by Cristina Eisenberg, PhD
In fall 2019, the Fort Belknap Indian Community (FBIC) launched a promising 5-year partnership with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) to implement the Seeds of Success (SOS) Native Seed and Grassland Restoration Program. Our program focuses on the role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in ecological restoration, working in close partnership with FBIC on BLM and adjacent tribal lands on Montana’s Northern Great Plains. The program applies seed collection in compliance with BLM’s SOS program, BLM’s Assessment, Inventorying, and Monitoring (AIM) protocols, and ecological restoration based on the SER International Principles and Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration (Gann et al. 2019).
Program Director and Principal Investigator Dr. Cristina Eisenberg (Oregon State University), an Indigenous woman and SER Board member, leads the program, under the oversight of Wendy Velman, BLM Montana/Dakota State Office Botanist, with guidance from BLM Montana/Dakota State Office Branch Chief John Carlson, BLM Tribal Coordinator Marcia Pablo, and SER Executive Director Bethanie Walder. FBIC leads include the Tribal Council, Tribal Preservation Officer (THPO) Michael Black Wolf, FBIC Science Lead Dennis Longknife, Jr., Program Coordinator Daniel Werk, and tribal elder Donovan Archambault. BLM Plant Conservation Program lead Peggy Olwell, was instrumental in envisioning and supporting the FBIC program.
Our study site lies at the confluence of three ecoregions: the NW Great Plains to the south, the NW Glaciated Plains to the north, with the Middle Rockies in the center. In 2020 we worked on BLM lands surrounding the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, home of the Nakota (Assiniboine) and Aaniiih (Gros Ventre) Tribes. This reservation has a population of 7,000 people and covers 650,000 acres (2,626 km2). Reservation lands are primarily used for agriculture (e.g., ranching) and mixed uses that include hunting, recreation, and conservation. BLM lands are used for grazing, natural-resources extraction, hunting, recreation, and conservation.
Community Fellows heading into the field to collect seeds (credit: C. Eisenberg)
Our work takes place in the Northern Great Plains biome, characterized by mixed-grass prairie, low precipitation (9-12” annually), and flat or rolling terrain. In addition to having a strong North Dakota floristic influence, the unique grassland community composition on the Fort Belknap Reservation and surrounding BLM lands shows a strong Intermountain Biome influence, particularly Utah (Lavin and Seibert 2011). Western wheatgrass (Pascopyron smithii), a species historically used by bison, is the dominant grass. Needle and thread (Hesperostipa comata), also an important component, increases with coarser soil textures, or under heavy grazing at the expense of Western wheatgrass. Sites with a high amount of green needlegrass (Nassella viridula), one of the most palatable of the mid-grasses, indicate a more favorable moisture balance. Extreme overgrazing can cause loss of western wheatgrass, followed by sharp reductions in needle and thread, and dominance by blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), Sandberg’s bluegrass (Poa secunda), and prairie Junegrass (Koeleria macrantha). Common forbs include yarrow (Achillea millefolium), scarlet globemallow (Sphaeralcea coccinea), western sagewort, (Artemisia ludoviciana), boreal sagewort (Artemisia frigida), silver lupine (Lupinus argenteus), fuzzy beardtongue (Penstemon eriantherus), shining penstemon (Penstemon nitidus), prairie cinquefoil (Potentilla gracilis), Missouri goldenrod (Solidago missouriensis), and dalea (Dalea spp). Shrubs include western snowberry (Symphoricarpos occidentalis), serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia), shrubby cinquefoil (Dasiphora fruticosa), creeping juniper (Juniperus horizontalis), silver sage (A. cana Pursh), and Wyoming big sagebrush (A. tridentata var. wyomingensis) (Lavin and Seibert 2011; Sedivec et al. 2009a; Sedivec et al. 2009b; State of Montana 2021; Stubbendiek et al. 2017).
Prior to European settlement, the dominant large herbivore in this landscape (by biomass) was the bison. After European settlement, cattle became the dominant large herbivore. Other large grazing animals here include elk (Cervus elaphus), deer (Odocoileus spp), and pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana). Other taxa dependent on this habitat include a variety of birds, including greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus aurophasianus), a species of concern that has BLM “sensitive” status. Currently two bison herds exist on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, one established in 2013, consisting of animals sourced from Yellowstone National Park, and a second herd established later, ranging in the area around Snake Butte.
Many factors have degraded grasslands and continue to threaten them (e.g., increasing drought). Restoring grasslands for the ecosystem services those grasslands provide to human and wildlife communities is a priority globally. Given that the Northern Plains of Montana provide a unique combination of grasses and forbs of high conservation value, establishing a native seed conservation program here is important to meeting national plant conservation objectives.
Ecosystems are expressions of human, floral, and faunal co-evolution in response to past environmental conditions. Ecosystems are shaped by Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)—knowledge and practices passed as stories and songs from generation to generation informed by strong cultural practices and rituals (Kimmerer 2013). TEK includes sensitivity to change and reciprocity. Unlike Western science, TEK observations are qualitative and long-term. Observers tend to be people engaged in subsistence practices, such as hunting, fishing, and gathering. Their survival is linked to the health of the land. Most importantly, TEK is inseparable from a culture’s spiritual and social fabric. In the Indigenous worldview, it takes all of what it means to be human—body, mind, heart, and spirit—to understand something ecologically. This means that TEK offers important ecological insights, but also a cultural framework that includes values that can help solve environmental problems. TEK practices increase biodiversity and ecological resiliency by creating fine-grained, patchy landscape mosaics. Used by Indigenous people for millennia to increase natural production of food and medicine, these practices include setting fires to modify vegetation, and have enormous potential to heal the damage done to the Earth by colonialism (Eisenberg et al. 2019; Gann et al. 2019).
Elder Donovan Archambault and Program Coordinator Dan Werk sharing TEK material with our field crew (credit: C. Eisenberg)
In our 2020 field season, we successfully brought together Western science and TEK to address grassland restoration. FBIC selected eight Community Conservation Fellows, whom we trained in SOS and AIM protocols, TEK, and native plant identification. FBIC Elders led ceremonies and shared their TEK to improve outcomes for the Fellows and program overall. Fellows thrived and became proficient at using the state-of-the-art data-management system created by BLM, which involves data entry on tablets using ArcGIS software. In AIM plots on BLM land used for cattle grazing, the team identified extensive, healthy native grass populations. Fellows helped make several robust collections of seeds for plant restoration.
Three full-time summer botany field technicians—Monroe Fox (a member of the Kainai First Nation), Kaden Ashdown, and Payton Feller—worked closely with Dr. Eisenberg (with Monroe’s engagement in partnership with the Blood Tribe Lands Department, Kainai First Nation). As a 13-year-old, Monroe began doing botany work as a Community Conservation Fellow on Dr. Eisenberg’s grassland restoration project in southwest Alberta. Today she has worked as a technician for Dr. Eisenberg for three years and now plans to go to college and get a PhD in botany. She embodies the strong benefits to Indigenous youth of Community Conservation Fellows programs. In addition to her tech duties, she functions as a role model and mentor for FBIC Fellows.
Lead technician Monroe Fox collecting green needlegrass (Nassela viridula) seeds (credit: C. Eisenberg)
This program is proving to be a key source of valuable seeds for restoration. Given the impacts of climate change and agro-industrial development on native plants, this program is providing an essential seed source from an area for which only a handful of seed collections had been made over the past two decades. In Summer 2020, we made collections (>10,000 seeds in each) of green needlegrass, prairie Junegrass, and blue wildrye (Elumus glaucus)—foundational species for prairie restoration.
The program also partners with THPO Michael Black Wolf to collect and conserve historical ecological knowledge from within their community of elders. Program Coordinator Daniel Werk is interviewing elders to better understand the role of important native plants from a cultural perspective and for use in restoration. The THPO will determine which information will remain exclusively within FBIC, and which information can be shared. Elder Donovan Archambault, who has a Harvard University MA, has developed a TEK handbook for the program. A highlight of the 2020 field season was spending time with FBIC ethnobotanist and elder Minerva Allen, who offered precious guidance on focal plant species for our program.
Minerva Allen and Wendy Velman discussing ethnobotany (credit: C. Eisenberg)
By bridging the gap between TEK and best Western science, this program advances social justice and directly addresses the damage done by settler colonialism in the 1800s, when Euro-American settlers arrived. We are supporting and restoring wellbeing to a Native American community by providing education, job training, and jobs, and by sourcing program housing and food directly from the community. Indeed, in 2020, 93% of program staff was Native American. To further support the FBIC, Dr. Eisenberg has selected six of the Community Conservation Fellows to work as field technicians on this program in 2021.
We are very excited about the upcoming 2021 field season. In addition to collections of 10,000 seeds of selected priority species by ecoregion, to go into the National Native Seed Repository, we will be making working collections of 2-5 pounds of cleaned seed for each of these species. From a TEK perspective, each seed we collect represents a life, each on capable of helping heal Mother Earth. This awareness deepens our commitment to this important program.
Resources:
Allen, M. 2012. Nakoda Sky People (Kalispell, MT: Many Voices Press).
Eisenberg C. 2019. Defining and Integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge to Create a More Sustainable Earth. The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, 10(4), e01585. https://doi.org/10.1002/bes2.1585
Eisenberg, C., C. L. Anderson, A. Collingwood, R. Sissons, C. J. Dunn, G. W. Meigs, D. E. Hibbs. S. Murphy, S. Dakin Kuiper, J. SpearkChief-Morris, L. Little Bear, B. Johnston, and C. B. Edson. 2019. Out of the Ashes: Ecological Resilience to Extreme Wildfire, Prescribed Burns, and Indigenous Burning in Ecosystems. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7.
Gann, G., T. McDonald, B. Walder, J. Aronson, C. R. Nelson, J. Jonson, C. Eisenberg, et al. 2019.
International Principles and Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration. Restoration Ecology 27: S1-S46.
Kimmerer, R. W. 2013. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (New York: Milkweed Editions).
Lavin, M., and C. Seibert. 2011. Great Plains flora? Plant geography of eastern Montana's lower elevation shrub-grass dominated vegetation. Natural Resources and Environmental Issues 16:1-13. Oldfield, S. 2018. The US National Seed Strategy for Rehabilitation and Restoration‐Progress and prospects. Plant Biology.
Sedivec, K., D. A. Tober, W. J. Duchwitz; D. D. Dewald, J. L. Printz, and D. J. Craig. 2009a. Grasses of the Northern Plains: Growth Patterns, Forage Characteristics, and Wildlife Values. Volume I, Cool-Season. (Fargo, ND: NRCS).
Sedivec, K., D. A. Tober, W. J. Duchwitz; D. D. Dewald, J. L. Printz, and D. J. Craig. 2009b. Grasses of the Northern Plains: Growth Patterns, Forage Characteristics, and Wildlife Values. Volume II, Warm-Season. (Fargo, ND: NRCS).
State of Montana. 2018. Montana Field Guide: Great Plains Mixedgrass Prairie—Northwestern Great Plains Mixedgrass Prairie. Helena, MT: Montana Natural Heritage Program. Retrieved on March 7, 2021, from http://FieldGuide.mt.gov/displayES_Detail.aspx?ES=7114
Stubbendieck, J., S. L Hatch, and C. D. Dunn. 2017. Grasses of the Great Plains (College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press)
US Federal Bureau of Land Management. 2021. Seeds of Success Program. Retrieved on March 7, 2021 from https://www.blm.gov/programs/natural-resources/native-plant-communities/native-plant-and-seed-material-development/collection