Indigenous Forest Gardens Remain Productive and Diverse for Over a Century

Freeman writes:

Indigenous forest gardens remain productive and diverse for over a century:

In the 1930s, an archeologist from the Smithsonian wrote a short paper remarking on the exquisite vegetation around First Nation villages in Alaska. The surroundings were filled with nuts, stone fruit, berries, and herbs-several non-native to the area and many that would never grow together naturally. Apart from this brief mention, however, the significance of these forest gardens went largely overlooked and unrecognized by modern archeology for the next 50-plus years.

In the last few decades, archeologists have learned that perennial forest management-the creation and care of long-lived food-bearing shrubs and plants next to forests-was common among the Indigenous societies of North America's northwestern coast. These forest gardens played a central role in the diet and stability of these cultures in the past, and now a new publication shows that they offer an example of a far more sustainable and biodiverse alternative to conventional agriculture.

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