I thought this post befitting for those of you in B.C. and either experiencing a close fire or experiencing the smoke from the fires.
Fire has always been part of California’s landscape. But long before the vast blazes of recent years, Native American tribes held controlled burns that cleared out underbrush, encouraged new plant growth, and helped manage wildfires. It’s a tradition that disappeared with the arrival of Western settlers.
This short podcast explains how tribal leaders are working with government officials to restore cultural burns, a practice that can minimize and control extreme wildfires in California. These controlled fires clean up the vegetation and brush that would be fuel for the extreme wildfires, they also do it to encourage new plant growth, and helped manage wildfires. It’s a tradition that disappeared with the arrival of Western settlers.
“I think it’s really important that we don’t think about traditional burning as what information can we learn from Native people about how they care for the land and then exclude people and move on with non-Natives managing the land, but that Native people are at the forefront and are leading.”
This is an important quote. One that highlights the importance of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and not only interweaving Western science but having TEK at the forefront. Managing the lands as how it was done for centuries by First Peoples before campaigns like “Smokey the Bear” and an era of unhealthy fire suppression.
References
Baughman, B. (2020). Managing wildfire through cultural burning [Audio podcast]. Short wave. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/904600242