Place-Based Heritage Foods, Terroir & Climate Change: The Need for Cross-Cultural Collaborative Conservation

Of the 3000+ place-based heritage crop varieties and the hundreds of still-utilized wild edible species on the North American continent, many stand to be adversely affected by impending climate change. Not only will their growing conditions change, but their terroir--the taste of place and culture---will inevitably shift within our lifetimes. Rather than being passive victims of these changes, many indigenous and traditional farmers and foragers are experimenting with adaptive strategies that may keep their interactions with iconic foods and landscapes co-evolving as they have for millennia. However,  traditional cross-cultural trade networks and informal grow-out agreements have often been disrupted this last century and may need to be restored, particularly through intertribal cooperative agreements that foster collaborative conservation. Some species-specific case studies and models for collaborative in situ conservation will be presented. The issues of farmers rights, seed sovereignty or community-based intellectual property rights, however, may need to be re-contextualized to provide traditional communities with flexibility and allies in advancing their cultural food sovereignty in this dynamic context.