Up Next

A jar of clippings from medicinal plants mixed with olive oil. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Holistic Healing with the Syuxtun Collective"

Tea, Tincture and Oil: The Making of Traditional Plant Medicine

2:57

Aerial view of mountain range in Santa Barbara. | | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Holistic Healing with the Syuxtun Collective"

A Walk Through Santa Barbara’s Rich Traditional Plant Medicine Landscape

1:53

Archival footage of scientists working in a lab. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Holistic Healing with the Syuxtun Collective"

From Willowbark to Aspirin: Tracing Indigenous Medicine to Patent Medicines

3:18

Still condors | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Restoring the River with the Yurok, Hupa and Karuk"

The Spiritual and Ecological Role of the Condor in the North Coast

2:36

Aerial rendering of river under restoration. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Restoring the River with the Yurok, Hupa and Karuk"

What it Takes to Restore a River for Salmon Runs

3:05

Seal eating salmon in the ocean surrounded by ducks. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Restoring the River with the Yurok, Hupa and Karuk"

The Surprising Connection Between Salmon and Redwood Forests

1:48

Water moving slowly across an irrigation garden. | Still from "Tending Nature" episode "Managing Groundwater with the Paiute"

Running Ditches and Slowing Water: Paiute People Adapt Traditions to Modern-Day Gardens

5:11

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

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

5:12

Paiute People Adapt Traditions to Modern-Day Gardens

5:11

How Los Angeles Dried Up Owens Valley’s ‘Indian Ditches’

5:13

From Snow Pack to Faucet: Tracing the Source of Our Water

0:59

The Condor’s Spiritual and Ecological Role Along the Klamath

2:37

Tending Nature

Potawot Health Center: A Holistic Approach of Healing

The Potawot Health Village at United Indian Health Services serves as a comprehensive place of healing with Western doctors, a Native medicine man, a sweat lodge and a community garden. The organization was founded by a group of women in 1970 due to concern that Native women weren't receiving adequate prenatal care. When the land for UIHS's current location was purchased, the board struck a deal with the city of Arcata that 20 acres would be used for the health center, while the remaining 20 acres would be brought back to a natural state. This natural state has become a place where people can take nature walks, where they have a chance to grow healthy foods and where people can tap the "pharmacy of the world." By focusing on a holistic and traditional approach to healing the mind, body and soul, the center uses nature to give Indigenous people control of their own health care.

Full Episodes

Episode

26:39

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.

Season 3 Episode 303

Episode

24:40

Tending Nature

S3 E2: Preserving the Desert with NALC

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

Season 3 Episode 302

Episode

26:39

Tending Nature

S3 E1: Guarding Ancestral Grounds with the Wiyot

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

Season 3 Episode 301

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"

Episode

26:23

Tending Nature

S3 E4: Cultivating Native Foodways with the Cultural Conservancy

The Cultural Conservancy, an inter-tribal organization, is revitalizing indigenous knowledge by inviting people to re-engage with the land, honor heirloom seeds, grow clean food and medicines, and decolonizing their foodways.

Season 3 Episode 4

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

Episode

26:42

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.

Season 2 Episode 204

Restoring The River with the Yurok, Hupa and Karuk

Episode

26:42

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.

Season 2 Episode 203

Episode

26:42

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.

Season 2 Episode 202

Rethinking The Coast with the Ti'at Society

Episode

26:42

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.

Season 2 Episode 201

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

Episode

26:40

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.

Season 1 Episode 103

A member of Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation casts his net the beach. | Still from Tending Nature

Episode

26:40

Tending Nature

S1 E1: Protecting The Coast with the Tolowa Dee-ni'

This episode journeys to the Smith River near the Oregon border to discover how the Tolowa Dee-ni’ are reviving traditional harvesting of shellfish while working with state agencies to monitor toxicity levels.

Season 1 Episode 101