Last fall saw the launch of a new collaborative research, outreach and education project between the Karuk Department of Natural Resources' Píkyav Field Institute and UC Berkeley researchers Jennifer Sowerwine, Dan Sarna and Megan Mucioki. 

 

The overall goal of the new USDA-funded 3-year project is to ensure cultural food and fiber plants in Karuk ancestral territory survive and thrive as the planet's climate shifts. The research team will be analyzing changes in the plants' health over time, building digital tools to help landscape managers choose the best ways to care for food and fiber plants, and offering training to Tribal staff and local youth in how to document, locate and preserve important plants for further study.

The project includes developing new K-12 lessons for local schools, and providing workshops in 360 photography and storymapping for local youth. Stay tuned for workshop announcements this fall! Want more information? Email [email protected] and we will keep you posted.

In March, the UCB-Karuk team met in Berkeley for a two-day intensive workshop to expand our skills in collecting and preserving voucher specimens (plants used for study and education). The workshop, led by experts at the University & Jepson Herbaria, focused on bulky specimens, lichens, fungi, bryophytes (mosses), and algae/seaweeds. We will use our new skills to diversify the Karuk native plant collections beyond culturally important vascular plant foods, fibers, and medicines. Our team thoroughly enjoyed spending time in the herbarium as well as with each other.

We are currently expanding the Karuk Herbarium through our latest research collaboration, the Karuk Agroecosystem Resilience Initiative (see story above). Our team has been in the field this spring and summer collecting new voucher specimens associated with our research on abundance, health, and quality of cultural resources under changing climatic conditions in Karuk gathering areas. In the fall we will develop and pilot a lesson to add to the K-12 Karuk curriculum, incorporating skills learned at our training in Berkeley, in order to transfer this knowledge to youth.