Return of the Buffalo

Charlie Carpenter (he/him) is the Braided Science Program Manager at INDIGENOUSLED and the Co-Director of Buffalo Beyond Borders. He is an Afro-Indigenous and Latino conservationist passionate about bringing diversity into conservation spaces. With a graduate degree in Conservation Medicine and a background in conservation work with African wildlife and chemical immobilization, Charlie’s current focus is on Indigenous-led conservation efforts across Turtle Island. By using Braided Science, his work centers on braiding Traditional Ecological Knowledge with Western Science to create ethical and sustainable conservation practices. Outside of work, Charlie enjoys spending time outside, reading, and taking road trips.

Indigenous Led

Braided Science

Buffalo Beyond Borders Initiative

Science Moab connected with Charlie Carpenter, an Afro-Indigenous and Latino conservationist and the Braided Science Program Manager with INDIGENOUS LED, an organization that elevates Indigenous-led conservation. The term “braided science” describes ways of knowing that weave Traditional Ecological Knowledges with Western science. Today, Charlie talks about the initiative to reintroduce buffalo—a keystone species—to their native habitats, benefiting Native communities and ecosystems through a holistic, restorative approach to conservation.

Science Moab:  What exactly does reintroducing buffalo entail? Where do you even begin?

Carpenter:  There are so many factors, and it depends on where we are with [any particular] tribe. Do they have the land? If not, how do we get the land? Once we get the land, is that land suitable for buffalo to be back on it?

There’s a lot of baseline data collection that needs to happen—soil sampling and things of this nature—to determine if buffalo could live on [a particular] land. If [the land is not suitable], we ask what steps need to be taken to turn it back into a habitat that buffalo could live in? Unfortunately, it is a little political getting buffalo back onto the land, especially if that community is not [designating] them as livestock.

Some states classify buffalo as livestock, some classify buffalo as wildlife, so these are different policy hoops that we need to jump through. Then, funding is a huge need. Buffalo are very expensive…the upkeep and the infrastructure needed, like fencing [is substantial].  So it’s a lot of work.

Science Moab:  Why is this an initiative for INDIGENOUS LED?

Buffalo are significantly important to Indigenous cultures all over. [The relationship with buffalo] was their way of life, and that was stripped from them. It was used against them by the white settlers when they came over, who hunted buffalo to near extinction because the [colonizers] knew that Indigenous communities relied on buffalo for food, clothing, building shelters, and trading amongst tribes and communities.

[Reintroducing the buffalo] is essentially bringing back what was taken from us. There’s a lot of reconciliation that needs to happen with Indigenous communities, and bringing back theto buffalo, I feel, is the number one way that it needs to happen.

Science Moab: Where are these buffalo coming from?

Carpenter: [The buffalo come from] a couple of different places. Yellowstone National Park has worked with the InterTribal Buffalo Council [who provides a variety of support for sustainable tribal buffalo programs]. Yellowstone National Park can only have so many buffalo, so the surplus comes to tribes so we can put them back on our lands. Oak Island, in Canada, is another source of buffalo for these programs. Some [of the animals] are donated from private people who have their own buffalo herds for livestock.

Science Moab: If the land that you find or is available is not suitable for buffalo, what kind of things do you do to make it suitable?

Carpenter: It depends on the current status of the land. It’s [typically] not too hard to turn it into a suitable habitat for buffalo… [as long as] a lot of invasive species have not grown there.

From what I’ve seen in this work so far, there are still many of the [necessary] natural food sources for buffalo on these lands. [If it is unsuitable,] that would be one major step… getting rid of all the invasive plant species, and then replanting the native grasses that used to be there before.

Science Moab: Once buffalo have gained a foothold on certain land, does it tend to keep invasive plants out and encourage the native plants to to grow?

Carpenter: Yes. The buffalo reintroduction is not only beneficial for Indigenous communities, but also for the ecosystem itself. The ecosystem thrives if buffalo are back on the land. There’s so much that depended on the buffalo; they’re a keystone species. They’re a keystone relative. They do wonders for biodiversity of grass. You get the good old, long, tall grass back…some grasses that are [hardy] to being trampled by buffalo, and some are not. The grasses that are— which are usually your native grasses—will continue growing. And the grasses that are not [which are often invasive species] will slowly not be able to survive anymore because the buffalo are back. The native grasses also tend to have longer roots so they can hold more carbon in the soil. So it’s a very beneficial thing to have buffalo back on the land.

Science Moab:  What part of these projects do you enjoy the most?

Carpenter: Honestly, I like meeting the people. Braided science is all about pulling in the Indigenous knowledge, then mixing in some Western science with it, and then you have an idea that you rip apart and you put it back together and it just turns into this amazing thing that you would’ve never thought of on your own.

Since I started at INDIGENOUS LED, I think I’ve traveled at least once a month…meeting new people from all walks of life and seeing what their way of knowing is and what their way of being is and learning from them. I like teaching them what I know, what INDIGENOUS LED does, seeing how it relates [to their lives], and how we can work together.

I think the work [we discussed today] is my favorite part of my job: returning buffalo to Indigenous lands, to Indian country. We have hundreds and hundreds of years of experience observing this land. How the plants work, how the animals work, how it’s all connected. The animals were here first. They are our elders, our relatives, or our teachers. Everything we knew of life came from watching and observing them. And so being able to be a part of something that is, in a way, paying that debt back [and] helping them live again after they kept us alive for so many years… that is what I’m most excited about.