Tending Nature | KCET

Aerial view of a traditional Tongva canoe launching into the ocean. | Still from "Tending Nature"

"Tending Nature" shines a light on the environmental knowledge of Indigenous peoples across California by exploring how the state's Native peoples have actively shaped and tended the land for millennia. The series examines how traditional practices can inspire a new generation of Californians to find a balance between humans and nature. Traveling across the state, the series allows viewers to hear first-hand from Native communities engaged in contemporary projects that revive their culture and inform western sciences. Produced in partnership with the Autry Museum of the American West, a collaboration that began with the award-winning documentary "Tending the Wild."

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Tending the Wild

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Seneca white corn grown at the Cultural Conservancy. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode “Cultivating Native Foodways with the Cultural Conservancy."

Seneca white corn grown at the Cultural Conservancy. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode “Cultivating Native Foodways with the Cultural Conservancy."

Tending Nature

A Return to Heirloom Corn Unpacks Powerful Cultural Histories

A group at the Cultural Conservancy removes dried grain corn from the cob to preserve the seeds in their seed library. | Still from the "Cultivating Native Foodways with the Cultural Conservancy" episode of "Tending Nature."

A group at the Cultural Conservancy removes dried grain corn from the cob to preserve the seeds in their seed library. | Still from the "Cultivating Native Foodways with the Cultural Conservancy" episode of "Tending Nature."

Tending Nature

5 Indigenous Stories to Help Us Reckon with the Past and Honor Native Peoples

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pbs-native-foodways-with-the-cultural-conservancy-preview.jpg

Tending Nature

S3 E4: Native Foodways with the Cultural Conservancy (Preview)

Tending Nature

S3 E4: Cultivating Native Foodways with the Cultural Conservancy

Aerial view of bends in the Amazon River in Peru. | DeAgostini/Getty Images

Aerial view of bends in the Amazon River in Peru. | DeAgostini/Getty Images

Tending Nature

Tending the Peruvian Amazon: Planting Seeds of Reciprocity Between Human and Earth

Tending Nature

S1 E4: Healing the Body with United Indian Health Services

Sara Moncada (Yaqui/Irish), chief program officer at the Cultural Conservancy, left, and Melissa K. Nelson (Turtle Mountain Chippewa), president and CEO of the Cultural Conservancy, right, tending plants together. | Still from "Tending Nature"

Sara Moncada (Yaqui/Irish), chief program officer at the Cultural Conservancy, left, and Melissa K. Nelson (Turtle Mountain Chippewa), president and CEO of the Cultural Conservancy, right, tending plants together. | Still from "Tending Nature"

Tending Nature

Reclaiming, Restoring and Preserving Indigenous Relationships

Tending Nature

How the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Study Ocean Toxicity

Tending Nature

Café Ohlone Brings Indigenous Presence Back to the City

Tending Nature

Tribe Responds to Baby Antelope Deaths and Ecosystem Changes

Tending Nature

The Delicate Balance Needed Along the Pit River

Tending Nature

Potawot Health Center: A Holistic Approach to Healing

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The Potawot Community Garden, housed at United Indian Health Services’s facility in Arcata, California, incorporates elements of permaculture seamlessly into the center's holistic approach to healing the Earth and body. | Still from "Tending Nature"

The Potawot Community Garden, housed at United Indian Health Services’s facility in Arcata, California, incorporates elements of permaculture seamlessly into the center's holistic approach to healing the Earth and body. | Still from "Tending Nature"

Article

Tending Nature

The Indigenous Science of Permaculture

Indigenous people, fishermen, and climate activists protest during an oil and gas auction in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2017. | Juliana Colussi / Creative Commons

Indigenous people, fishermen, and climate activists protest during an oil and gas auction in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2017. | Juliana Colussi / Creative Commons

Article

Tending Nature

The Disproportionate Impact of Climate Change on Indigenous Communities

Harry Williams, a Bishop Paiute elder and environmental activist. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Managing Groundwater with the Paiute"

Harry Williams, a Bishop Paiute elder and environmental activist. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Managing Groundwater with the Paiute"

Tending Nature

A Brief History of How Los Angeles Dried Up Owens Valley’s ‘Indian Ditches’

Full Episodes

Tending Nature

S3 E4: Cultivating Native Foodways with the Cultural Conservancy

The Cultural Conservancy works to re-engage with the land and decolonize our foodways.

A hand holds an olive branch at the Séka Hills olive grove. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Reclaiming Agriculture with the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation"

A hand holds an olive branch at the Séka Hills olive grove. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Reclaiming Agriculture with the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation"

Tending Nature

S3 E3: Reclaiming Agriculture with the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation

the Yocha Dehe people are combining ecological knowledge with modern science to rethink community-centered agri-business using sustainability practices that include high-efficiency irrigation.

Someone reaching into the water at Bonanza Spring in the Mojave Desert. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Preserving the Desert with the NALC"

Someone reaching into the water at Bonanza Spring in the Mojave Desert. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Preserving the Desert with the NALC"

Tending Nature

S3 E2: Preserving the Desert with NALC

The Native American Land Conservancy protects sacred tribal lands in the Mojave Desert.

Cheryl Seidner and other members of the Wiyot tribe at a hearing for Terra-Gen's wind farm proposal. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Guarding Ancestral Grounds with the Wiyot"

Cheryl Seidner and other members of the Wiyot tribe at a hearing for Terra-Gen's wind farm proposal. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Guarding Ancestral Grounds with the Wiyot"

Tending Nature

S3 E1: Guarding Ancestral Grounds with the Wiyot

The Wiyot tribe from Humboldt County have fought for restored access to their land.

“Managing Groundwater with the Paiute” Alan Bacock, Big Pine Paiute Tribe of the Owens Valley's Water Program Coordinator, testing water levels.

“Managing Groundwater with the Paiute” Alan Bacock, Big Pine Paiute Tribe of the Owens Valley's Water Program Coordinator, testing water levels.

Tending Nature

S2 E4: Managing Groundwater with the Paiute

California’s Native peoples have lived with drought cycles for millennia and today, the Paiute are shepherding conversations around access to water resources, raising key questions about how our snowpack, streams and aquifers are used and maintained.

Tending Nature

S2 E3: Restoring The River with the Yurok, Hupa and Karuk

The environmental costs of timber extraction and damming have reached a tipping point in the North Coast region of California.

Julie Cordero-Lamb leads a plant walk in Santa Barbara. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Holistic Healing with the Syuxtun Collective"

Julie Cordero-Lamb leads a plant walk in Santa Barbara. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Holistic Healing with the Syuxtun Collective"

Tending Nature

S2 E2: Holistic Healing with the Syuxtun Collective

Scientists and doctors are embracing alternative concepts that Indigenous peoples have practiced for thousands of years, by using medicinal plant knowledge that informed much our pharmacopeia.

Aerial view of a traditional Tongva canoe launching into the ocean. | Still from "Tending Nature"

Aerial view of a traditional Tongva canoe launching into the ocean. | Still from "Tending Nature"

Tending Nature

S2 E1: Rethinking The Coast with the Ti'at Society

Climate change and urban development have significantly altered ocean conditions and our ability to access the coast, making it more and more difficult for the Tongva tribe to carry on their long-held seafaring traditions.

Tending Nature

S1 E4: Healing the Body with United Indian Health Services

A new generation is jump starting several food sovereignty programs across California.

Ray Alvarez looking into the iron sights of his rifle while hunting near the Pit River. | Still from "Tending Nature"

Ray Alvarez looking into the iron sights of his rifle while hunting near the Pit River. | Still from "Tending Nature"

Tending Nature

S1 E3: Tribal Hunting with the Pit River Peoples

This episode explores how members of the Pit River Tribe in Northeast California are reviving traditional hunting practices and embracing Community Science initiatives to preserve and monitor wild elk and deer populations.

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187 poster

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187 Chapter 3 card

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187 Chapter 4 card

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Tending Nature poster 2021

Tending Nature poster 2021

Seneca white corn grown at the Cultural Conservancy. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode “Cultivating Native Foodways with the Cultural Conservancy."

Seneca white corn grown at the Cultural Conservancy. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode “Cultivating Native Foodways with the Cultural Conservancy."

Tending Nature

A Return to Heirloom Corn Unpacks Powerful Cultural Histories

A group at the Cultural Conservancy removes dried grain corn from the cob to preserve the seeds in their seed library. | Still from the "Cultivating Native Foodways with the Cultural Conservancy" episode of "Tending Nature."

A group at the Cultural Conservancy removes dried grain corn from the cob to preserve the seeds in their seed library. | Still from the "Cultivating Native Foodways with the Cultural Conservancy" episode of "Tending Nature."

Tending Nature

5 Indigenous Stories to Help Us Reckon with the Past and Honor Native Peoples

pbs-native-foodways-with-the-cultural-conservancy-preview.jpg

pbs-native-foodways-with-the-cultural-conservancy-preview.jpg

Tending Nature

S3 E4: Native Foodways with the Cultural Conservancy (Preview)

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Nurse Michael Lowman gets the first dose of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine from nurse practitioner Christie Aiello at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, CA, on Dec. 16, 2020. | Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty

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Paiute man protests at the LADWP Board of Commissioners meeting | Photo: Big Pine Paiute Tribe

Paiute man protests at the LADWP Board of Commissioners meeting | Photo: Big Pine Paiute Tribe

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LADWP Finally Fixes Broken Pipeline on Big Pine Paiute Reservation

Smoke from a 2013 controlled burn | Photo: Mob Mob, some rights reserved

Smoke from a 2013 controlled burn | Photo: Mob Mob, some rights reserved

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Salmon jumping at the Ballard Locks, Washington | Photo: Ingrid Taylar, some rights reserved

Salmon jumping at the Ballard Locks, Washington | Photo: Ingrid Taylar, some rights reserved

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Klamath River Tribes in Crisis as Salmon Disappear

Evening in the Owens Valley, California | Image: Albert Bierstadt

Evening in the Owens Valley, California | Image: Albert Bierstadt

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The Owens Valley Flood is Nothing New. Just Ask the Paiute and Shoshone.