Black Oak Stewardship

Four Tribal members planting black oak saplings in Yosemite.

NPS

 

Tribal Relations

• Wahhoga Village Restoration
• Traditional Plant Gathering Agreement
• Yosemite Ancestral Stewards Crew
• Black Oak Stewardship
• Little Fires Program & Cultural Burning
• Traditional Events
• Tribal Archeology & Cultural Heritage
• Tribal Resources

Next time you’re in Yosemite Valley, look for a tree with a broad, low canopy. If it has craggy, dark gray or black bark, and bright green many-lobed leaves, you might just be looking at a California black oak tree (Quercus kelloggii). Search carefully on the ground around the trunk, and you may even spot some of its oblong, pointy-tipped acorns.  

Black oaks and their acorns are incredibly important to the Traditionally Associated Tribes. They are a staple crop for the Native people of the valley, as their acorns are considered some of the best for eating. Just as the trees provide for the people, the people care for the trees too. They set small fires to clear the ground of competing plants and to manage pests, prune the trees to improve future harvests, and more.  

But the trees are now in danger. Black oaks depended on Native peoples’ stewardship and care to thrive, and since Native people have been forced out of the valley, the trees have suffered. Their numbers have been in decline for many years. 

Today, the park works with the Traditionally Associated Tribes to restore, protect, and replant black oaks in Yosemite. Through this co-stewardship, Yosemite National Park seeks to support the Tribes’ cultural preservation efforts and to revitalize black oak populations within the park.  

 

 

7th Generation Rising members planting and caring for black oak saplings.

NPS

Stewardship Practices

This project involves members of the Traditionally Associated Tribes tending to black oak groves in Yosemite with traditional cultural practices. The Tribal members gather acorns to make into traditional foods. They prune tree limbs and clear debris from the ground and tend to and plant acorns and saplings. They also pray, sing, and hold ceremonies to affirm their longstanding and continued relationship with the black oaks. In other words, they care for the black oaks in many of the same ways as they have since time immemorial!

Besides for ongoing practices like ceremonies celebrating the relationship between humans and black oaks, the park and Tribes also conduct cultural burns in the black oak groves. These fires are essential for keeping the ground clear, so young black oak saplings have the room and sunlight to grow. They are also important in controlling pest populations, as fire kills many of the species that feed on the trees or the acorns. For example, smoke from burns controls mistletoe, which is a hemiparasitic plant that grows in black oak canopies. Fires even encourage new growth in existing black oaks, keeping their canopies healthy and full.

 

Duration:

7 minutes, 14 seconds

This short film about Black Oak Tribal Stewardship was produced by local Tribal film makers, Tisina Parker and Matthew Falcon. Thanks to Yosemite Conservancy donors for their support in funding this project.

 

A young Tribal member climbing the low bough of a black oak tree.

NPS

Why are they doing this?

California black oaks are an incredibly important species, both culturally and ecologically. They have been an iconic part of Yosemite’s landscape from before the park ever existed. But since 1920, their populations have been on decline. Their numbers have dropped by 90%.

Although there are still many mature black oaks in the valley, fewer and fewer saplings are growing into mature trees. Saplings can’t even reproduce until they are 20 years old. If this decline continues, then eventually all the older trees will die and black oak will disappear entirely from the valley. Areas that used to be predominantly black oak are getting taken over by conifer trees like incense-cedar and California white fir. Black oaks are also threatened by sudden oak death, a fungal disease that has caused precipitous declines in oak populations all along the West Coast.

Many of these issues can be traced back to the forced termination of Native stewardship on park lands. Black oaks are fire tolerant, while many of the conifers encroaching on their habitat are not. Native people regularly set fires and cleared unwanted plants from black oak groves to encourage ecosystems dominated by culturally significant plants. After the park was established, Native people were forced to stop burning and eventually forced to leave their homelands in the valley altogether. Now black oaks suffer for their loss.

 

Tribal members with buckets of black oak acorns they gathered.

NPS

But in a healthy oak woodland stewarded by Native peoples, black oaks provide for humans and wildlife alike. Many Native people consider black oak acorns some of the best acorns for food. And although Native communities no longer depend on acorns for sustenance today, gathering acorns and preparing traditional foods remains an important cultural practice and a way of affirming the unbroken relationship between the people and the oak trees.

Animals also need black oaks. At least 45 wildlife species depend on black oak stands for food, shelter, and habitat. Many of these animals, such as black bear and mule deer, also eat the tree’s tasty acorns, and others feed on its leaves. Still more animals live within black oak trees or prefer black oak woodland over other habitats. So the work done to protect black oak benefits living creatures all across the ecosystem.

 

Three of the animals that also depend on black oaks and their acorns. From left to right, black bear, mule deer, and band-tailed pigeon.

From left to right: Robert Lester, NPS, Gary Lindquist