CHEROKEE – Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian members might be picking sochan for dinner this week in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park – the first time in the park’s 85-year history.

The right to harvest sochan – a bitter spring green part of the traditional Cherokee culture and diet – comes after the historic signing of an agreement March 25 at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center by Smokies Superintendent Cassius Cash and Cherokee Principal Chief Richard Sneed.

It returns the right by the Cherokee to pick and fry up the kale-like sochan, also known as green headed coneflower, on their ancestral land as they had done for thousands of years.

“It’s an historic day,” Cash said. “We are one of the first parks, and the Cherokee are the first tribal nation to have completed this process since the new plant gathering rule was published in August 2016.”

Picking plants is prohibited in national parks

Since the national parks were established in 1916, the picking any plant or plant part, has been prohibited in every national park, including the Smokies and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

RELATED: Parkway Superintendent J.D. Lee talks park 'complexities'

A new plant gathering rule passed in 2016 relaxed this ban to allow for enrolled members of federally recognized Indian tribes to petition to harvest plans for traditional tribal, cultural purposes, as long the harvest does not cause a significant adverse impact to park resources.

RELATED: Cherokee may gain right to harvest sochan

RELATED: Eastern Band step closer to Smokies sochan harvest

The National Park Service released its environmental assessment, after a public comment period last fall, and issued a Finding of No Significant Impact report Feb. 27, allowing a permit-based system for harvesting sochan in only certain areas of the half-million-acre, mountainous and heavily forested park on the North Carolina-Tennessee border.

Some of the comments addressed in the FONSI report included the concern that sochan would be overharvested, would lead to trampling of sensitive plants and would negatively impact wetland areas where sochan can grow.

According to the FONSI, up to 36 Eastern Band enrolled members annually would be allowed a permit, which they must carry with them, to participate in sochan gathering. Group sizes would be limited to six people to minimize resource damage from trampling.

Following traditional practices, permittees would be authorized to gather what is referred to by the Cherokee as the "turkey foot" of the perennial plant. The turkey foot consists of the three terminal lobes of a sochan leaf, ranging from 3-5 inches long. Smaller and larger leaves cannot be harvested.

Those holding a permit are allowed to gather a maximum of 1 bushel (35.2 liters) per week of sochan leaves, using only official collection bags approved by the Smokies to collect and transport sochan within the park.

The sochan gathering season is March 1-May 31. There was to be a training the evening of March 25, which will include harvesting methods, regulations, how to engage the public if someone sees them harvesting, and where they can’t harvest, including wet areas.

RELATED: Great Smokies fees to increase

RELATED: Smokies hits record visitation

After the completion of training, members would be able to apply for a permit from the EBCI, which could be issued as early as this week, Cash said.

All gathering activities would remain out of sight of areas such as visitor centers, major roads, parking lots, trail heads, campgrounds, and picnic areas and would not be allowed in research areas at Purchase Knob or in wet areas.

He also said there will be sochan monitoring plots set up and permittees will be required to give the coordinates of where they’ll be harvesting.

“We’ll be able to see if what we suspect based on science-based sustainability, is happening,” Cash said.

If a decrease is observed, he said the park “will remain flexible” in how and when harvesting is continued. The plots will also be monitored for trampling.”

RELATED: Great Smoky Mountains hires first female law enforcement chief

The National Park Service and the Eastern Band will also jointly administer a program for traditional gathering to monitor for program participation, sochan gathering quantity and resource impacts. Permittees must submit a weekly sochan gathering report to the EBCI Natural Resources Department, which will forward reports to the Smokies.

An EBCI representative could not be reached for comment Monday. Tribal forest resource specialist Tommy Cabe had told the Citizen Times previously that the tribe would be using “institutional ecological knowledge” to harvest the plants in a sustainable way.

“We used to belong to the park landscape. Some of these places where we go and collect is not just an act of gathering because it grows there, it’s a family tradition, it’s a spiritual site,” Cabe said.

He also said the tribe would next consider petitioning the park to harvest ramps, another traditional Cherokee food similar to a wild onion. Cash said there is not yet a timeline on such a proposal.

“The Cherokee are the aboriginal people that were stewards of this park before it was known to be a park,” Cash said.

“To have a rule that allows that cultural reconnection to the land is a good thing. It has been a long but thoughtful and deliberate process, but also very science based. It allows us to strike a good balance between honoring the tradition and culture of the Eastern Band of Cherokee while allowing sochan to be preserved for generations to follow us.”