The Redbud Chapter Presents:

Creating Pollinator-Friendly Gardens
Attracting Pollinators Using California Native Plants

Tending the Wild^TM

Ethnobotany in California’s Mixed Conifer Forests
and Oak Woodlands

Guest Speaker

Dr. M. Kat Anderson

 Dr. M. Kat Anderson, author of Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources, will talk about the importance of California black oak and associate trees and understory species of the mixed conifer forests to the indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada.  These plants were used for food, clothing, basketry, firewood, medicines, shelter, tools, and household utensils. The audience will learn about the legacy of stewardship from Sierran Tribes over thousands of years, using sustainable practices to increase food production and improve wildlife habitat.  

For example, Black oaks were managed at the ecosystem level with frequent, low intensity Indian-set fires, in order to open up the forest, promoting widely-spaced, large-canopied, long-lived oaks and conifers. By using fire to open the forest, Sierran Tribes reduced insect pests and pathogens, improved the health of trees and other flora, fostered useful wild legumes, and encouraged edible and medicinal mushrooms. 

She will explore some of the potential results of indigenous stewardship that may contribute to forest health including enhanced mycorhizzal relationships with oaks and conifers, nutrient cycling, soil fertility, enhanced soil moisture-holding capacity, and biological action in the soil.

In explaining how the stewardship of the Sierran tribes helped to shape the oak woodlands and mixed-conifer forests of the Sierra Nevada, Kat will highlight what we can learn from them to mitigate the decline of the forests and woodlands, and how we can work together with Sierran tribes to tend and restore forest health.

Kat Anderson has a Ph.D. in Wildland Resource Science from UC Berkeley and is the author of the book Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources. She is an affiliate of the UC Davis Plant Sciences Department, and recently retired from the US Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service. Tending the Wild^TM was recently chosen by the celebrated permaculture designer Ben Falk as one of the most important books to read in order to permanently solve the world-wide problem of food security. Kat has worked with Native Americans for over 25 years, learning how indigenous people judiciously gather and steward native plants and ecosystems in the wild. Her interests are to learn, celebrate, and restore the traditional and indigenous practices around the world that support both sustainable food production and healthy forests, woodlands, grasslands, and riparian ecosystems. These plant use, gathering, and tending practices and their underlying ethical stances towards nature are found in multiple local cultures here and all around the world.