2008 Joint Annual Meeting (5-9 Oct. 2008): An Ethnobotanical Survey of Fort Riley, Kansas.

The Department of Defense (DoD) is responsible for administering more than 25M acres of land in the United States. As a land manager, the DoD must comply with a number of cultural resources related statutes, regulations, and policy memoranda. Because of this guidance, the potential impacts of land use proposals on elements of Native American people's culture have become part of the social impact assessment studies used to evaluate the social soundness of proposed projects. This guidance requiring consultation with Native American groups and preservation of traditional cultural properties may require comprehensive surveys that include ethnobotanical surveys. Ethnobotanical surveys do not exist for many installations. An approach to conduct a preliminary ethnobotanical survey of an installation using readily available data was develop and demonstrated using Fort Riley KS data. The approach includes documenting the presence, abundance, and distribution of ethnobotanical resources; assessing the potential impact of these resources on the military mission, and assessing the potential impact of military training activities on culturally significant plants.