Climate Change in a First Foods Context

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”.  The cultural recognition of the First Foods order is evident in the ritualistic serving order of native species in a traditional meal.  The geographic and temporal pattern of First Foods gathering is directly reflected in the ritualistic serving order of the meal. 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 species to ensure that they are available to the tribal public.  In order to address the management of these foods, the CTUIR is  developing several efforts: restoring ceded river tributaries consistent with a coherent future vision; proposing to identify, characterize, and acquire alluvial floodplain segments that demonstrate temperature resilience to climate change, assessing the distribution of plant foods to understand their requirements and inform future climate change assessments, and increasing and protecting Tribal member access to First Foods throughout the aboriginal use lands of the CTUIR.