[PCA] High huckleberry demand hurts tribes

[Megan_Haidet at fws.gov]

High huckleberry demand hurts tribes


Kara  Briggs 
Special to The Spokesman-Review
August 1, 2006

The huckleberries are ripening in the mountains of the Pacific  Northwest, 
but this isn't a guide to finding secret patches. 

As a Yakama and a North Idaho property owner, I am deeply concerned about 
the  future of this sweet-tart wild purple berry. I fear if we continue 
merchandising  berries, we may see the huckleberry decline and face 
extinction as the wild  salmon has. 

In recent years, busloads of commercial pickers have routinely descended 
on  ripening berry fields in Western Washington and Oregon and stripped 
the bushes  of berries before anyone else could share in the harvest. 

The pressure on huckleberries in Eastern Washington and North Idaho 
doesn't  appear to be as severe at the moment. But as our population grows 
regionwide,  and as an increasing number of gourmet products containing 
the berries fill  shelves at stores, we must pay attention to this 
relatively fragile harvest. 

The wild huckleberry cannot support the pressure from hundreds of small 
businesses and restaurants in the way that farmed strawberries or blue 
berries  can. The work of area universities toward farmed huckleberries 
raises a whole  different specter of concerns, as farmed salmon raise for 
the health of wild  salmon.

Yet with the advent of large-scale commercial picking, a flurry of recipes 
 gushing about the wild flavor of huckleberries have appeared in 
publications,  such as Southwest Airline's Spirit Magazine. Articles such 
as the one promoting  a mechanized picker for huckleberries that appeared 
in The Spokesman-Review on  July 2 run without mention of the concerns 
voiced by tribes.

Consistently at meetings of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, 
leaders decry the picking of declining berry crops for anything other than 
 personal use or tribal ceremonial use. 

Huckleberries are sacred to Northwest tribes. We hold ceremonies to mark 
their ripening. For millennia we have tended the berry fields, which, like 
the  salmon, are protected by our treaties. Still over the last century, 
the fields  have been taken over by private property, by state agencies 
and, particularly,  by the U.S. Forest Service, which manages our 
mountainous national forests.

The remaining huckleberry fields exist because tribes historically cleared 
 trees and burned brush to let the life-giving light reach the berries. 
But most  management of the fields has been abandoned. In forests where 40 
years ago there  were huckleberry fields, tall trees now shade the fields. 


Tribal elders say these fields include those where they remember camping 
for  weeks at a time each summer, as families picked berries. Those 
camping trips  were about far more than the harvest of berries. Stories 
were told, perhaps,  like those about the Inland Northwest tribes' 
trickster Coyote, whose  exceedingly wise sisters were huckleberries. 

In that time berries were carefully handled so none were wasted, and the 
bushes were left intact to bear another year. One reason for such great 
care was  the belief that huckleberries could leave if they weren't 
treated  respectfully.

Now many tribal elders wonder if that's happening. 

The fate of the huckleberry may be in the hands of consumers, who choose 
to  order that huckleberry daiquiri or cheese cake, and to buy soap, syrup 
and salad  dressing made with the berries. 

Claims on the University of Idaho Web site that commercial use of 
huckleberries is OK because the berries were a tribal trade item ignores 
the  facts. Tribal women who historically traded in huckleberries 
undertook the  physical care of the berry fields and also spiritual care 
through first fruit  ceremonies. 

Now it's up to us. 

We, the taxpayers, can pressure the U.S. Forest Service and other 
governments  to work with tribes in managing the huckleberry field, and 
enforce rules that  require permits to be purchased for commercial 
huckleberry picking. 

Regional national forests need to change contradictory rules that tell 
pickers that their huckleberries must be used at home. But they allow such 
a  large volume to be picked – 30 gallons a season in the Idaho Panhandle 
National  Forest and three gallons a day in the Colville National Forest – 
that they  invite the sale of berries, particularly during times of high 
unemployment. 

We, consumers, can decide to buy products made with renewable farm-raised 
berries. That will save for future generations the joyous experience of 
bursting  a teeth-staining huckleberry in your mouth after a long hot day 
of mountainside  picking. 

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