natural Resources has organized natural resource functions and goals through a focus on traditionally gathered resources identified by the Tribal community as “First Foods”.  In a traditional meal the ritualistic serving order of First Foods is not only a cultural recognition of each native species but also the geographic and temporal pattern of traditional gathering of First Foods. The community places particular importance on the activities and interactions associated with gathering, preparation and serving of these foods.  Further, these foods are physically, economically, culturally and socially important to the community and are largely not recognized outside of Tribal culture.  Traditional culture and contemporary science reinforce the First Foods paradigm.  Thus explicitly representing the relevance of the First Foods order in planning and management efforts is an important step to ensure that the appropriate ecological products are returned to the Tribal community.  Climate change challenges us to forecast the potential distributions of habitats and First Foods to ensure that they are available to the tribal public.  We present a collaborative project completed with the USDA Umatilla National Forest Surverisor’s office, in which we assess the existing distribution of plant foods to understand their requirements and inform anticipated climate change assessments, thereby fulfilling the USFS trust responsibility and the CTUIR DNR responsibility to protect and increase Tribal member access to First Foods in portions of the aboriginal use lands of the CTUIR.    

Keywords: First Foods, community/climate adaptation