VIDEO: Climate change and water diversions for agriculture have all but dried up an ancient food source of the Tachi Yokut tribe
Faron Guiterrez, a Tachi Yokut elder, finds one small lupna mushroom in an area where they were once large and abundant. SCREEN GRAB
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The indigenous Tachi Yokut people have lived in the San Joaquin Valley for thousands of years.
Throughout much of that time, they subsisted on the land, including oyster mushrooms which used to grow in abundance on trees in the area. But because of water diversions and the drying out of the reservation’s lands, the mushrooms are disappearing and tribe members can no longer harvest them for their community as they once did.
