Get reliable rangeland science

The Wind River Indian Reservation (WRIR) in Wyoming is more than 2.2 million acres and shared by the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribal nations.� In 1960, an inventory was conducted of the plants in Paradise Basin and Saint Lawrence Basin in the Wind River Mountain Range of the WRIR.� This initial inventory is severely lacking in applicable value for several reasons including that the inventory: (1) only included the presence or absence of 74 species, (2) made no estimate of species abundance, (3) made no differentiation between the two basins relative to the presence of a species, and (4) did not measure any other ecological explanatory information to explain species occurrence.� In the time since this inventory, researchers, policy makers and natural resource managers have begun to recognize the long-term value of using Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) for the management of natural resources.� TEK is an accumulation of place-based knowledge, practice, and belief about relationships between living beings and their environment that is transferred to subsequent generations.� On the Wind River Indian Reservation (WRIR), TEK is structured from an indigenous paradigm that respects and represents the cultural and linguistic specificity of the two tribes.� The Bureau of Indian Affairs at Wind River Agency has a trust responsibility to assist the tribes in land and resource management.� Data which explains rangeland plant communities in these high elevation basins and includes abundance data to assess rangeland health and condition increases the agency�s ability to fulfill this trust responsibility.� We are conducting a vegetation inventory to enhance rangeland management of these high-elevation basins and to facilitate the documentation and sharing of TEK within the Wind River tribal community.