“‘Agroforestry’ is a modern term for what tribes have been practicing for millennia,” says Stephanie Gutierrez, Ecotrust’s forest and community program director. “For many tribes, that’s traditional gathering and management practices, harvesting fungi, roots, and trees.” Examples might include tending wild huckleberry bushes or prescribed burns to improve acorn harvests. This is in addition to practices that have been commonly associated with agroforestry, such as silvopasture or the creation of riparian buffers.
With the increasing impacts of climate change on agriculture, Gutierrez thinks tribally managed agroforestry “may point the way to sustainable agriculture and wild-food sources, allowing us to provide food for our communities.”
One way the network sees that happening is through improvement and increased use of the USDA’s Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS), a growth and yield model that can simulate outcomes from specific forest-management scenarios over time to aid in decision-making. The tool is calibrated
