The Potential of Bison Restoration as an Ecological Approach to Future Tribal Food Sovereignty on the Northern Great Plains

Abstract

Future climate projections of warming, drying, and increased weather variability indicate that conventional agricultural and production practices within the Northern Great Plains (NGP) will become less sustainable, both ecologically and economically. As a result, the livelihoods of people that rely on these lands will be adversely impacted. This is especially true for Native American communities, who were relegated to reservations where the land is often vast but marginal and non-tribal operators have an outsized role in food production. In addition, NGP lands are expected to warm and dry disproportionately relative to the rest of the United States. It is therefore critical to identify models of sustainable land management that can improve ecological function and socio-economic outcomes for NGP communities, all while increasing resilience to a rapidly changing climate. Efforts led by Native American Nations to restore North American Plains bison (Bison bison bison) to tribal lands can bring desired socio-ecological benefits to underserved communities while improving their capacity to influence the health of their lands, their people, and their livelihoods. Ecological sustainability will depend on the restoration of bison herds and bison’s ability to serve as ecosystem engineers of North America’s Plains. The historically broad distribution of bison suggests they can adapt to a variety of conditions, making them resilient to a wide range of management systems and climates. Here we review bison’s ecological, cultural, and economic value using four case studies from tribal communities within the NGP. We discuss the potential contributions of bison to food sovereignty, sustainable economies, and conservation of a working landscape with limited protections and significant risk of conversion. The ecological role of bison within this setting has potential due to cultural acceptance and the vast availability of suitable lands; however, it is critical to address tribal needs for funding support, enhanced community capacity, and solving complex landownership for these goals to be achieved.

Reintroducing bison to Banff National Park – an ecocultural case study

“…The additional pressure this focusses on resolving policy differences between jurisdictions would not have happened had the project been framed as only an ecological rewilding effort. Plains bison have been hunted by humans for millennia and the restoration of this relationship is as important as restoring the animal itself (Farr and White, 2022;Shamon et al, 2022) and helped us overcome the oversight of not including people in our rewilding effort (Jørgensen, 2015). Doing so not only broadened our initial success beyond ecological to cultural restoration, but also created a more resilient and diverse foundation from which we have more tools and voices to meet future challenges.…”

“…Plains bison are ideal candidates for ecocultural rewilding: they are a keystone species and ecosystem engineer that greatly influences ecosystem processes like energy flow and nutrient cycling with their extensive grazing, wallowing, trampling, herding and migratory behaviors (Hobbs, 1996;Knapp et al, 1999;Olson and Janelle, 2022), and they are of great cultural importance to North American Indigenous plains cultures for food, clothing, lodging, and spiritual foundations (Isenberg, 2000;Aune et al, 2017;Shamon et al, 2022; Figure 1). This changed abruptly between 1860 and 1885 when tens of millions of the animals were hunted to the brink of extinction across the Great Plains, foothills, and front ranges of North America's Rocky Mountains (Roe, 1970;Shaw, 1995), largely with the colonial intent to destabilize and remove the independence of Indigenous groups, who relied on bison, so their historic homelands could be more easily settled (Brink, 2009).…”

“…Modern attempts to correct this are a priority for the Canadian government under the Indigenous Truth and Reconciliation process, which aims to heal and correct the physical and psychological trauma of past colonial practices (National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, 2020). The restoration of culturally important plains bison populations is an ideal opportunity for government agencies and Indigenous nations to work together, heal relationships, and build trust towards a common goal (Redford et al, 2016;Crosschild et al, 2021;Shamon et al, 2022).…”

Seventy questions of importance to the conservation of the North Central grasslands of the United States in a changing climate

“…Grasslands in the North Central United States are of particular importance because they support regional biodiversity (Augustine et al, 2021), local economies (Pieper, 2005), and cultural identity (Black Elk, 2016;Blackfeet Nation, 2018;Shamon et al, 2022); yet they have been severely diminished in size and quality since European colonization and settlement of the area began in earnest in the 1850s (Mann, 2005(Mann, , 2011. As of 2020, only 60% of the land in the North Central grassland ecoregions is intact grassland (i.e., grassland that has not been converted to cropland since at least 2014) (WWF, 2022; see also Gage et al, 2016;Olimb & Lendrum, 2021; see Figure 1); the amount of remaining high-quality native grassland is likely lower.…”

A comparison of Mini-FLOTAC and McMaster techniques, overdispersion and prevalence of parasites in naturally infected North American bison (Bison bison) in the USA

“…Due to human activities, bison numbers reduced in the late 1880s to only a few hundred animals ( Hornaday, 1889 ). However, there has been a recent push to re-establish herds in their historic habitat for ecological, economic, and cultural reasons ( Shamon et al., 2022 ). Re-established herds face many challenges including those posed by infectious agents that are shared with sympatric cattle ( Tessaro, 1989 ; Van Vuren & Scott, 1995 ).…”