I am sure that they killed as many buffalo as they could any way they could. So what? Environmentalism and endangered species were not part of the vocabulary. Survival was. There were not enough of them to do any lasting damage, so no lasting damage was done by them. On balance, they did a lot less damage than we have, but that is because of our sheer numbers, and because we change whatever land we touch permanently. Evidence of their footprints might be gone with the next rainfall.
If some want to glorify the romance of indian life and nomadic culture, let them. It is no threat to find it interesting or to find harmony with the land in it. It was a simpler time and a simpler life than ours, and many, like me who hate concrete and highrises, enjoy the imagery of Dances with Wolves. Niether side should try to apply today's thinking to it.
It doesn't stop there. The noble Indian myths are tied into environmental
pressure to 'preserve' land as nature left it. Indians had a significant impact
on the land, and what we are driving ourselves to the brink to preserve
may have been so altered by Indians, that we have to way of knowing
what 'natural' is. And that's just one of the problems with living a lie.
There used to be horses and camels native to North America by 1492 they were no more. Until the reintroduction of the horse, which allowed them to hunt and bring down one buffalo at a time they drove them over cliffs, One tribe of under 100 people slaughtered thousands of buffalo, most left to rot.
The deserts of the southwest used to be only semi-arid until they cut down so many trees that they caused climate change in that region.
The mound builders of the mid-west ruined their environment to the point that they died out from massive starvation. The reason the land was so green and lush when the settlers came along was that the local tribes that they met had just gotten there themselves.
In much the same way the Maya had deforested and stripped Central America. It took a couple of centuries for the land to recover.
I question what you call, lasting damage.
So far nothing on this scale of damage has been done since.
a.cricket