Traditional Ecological Knowledge

Archaeologist Stefani Crabtree writes about her work to reconstruct Indigenous food and use networks for the National Park Service:

Traditional Ecological Knowledge gets embedded in the choices that people make when they consume, and how TEK can provide stability of an ecosystem. Among Martu, the use of fire for hunting and the knowledge of the habits of animals are enshrined in the Dreamtime stories passed inter-generationally; these Dreamtime stories have material effects on the food web, which were detected in our simulations. The ecosystem thrived with Martu; it was only through their removal that extinctions began to cascade through the system.