Cultural Histories of PNW Prairies & Oak Woodlands
Native peoples cultivated the expansive, wildflower-filled prairies and oak woodlands throughout the Pacific Northwest for food and other resources for millennia. They used fire to keep the prairies open for hunting and sustainably harvested berries, bulbs and roots of fire-adapted food plants, providing new opportunities for regeneration and growth of the plant and animal communities that inhabit the prairies.
The overall decline in extent and integrity of camas prairies under U.S. settler colonialism is connected to the health disparities between Native communities and the broader U.S. population today. Centering Tribal priorities in decision-making about camas prairies can help reverse these trends. Our view is that greater Tribal involvement in setting priorities for camas prairie stewardship has the potential to strengthen and broaden conservation goals which can, in turn, contribute to Tribal autonomy and community health.
Ecological Significance of PNW Prairies & Oak Woodlands
Over the past 200 years camas prairie cultural ecosystems and the Indigenous stewardship practices that maintained them have been severely disrupted, due to initial Euro-American colonization and ongoing settler colonialism. This has resulted in the alienation of Tribal communities from the camas prairies, the invasion of non-native species, the expansion of intensive agricultural production, and urban development. It is estimated that just three percent of the historic camas prairie ecosystems remain today. The fragmented prairies and woodlands that do remain within the Willamette Valley-Puget Trough-Georgia Basin Ecoregion exist within a patchwork of private and public land ownership.
Throughout their range, camas prairie cultural ecosystems now often receive special conservation status. Due primarily to the loss of this critical prairie habitat, several plants and animals that depend on these ecosystems are now listed as threatened or endangered at the state and federal levels. Thus, much of the current human involvement that currently goes into the care of these ecosystems is focused on accomplishing biodiversity conservation-related goals.