The Importance of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Climate-Smart Solutions

By Terry Cosby, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service

Here at USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), we are supporting conservation efforts on working lands. We provide one-on-one assistance to producers and communities, and we are taking steps to ensure our conservation solutions integrate Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Indigenous Stewardship Methods (ISM).  

Native Americans are this land’s original conservationists, and we want to make sure that NRCS is listening to tribes to help shape conservation programs and practices.  

We’re proud of the technical assistance that we provide to 345 federally recognized tribes, or 60 percent of all tribal nations, on 75 million acres, through our field offices nationwide. Between 2005 and 2021, NRCS also provided financial assistance to 163 Native American tribes.

In recent years, NRCS has taken bold steps toward equity, justice and opportunity for all producers, including tribal producers. These efforts are driven by wise council from tribes and intertribal organizations. Recognizing the federal government’s trust responsibilities to tribes, NRCS has moved forward on several technical and programmatic efforts in recent years to ensure our products and services offered through voluntary conservation programs are meeting the needs of Tribal Nations.

In 2022, NRCS formed the Tribal and Indigenous Practices Team to help regions develop new Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) scenarios, Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) enhancements, improve accessibility of existing conservation practice standards,  develop new interim conservation practice standards, provide targeted training, adjust programmatic and technical policies,  and improve availability of natural resources data and information important to Tribes and indigenous peoples in order to make NRCS assistance more meaningful on tribal lands and in native communities, while respecting that TEK and ISM are the intellectual property of tribes and indigenous peoples.

With the help of our staff in California, we developed a Conservation Evaluation and Monitoring Activity (CEMA), Indigenous Stewardship Methods Evaluation (CEMA 222), to provide funding to assist in sharing knowledge among tribal subject matter experts. Through this new conservation activity, which originated with council from tribes, landowners and agricultural producers can now get financial assistance to hire qualified individuals, identified by tribes, to incorporate Tribal Ecological Knowledge into their conservation plans.

NRCS began providing targeted soil health training to tribes, tribal members, and native communities, while also using the opportunity to learn native technologies used to improve soil health from the tribal and indigenous communities participating in the training events.  This training and mutual information exchange allows NRCS to better meet the needs of the participating tribal and native communities and simultaneously improves access to conservation programming for tribes and indigenous peoples.  Since 2022, NRCS has reached more than 25 Tribal Nations, dozens of Alaska Native villages, and several communities in the Pacific Islands and Caribbean Islands Areas with these targeted exchanges of knowledge.  More requests for these events are continually coming in, and there are many planned for fiscal year 2025.  

In a similar vein, NRCS has been partnering with tribes and key organizations to improve NRCS assistance for bison management. Training for NRCS and partner staff to build competency in bison management has begun, new EQIP payment scenarios have been released, the grazing management conservation practice standard has been updated to reflect considerations for bison management, and there are several more products and activities planned for fiscal year 2025 related to bison management.

Meanwhile, input from tribal producers has led NRCS to make other improvements to its conservation practices. For example, NRCS updated its grazing management practice to be more adaptive and clarified the practice requirements with a revised plans and specifications section. These updates should give producers' greater ability to adopt and meet the practice including on tribal and bison operations. The practice, previously called Prescribed Grazing, was rewritten with collaboration from tribal bison producers.  NRCS also developed a Culturally Significant Plantings for Soil Health interim conservation practice standard (ICPS) in coordination with tribes and indigenous communities. This interim practice, currently used in Washington state, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Oregon, and the Pacific Islands Area, enables producers to manage and improve soils by growing two or more culturally significant plants.  Examples include planting Huckleberry and Thimbleberry or medicinal plants such as Māmaki tea and `Awa (Kava) into forest edges, Bitterroot, Cous Root, and Wild Onion in dry rangelands, Camas and Arrowleaf balsamroot in wet meadows, and Popolo and `Awa can be used in urban gardens.

The NRCS Tribal Soil Initiative developed action plans to address landscape planning needs to improve soil health in the Pacific Islands Area, Caribbean Area, Alaska, and on tribal lands. Additionally, NRCS has committed to collaborating with the Agriculture Research Service (ARS) on refining the model for the Tribal Soils Explorer, a tool that will increase predictive soils interpretations on tribal lands. User testing for the tool will begin in late 2025.  And, the Regional Tribal Conservation Advisory Council has helped NRCS be on the forefront of helping tribes and honoring our trust responsibilities. Council meetings have resulted in specific goals that will have significant impacts in directing NRCS activities with tribes, including reducing barriers to tribal participation in our programs, hiring staff that understand working with tribes, and ensuring tribal land management objectives are reflected in our program delivery to tribes.

In September, NRCS held two Regional Tribal and Indigenous Practices Expos with representatives from across the nation to share and showcase conservation technologies used on tribal lands and in native communities.  These gatherings were a tremendous success in supporting tribal liaisons and NRCS staff who support the work of tribes and native communities throughout the U.S. and its territories.  The Expos focused on successfully implemented projects, tribal and indigenous technologies, TEK, and natural resources data and information that improve access to conservation for tribes and native communities.  NRCS is planning another expo featuring tribally-led presentations in fiscal year 2025.

All of these efforts are making our conservation programs and practices better align with tribal producers, and help USDA meet our federal trust responsibilities to tribes by improving program access. We’re excited to soon unveil a new Tribal Relations Strategy as well as information on our growing team to serve tribes and tribal producers across the country.

We encourage tribes and tribal producers who aren’t working with us or who want to take their conservation activities to the next level to give us a call. We’ll be excited to share the improvements that we’ve made to better serve tribes.  

Please contact the NRCS at your local USDA Service Center.