Native Americans Get Waiver to Remove Plants from National Park for Ancient Dish

The federal government of the U.S.A. has acknowledged the rights of Cherokee Indians to harvest traditional plant foods on their ancestral homeland, lifting the ban of foraging sochan, a unique green plant, in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.

This makes Cherokee Indians the first tribe to gather the precious plant – the first of many that they hope to attain rights to do so – in a protected area. Sochan had been on the tribe’s diet for centuries before.

For decades, the indigenous tribe had only been allowed to gather sochan in few relegated areas. But thanks to the new policy, 11 tribal members as of now can forage for the traditional food within tens of thousands of acres in the park, as long as they share a portion with other tribal members.

“Food culture, language culture, spiritual culture, it’s all connected,” says Tyson Sampson, community researcher for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.