Tuesday, October 8, 2013, Noon, Valley Auditorium
M. Kat Anderson, Ethnoecologist, USDA, NRCS, National Plant Data Team and Lecturer at University of California, Davis, will present:
The Ethnobotany and Associated Stewardship of California Black Oak Ecosystems in the Central and Southern Sierra Nevada
Kat Anderson will discuss the importance of California black oak to the indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada for food, clothing, basketry, firewood, medicines, and household utensils and how its uses are important touchstones for maintaining tribal ethnicity. The audience will learn about the tremendous stewardship legacy of Sierran Tribes: how hand in hand with gathering food were tending of many of the black oak groves with a set of stewardship practices intended to decrease pathogens and insect pests, promote mushrooms with mycorrhizal relationships with the oaks, and promote widely-spaced large-canopied, long-lived trees. Finally we explore the significance of this tree to forest health and the potential collaborative efforts of public lands agencies and Tribes to restore this beloved tree.
Note: this presentation will proceed unless government is still shut down on Monday, October 7.