Along the shores of the Buffalo National River in the Arkansas Ozarks, thick grass and vegetation cover miles of wild oak forests. And for generations the Cherokee people gathered these plants - like river cane, blood root and sage - along what is now federally protected land for traditional and medicinal purposes. But when the National Parks Service took over the river in 1972, the removal of plants without authorized permission became illegal. Now - more than 50 years later, the Cherokee have formal permission to once again gather those plants.
Cherokee Nation's Secretary of Natural Resources, Chad Harsha said the agreement with the parks service has been in the works since at least 2014.
“Officially in 2022 that agreement was executed,” Harsha said. “We’ve set forth a framework for identifying, almost like a master permit, that the Cherokee Nation would hold.”
Melissa Trenchik is Chief of Resources Stewardship, Science, Interpretation and Education for the Buffalo River and said the annual permit would allow the Cherokee Nation to designate tribal members who can harvest plants along the nearly 1,000-acre site in the park to take back to the reservation.
“It includes the types plants and plant parts that can be gathered,” she said.
Trenchik said an exemption exists for plants that are listed as threatened or endangered on a state or federal registry. The agreement also specifies where the plants can be gathered from.
So far, the tribe has identified 76 different plants along the Buffalo River that tribal members will have permission to gather. Secretary Harsha explained that most of the plants are used for traditional medicine, food or craft-making; and include things like wild indigo, hickory and wild onion.
In 2017, members of the tribe's Medicine Keepers – a group of elder, Cherokee language speakers who work to preserve the Cherokee’s cultural heritage – joined a team of researchers to survey the land along the Buffalo River for possible use. Clint Carroll, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado - Boulder and a Cherokee citizen, was part of that survey process.
“The experience was profound,” Carroll said. “Specifically, one elder said it felt like going back to the homeland.”
He said while the area along the Buffalo is not the Cherokee's original homeland, the Buffalo National River park sits on former treaty lands that the United States government had designated to the Western Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Nation formally reunified in 1839 after the trail of tears.
“It’s significant politically,” Carroll said. “Cherokee people were there in recent history.”
He also said the flora along the river is similar to what was used by the tribe in the Southeast before forced removal and helped the members retain some cultural knowledge. But limited access and the effects of climate change over the past two centuries have depleted the abundance of these plants on the 7,000-square mile reservation in Oklahoma. He said this agreement offers a path forward.
"That directly involves younger Cherokees learning with the medicine keepers about these plants and the importance of protecting them, how to use them, how to talk about them in the Cherokee language," Carroll said. “It’s the bigger picture.”
This is the third agreement with a federally recognized tribe that the Parks Service has entered into - the first was in 2018 with the Tohono O'odham Nation in Arizona and then in 2019 with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Trenchik said these efforts are part of a national push to right historical wrongs and develop for more co-stewardship with native communities on protected lands.
“These places were managed and utilized well before we ever got here,” She said. “Those traditional ecological knowledge that our tribal partners bring… is important to us.”
A 2016 rule changeallowed federally recognized tribes to request harvesting of plants within national park boundaries. She said the Buffalo National River is open to working with all federally recognized tribes with cultural affiliations to the land and encouraged other tribal leaders or individual members to contact the park.
Recently, the Cherokee Nation also secured 1,000 acres of land in Adair County, Oklahoma that the Medicine Keepers will use to cultivate some of the plants harvested along the buffalo. And Secretary Harsha said all of these efforts are vital to preserving Cherokee heritage.
“Identifying areas where these plants can be collected or taken back and propagated for distribution to other tribal citizens is incredibly important to Cherokee Nation identity and culture,” Harsha said.
Cherokee Nation has not yet started gathering plants along the Buffalo, Harsha said. But, he said they are hoping to be able to start by the end of 2023.
