Team Members
- Darren Ranco, Dept. of Anthropology, Native American Research
- Rob Lilieholm, School of Forest Resources
- John Daigle, School of Forest Resources
- Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance
Mobilizing Researchers and Diverse Stakeholders to Address Emerging Environmental Threats: Brown Ash Sustainabilty as a Cultural Resource for Maine Indian Basketmakers
Globalization, urbanization and forest management practices combine to present a host of challenges to sustaining human and natural systems across the landscape. In Maine, climate change and the likely emergence of the emerald ash borer have raised important questions about how a broad array of stakeholders – including the scientific community – can mobilize to address and mitigate emerging environmental threats. This project seeks to develop a model of how various economic, political and cultural resources can be integrated and mobilized to identify, respond and adapt to such long-term, broad scale threats.
Within the context of this broader issue, this project seeks to help Maine Indian basketmakers and Wabanaki Nations in Maine ensure the long-term sustainability of brown ash (Fraxinus nigra) through the integration of both indigenous knowledge and modern forest management techniques. In particular, our research will engage various stakeholders — including Indian basketmakers, public and private foresters, state and federal regulators, and other researchers — to develop a research plan that will understand and address the potential threats, including the emerald ash borer (EAB), to this important economic and cultural resource.
Brown ash is a critical cultural and economic resource to Wabanaki peoples. While not usually considered a commercially valuable species by foresters, it has an important role in tribal economies in the state and region. While some studies have been done in the past on the frequency and distribution of brown ash stands, very little work has been done on assessing the quality of brown ash stands from the perspective of Wabanaki basket-makers in Maine. Moreover, while tribal foresters and natural resource managers have been able to locate and monitor stands of brown ash on tribal lands, they have typically used traditional forestry methods to document the quality and health of these stands, leaving indigenous perspectives on the quality and management of these trees and stands in the living oral traditions about brown ash. While this has served to protect this indigenous knowledge about the use and location of specific stands, ongoing threats to the species suggest the need for more direct documentation and management. Moreover, because the majority of quality basket ash stands exist outside of tribal land holdings, there is also a clear policy gap for tribal land managers to protect these stands for basketmakers.
Therefore, any attempts to research and manage for the sustainability of brown ash will require a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach, especially considering that the emerald ash borer (EAB), a potentially devastating threat to all ash trees, has now moved from Michigan (where it was first identified in 2002) west to New York, where it was found in Spring of 2009. As in other invasive ecological threats, multiple scales and ways of comprehending the problem must be considered to address this impending threat. Therefore, a key goal of our research plan will be to help tribal, state, and federal regulators work together to manage for this, and other potential impacts on the resource, so Maine and Wabanaki people, will not lose this valuable economic and cultural resource.
Link to Hudson Museum web-based educational resources to support the teaching of Maine Indian History and Culture
