Indigenous forests are a plethora of interacting complex organisms, fauna and flora that are much more than the trees alone. Together they create a self-sustaining and regenerating ecosystem.

As the First Peoples living in and managing our vast and abundant land for millennia, forests are fundamental to the livelihood of Indigenous Peoples. The sustainable use of forests within their traditional territories is critically important for subsistence, economic, and ceremonial practices.

Effects of Deforestation on Indigenous People As large amounts of forests are cleared away, allowing exposed earth to whither and die and the habitats of innumerable species to be destroyed, the indigenous communities who live there and depend on the forest to sustain their way of life are also under threat.

For First Peoples forests have provided sustenance in diverse forms, from shelter, clothing, hunting and trapping to harvesting roots, berries and more. Trees, and the forested lands they share with flora and fauna, are culturally significant and sacred to First Peoples.

For many of Canada’s aboriginal peoples, the forests are our home, our hunting grounds, our ceremonial lands. Forests have sustained and engaged us for centuries, but they are falling with unprecedented speed – at the hands of industry and due to short-sighted government policy.

The Tree of Life Cedar trees provided materials for shelter, clothing, bedding, food gathering and preparation, transportation, and cultural and spiritual activities.

Indigenous peoples have used over a thousand different plants for food, medicine, materials, and in cultural rituals and mythology. Indigenous peoples have used over a thousand different plants for food, medicine, materials, and in cultural rituals and mythology.

Sweetgrass is used in prayer, smudging and purifying ceremonies. It is usually braided, dried and burned. It is usually burned at the beginning of a prayer or ceremony to attract positive energies. Like sage and sweetgrass, cedar is used to purify the home.

The natives grew corn, squash, and beans, along with other crops in the terraced fields. Corn, squash, and beans were staple crops for Native Americans and were grown throughout much of the North American continent. This trio is known as the Three sisters.

Native Americans, including the Lenape of the Delaware Valley, used corn for many types of food. The foods which we know were derived from corn in the Iroquois nations include dumplings, tamales, hominy, and a ceremonial “wedding cake” bread. Today, corn has become the most widely grown crop in the western hemisphere.

Comanche wars The Comanche were noted for being fierce warriors who fought vigorously to defend their homeland of Comancheria.

• Aboriginal Plant Use Trail.
• Acacia melanoxylon (Blackwood)
• Alocasia macrorrhizos (Cunjevoi)
• Araucaria bidwillii (Bunya Pine)
• Banksia spp.
• Brachychiton rupestris (Bottle-tree)
• Callitris spp.
• Casuarina and Allocasuarina spp.

Among the native fruits, eleven prominent native species have been commercially produced in Australia including bush tomato, Davidson’s plum, desert lime, finger lime, Kakadu plum, lemon aspen, muntries, quandong, Tasmanian pepper berry, and Illawarra plum.

Aboriginal origins Humans are thought to have migrated to Northern Australia from Asia using primitive boats. A current theory holds that those early migrants themselves came out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, which would make Aboriginal Australians the oldest population of humans living outside Africa.