Food use is the second highest use category cited by Hutsul community members, with the common phrase, “food is medicine.” Many highly ranked culturally important food species are also noted for their medicinal qualities. Culturally important species are found in a variety of habitats, with different degrees of human interaction, providing accessibility during times of need or disturbance. Various regional changes, including lasting reverberations of colonial policies, commercial harvesting, illegal logging, and climate change are impacting the landscape with its effects cascading to culturally important species, which also have economic importance . Comparing ethnographic data to our findings on a species-by-species basis of noted fallback foods of the past show that many fallback foods have maintained cultural importance in the day-to-day lives of Hutsul community members, exhibiting a diversity of uses, while also serving as nutrient-dense foods in times of scarcity, uncertainty, and regional disturbance. It is this deep emergent response to disturbances, resultant of years of tumult seen through world wars, food shortages, shifting borders, colonialism, that drives resilience-thinking and action. The term resilience was first framed within boreal ecosystem functioning, attributed to Crawford Holling . Ecosystems retain a type of cyclical nature with an emphasis on persistence, change and unpredictability – elements embraced by modern adaptive management philosophy . Socio-ecological resilience became defined as the “capacity of a [social-ecological] system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks” . Socio-ecological resilience, pots for cannabis plants as it emerged in both discourse and reality, became a community of practice that engages both ecological and social sciences.
A resilience-based approach includes mitigating disturbances by strengthening and encouraging the self-healing capacity of ecosystems. Resilience looks directly into the face of change, crisis and uncertainty, as embedded parts of life. Ecosystems continually adapt to disturbances at various scales and cannot be managed formulaically to maintain optimal levels of functioning . It is the coupling and intertwining of both spheres, social and ecological, that elicits the complexity in understanding the dynamics of resilience in the region. In this case, the question is: how do Hutsul communities maintain livelihoods and self-determination in acquiring healthy and culturally appropriate food in the face of these disturbances?Traditional ecological knowledge in the region informs adaptive capacity through short term and long-term responses . As noted in the methods, interviews were conducted in Ukrainian, while participants responded both in Ukrainian and Hutsul. Language is a critical part of memory formation; culturally distinctive values, knowledge, meanings, and worldviews transit and emerge through language . How do Hutsul names relate to the environment? In Table 3.7, names allude to plant phenology, habitat, physical characteristics, medicinal qualities, gathering cues, taste as well as stories of colonial invasions, and historical land uses. A more extensive look at Hutsul ecocultural names is in Appendix C. Plants such as Acorus calamus and Orchis mascula are culturally important naturalized plants brought to Hutsulshchyna through the Mongol invasions of the 1200s. The story behind the introduction of Acorus calamus in this region coincides with Tatar invasion, illuminating the ecological placement of this plant in Hutsul culture, as expressed in the local name, which translates to “Tatar potion/herb.” Other local species names are connected to landscape elements that are prevalent and distinctive in Hutsul lifeways, including “toloknyanka” and “polonynskyi hran” . These plants are found, respectively, on tolokas and polonynas; culturally and biologically cultivated areas for centuries. As described in Table 3.1, tolokas are traditionally held pastures located typically on a nearby hillside from the home, and passed down from one generation to the next, ensuring both connection and access to land. Polonynas are summer alpine meadows, providing grazing for communal livestock, which produce culturally important dairy products. All livelihoods of Carpathian highland people are somehow tethered culturally or economically to the maintenance of polonynas .
This ecocultural memory is embedded in language and practiced through maintenance of polonynas. In forest-dependent communities, human interdependence with the land is nurtured and recognized daily – whether it is going to the communal hillside to milk the cows, or to gather mushrooms for a religious meal in the surrounding conifer forests. Hutsul communities in the Carpathian Mountains have maintained and passed down many ecocultural memories, forming the foundation of traditional ecological knowledge. Ecocultural memory guides day-to-day practices, embedding TEK to place and culture. TEK is embedded not only in the spoken language or words that are used to describe plants or landscapes; it is practiced through the acts of gathering and interacting with the local ecology. Holidays, songs, traditional foods, embroidery, dance keep this memory living through practice. For example, memories are nested in family recipes of traditional foods derived from the landscape. The direct reliance and interactions with abundant ecosystems prove the importance of maintaining regional biodiversity, while community structure facilitates a self-reliant, socioeconomic stability in the region. Memories become lived experiences through practice and through active acknowledgement. A memory that fades, no longer exists in said reality. Additionally, a practice without memory also faces risk of extinction. Due to regional ecosystem, climatic and cultural changes, TEK can present itself in disjointed, incomplete ecocultural memories; memories that are not continuously or completely passed down from one generation to the next. For example, placing boughs of a sweet flag , branches of Quercus robur or branches of Carpinus sp. at the entrances and gates of houses on a holiday without knowing why, is an example of expressing an active, practice upheld by disjointed memory without context. Without TEK recognized and nurtured, contextualizing the past to forge a future can ultimately be challenging, ultimately leading to threats of TEK loss. TEK forges the coping mechanisms and adaptive strategies that emerge in maintaining a food system that culturally ties people, health, and land; TEK is the thread that unites ecosystem health and resilience to regional sustainability. There are two distinctive responses to mitigate disturbances and support adaptive capacity: short-term and long-term . TEK informs these responses, providing a basis for supporting food sovereignty.
Two important coping mechanisms include: 1) modifying subsistence activity patterns, or changing how, where, and when to gather culturally important plants, and 2) incorporating a diversity of species use intensities at various landscape levels. These are adaptive, immediate responses based environmental changes mentioned above. They include shifts in climate patterns and logging practices, compounded by land degradation seen continuously through erosion , pollution and flooding . Increased seasonal variability and logging have caused local communities to adjust the timing of their seasonal gathering and garden planting. Phenological shifts in flowering, and extended rainy seasons as described by local experts have resulted in shifts in gathering practices of culturally important plants. Waiting has become a common coping strategy for community members as they inform one another on the status of flowering or fruiting of economically important species. Another response has been following plant communities, especially medicinal species, as they climb in elevation. Due to climatic shifts, certain species are now found at higher elevations , causing community members to hike to higher elevations to gather. The question of accessibility arises in response to climatic shifts impacting distance and time need to gather cultural important medicinal species for community members . In addition to climatic changes, illegal logging remains a significant regional challenge, indoor cannabis grow system causing increased flooding and erosion in the last decade . WWF Ukraine has determined that 44% of the timber harvested from the Carpathian Mountains and exported to the EU is illegal , reinforcing the fact that sanctions for committing forest crimes remain unenforced. The use of multi-time satellite images, DNA and isotope analyses of wood and local activism has recently helped combat illegal logging in the region . In a recent study in Northern Bukovina in Ukraine, Hutsul knowledge holders stated that exploitation of forest resources is driven by immediate economic return, with logging companies harvesting timber year-round . The impacts of illegal logging, as stated by Hutsul locals, encourages succession of species such as Rubus idaeus, Rubus caesius, Vaccinium myrtillus, Chamaerion angustifolium, Orchis macula, and Aronia melanocarpa. These culturally important species are used, appreciated, and gathered fairly frequently, for personal use and sold. However, community members note that species such as Rubus caesius can hinder forest growth and regeneration, and the gathering of these species helps manage forest health. Illegal logging also weakens mushroom growth and nutrient cycling, impacting cultural gathering of mushrooms. By modifying and continually adapting to both climate change and logging impacts within the region, coping mechanisms arise such as waiting, communicating with other community members, and shifting gathering practices to higher elevations.Another coping mechanism includes varying the intensity of habitat use as well as gathering culturally important species in various habitats . Communities are reliant on the diverse landscapes for their nutritional needs, spatially radiating from homes to gardens , pastures, fields, tolokas , meadows, woodlands, forests , alpine meadows as well as culturally-tended alpine meadows called polonynas , and more recently the incorporation of local, convenience stores. These radiating layers of habitats nest spatially, and vary in use intensity temporally. Some landscape levels are used more intensely in targeted seasons, ensuring time for regeneration and growth. Other levels are used at a constant low intensity and require accounting of time and distance to resource. Each of these nested habitats provides a layer of redundancy, ensuring a societal effort to live sustainably within the limits of the environment, while actively monitoring habitat changes from season to season. Additionally, most culturally important species are found in a range of habitats with varying levels of human structuring, ensuring availability to communities . Diversification is a well-known risk-spreading strategy used to mitigate unexpected events and uncertainty , by increasing system complexity . By identifying potential food and medicinal resource redundancies and spreading out use intensities in a variety of habitats, coping mechanisms emerge, helping to secure both ecosystem and community survival. Reliance on local forests, tolokas, fields, meadows, woodlands, and pastures requires observation of conditions and vegetative states of preferred plants. If family pastures are maintained , grazing and milking of livestock requires interaction with landscape and observation of ecological and weather changes. Dialogue between locals and their surrounding forests occurs ritualistically with sharing traditional meals as well as observation of specific Holy days that integrate blessing of these species . For example, August is a particularly important month for the blessing of healing herbs, plants, flowers, and grain, which coincides with the time where most herbs, flowers, stems, leaves, and roots are collected. Among many observed holy days, there are four holy days that occur in the summer that integrate plant use into Christian church ritual . There is acknowledgement of the importance of the environment in daily nourishment as seen through community gatherings on church holy days . They address community needs to maintain diversity, redundancy of species’ uses and landscape types, while managing connectivity of culturally important species and people through holidays, song, and traditional food; Ultimately, holidays act as mechanisms to maintain ecocultural memory, keeping TEK alive. While coping mechanisms play an immediate, responsive role in maintaining resilience, Hutsul communities have also integrated long-term adaptive strategies. These strategies include modifying rules and institutions to ensure livelihoods . Adaptive strategies are grounded in TEK , slowly changing, and emerging at larger spatial scales. In their work in Arctic communities, scholars including Krupnik and Jolly among others present two adaptive strategies including 3) inter-community trade as well as 4) social networks to provide mutual support . In the context of this study, inter community trade is expressed through the economy of gathering, and the interdependence of social networks in the integration of fallback foods. The act of gathering plants and mushrooms for personal use in Ukraine is embedded in seasonal and holiday rhythms, with harvesting carried out mainly from spring until autumn. With the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an uptick of families picking and selling mushrooms . In the forests of Ukraine, 25 tons of birch juice are harvested annually, 150 tons of commercial honey, more than 7,000 tons of dried mushrooms, 7 thousand tons of wild fruits and berries, as well as 5 thousand tons of medicinal plants . Hutsulshchyna is considered one of the most economically depressed regions of Ukraine and the gathering and selling of medicinal roots and berries is common.