| Forest ecosystems are integral to human survival and sustenance throughout the Americas, with exception of treeless regions in the Arctic (where driftwood has prime importance) and alpine zones, grasslands and deserts. Most indigenous peoples link their identities in some way to the forests they inhabit or visit. For example, the First Peoples of the Northwest Coast of North America, including the Haida, Tsimshian, Kwakwaka’wakw and Nuu-Chah-Nulth among others, identify strongly with western red-cedar (Thuja plicata), and for thousands of years have relied on this coniferous tree as a source of fibrous roots, branches and inner bark for basketry, and of soft, easily worked wood for canoes, houses, totem poles and even bentwood boxes, as well as for tinder and kindling for fires. Western red-cedar is greatly respected, and it features widely in narratives, ceremonies, songs and dances. People harvest the bark and even planks from standing living trees, and in traditional practice, do not kill the tree unless the entire trunk is needed. However, this tree also has high commercial value; because of its straight grain and rot-resistant qualities it is in demand for siding for houses, shingles and shakes, telephone poles and fenceposts. Large red-cedar trees have become very scarce in many areas since the advent of industrial logging, and it is now often difficult to find cedar trunks big enough to make a canoe or a traditional big house.
Almost every kind of forest tree is utilized in some way by local and indigenous peoples of the Americas. Some woods are known for their quality as fuel; for example, within its range red alder (Alnus rubra) is considered the best fuel for smoking fish. Red alder bark is also valued as a source of red dye and as a medicine; it is known to have strong anti-bacterial properties, and is used as an infusion to treat a range of ailments, from skin infections, to tuberculosis and internal bleeding. Coast Salish wood carvers value broad-leaved maple (Acer macrophyllum) for carving paddles and spindle whorls. Hunters craft the tough, resilient wood of Pacific yew (Taxus brevifolia) into bows and harpoon shafts, and carvers use the soft light-colored wood of paper birch (Betula papyrifera) for dishes, spoons and masks. Birch bark, harvested in large sheets, is famous across North America for its use in making a variety of containers and vessels, baby cradles and bark canoes.
Many of the implements and items crafted from trees are essential equipment for hunting and fishing, and allow indigenous peoples to access a wide diversity of foodstuffs in forests and beyond. Of course, the trees themselves produce a range of edible products. Some, like sugar maple (Acer saccharum), yield sweet, nutritious sap, and others provide edible nuts and seeds, for example pinyon pine (Pinus edulis and other spp.), Brazilnut (Bertholletia excelsa), walnuts (Juglans spp.), and hickories (Carya spp.). Acorns from many oak species (Quercus spp.) were formerly an important Native American food; acorn meal is still prepared and eaten by some Native Californians. Many forest trees also produce fleshy fruits, ranging from wild cherries and plums (Prunus spp.) in temperate forests, to guavas (Pisidium guajava), avocados (Persea americana) and papayas (Carica papaya) in tropical forests.
Of course, forest ecosystems include more than trees; there are myriad other forest resources that sustain humans in various ways. Manioc or cassava (Manihot esculenta), now a staple carbohydrate for people in tropical regions around the world, is just one example of a crop plant domesticated from American forests, in this case, Amazonia. Other vegetables harvested from forests include fiddleheads from ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) of eastern North America and palm hearts (Euterpa oleracea and other species) from Central and South America. Chocolate (Theobroma cacao) and vanilla (Vanilla planifolia) are two other culinary treasures from American forests. Many wild berries, such as blueberries and huckleberries (Vaccinium spp.), and blackberries and raspberries (Rubus spp.) and their relatives, are also produced in forested habitats. There are also a host of forest fungi to be found, including pine mushrooms (Tricholoma magnivelare), morels (Morchella spp.) and chanterelles (Catharellus spp.).
Many medicinal plant species, too, are harvested from forests, including mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum), American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), devil’s club (Oplopanax horridus), goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis), saw palmetto (Serenoa repens), Pacific yew (Taxus brevifolia) and quinene (Cinchona spp.), to name but a few. The immense diversity of plants and fungi in forests provide food and habitat for great numbers of mammals, birds, snakes, freshwater fish and other animals, on which indigenous peoples also rely for food and other purposes. Forest resources aside from timber are sometimes referred to as “non-timber forest products,” or “special forest products.” Over the past few decades, since about the 1980s and 1990s, these products have been turned to increasingly as sources of income, as well as for personal use. In some cases, for example with wild mushroom harvesting or maple syrup production, forests can yield greater long-term economic value from the non-timber forest products than from the timber in a forest. If mushrooms, specialty woods, wild berries, basket materials or floral greens from forests are harvested with care and attention to sustainability – often mimicking indigenous peoples’ traditional harvesting practices – they can provide a substantial living income for local communities.
The knowledge, practices and beliefs that indigenous peoples, dwelling in one region for a long period of time, have developed about their home environments are often referred to collectively as “traditional ecological knowledge.” Such knowledge is complex, and often very dynamic. It includes not only practical details such as what trees are useful for fuel, what plants are edible and when to gather them, or what species of plants and animals can be expected to occur in a given locality, but also ways of communicating and passing on this information, and ways of managing and sustaining the lands and resources of peoples’ territories. For example, forest species and habitats fluctuate over time. For probably millennia, American indigenous peoples, recognizing that different successional stages of forests have different communities of species, have been modifying their forest environments, especially using fire to create patches and clearings and thereby increase the diversity and productivity of certain desired resources.
Traditional ecological knowledge is also embedded within a particular philosophical approach or worldview, which might be very different from that of other societies, such as western urbanized societies. For example, indigenous people may regard trees and other lifeforms of the forest as being close relatives or kin to humans. They often attribute powerful spiritual qualities to particular trees or forests, regarding them as sacred and gaining spiritual help from them through special rituals or ceremonies. Understandably, there has been deep conflict over forest habitats reflecting such differing values. Especially there have been clashes between those people and companies who wish to harvest forests for industrial purposes, and those who see spiritual and cultural values in forests and do not want them to be destroyed or changed in any major way. Understanding the fundamental differences in how forests and forest life are perceived by different groups of people, and recognizing the many values of forest ecosystems aside from just storehouses of “fibre” for industrial timber and pulp production, is critically important for the future of both people and forests.
Selected Basic References
Boyd, R. editor. (1999). Indians, Fire and the Land in the Pacific Northwest. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press.
Ford, Jesse and Dennis R. Martinez, editors. (2000). Special Issue on Traditional Ecological Knowledge, ecosystem science, and environmental management. Ecological Applications 10 (5): 1275-1287.
Foster, S. (1995). Forest Pharmacy. Medicinal Plants in American Forests. Durham, NC: Forest History Society.
Schultes, R.E. and R.F. Raffauf. 1990. The Healing Forest. Medicinal and Toxic Plants of the Northwest Amazon. Portland, Oregon: Dioscorides Press.
Turner, Nancy J. 2001. “Doing it Right”: Issues and Practices of Sustainable Harvesting. B.C. Journal of Ecosystems and Management (online journal). Volume 1, issue 1 (http://www.siferp.org/jem/)
Turner, N.J., I.J. Davidson-Hunt and M. O’Flaherty. 2003. Living on the edge: Ecological and cultural edges as sources of diversity for social-ecological resilience. Human Ecology 31(3): 439-463.
Turner, Nancy J. and Sarah E. Turner. 2003. Food, Forage and Medicinal Resources of Forests, Section 5.3.3, Edited by John Owens, in: Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), EOLSS Publishers, Oxford, UK [1]
Updated: 21 April 2007
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