嘿嘿视频

Melinda Adams: Flame Keeper

On Indigenous Fire, Cultural Healing and Not Giving Up on a Warming World

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Native America woman in black shirt and blue earrings looks directly at camera for a series on climate anxiety.
Native American studies scholar and environmental scientist Melinda Adams studies the reclamation of Indigenous land stewardship practices, such as cultural burning. (Alysha Beck/嘿嘿视频)

is an environmental scientist, Ph.D. candidate in Native American studies and member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. She helps teach 嘿嘿视频鈥 鈥淜eepers of the Flame鈥 class, in which students work with Indigenous fire practitioners to reclaim the practice of cultural burning 鈥 which uses fire as a tool for land restoration, not destruction.

Hers is a unique voice that amplifies and weaves together Native American studies, environmental science, ecology and climate change solutions through a lens of Indigenous land stewardship and cultural inclusivity.

How do you feel when you鈥檙e at a cultural burn?

For me, I think there鈥檚 a lot of healing that happens. We鈥檙e not just healing the landscape with this good fire that鈥檚 going to regenerate plants and cut back fuel loads and raise the water table. This was a practice that was taken away from Indigenous peoples. We鈥檙e literally taking these practices back and stewarding our lands while healing ourselves, culturally. And we鈥檙e doing it with elders, young folks and even little kids. We鈥檙e participating in a community of healing.

Men and women in jackets light field of deergrass on fire as part of cultural burn in California.
Melinda Adams, middle, along with 嘿嘿视频 students, academics and members of the local Native American community take part in a collaborative cultural burn at the Tending and Gathering Garden at Cache Creek Nature Preserve in Woodland in January 2020. (Alysha Beck/嘿嘿视频)

In the beginning stages of my research, I used the word 鈥渞evitalizing,鈥 but one of my elders said, 鈥淢elinda, we鈥檙e not 鈥榬evitalizing鈥 fire. These ways are not dead; they didn鈥檛 go anywhere. We鈥檙e reclaiming them.鈥 I thought that was a pretty powerful 鈥渁untie鈥 lesson.  

Are there common misconceptions you鈥檇 like to share about cultural burning? 

Cultural burning can differ from prescribed or controlled burning. It鈥檚 very tribe-centric and place-specific. The lessons and solutions you learn in one area aren鈥檛 necessarily translatable to another. For cultural burns, you need to build community in each place. These partnerships have to be created and sustained first with the C鈥檚: consultation, collaboration and consent. And also the R鈥檚: respect, responsibility and reciprocity, all upheld with the tribe. Grounding your approaches in those relational contexts is key. 

What are some of your early memories around connecting with the environment? 

I grew up in New Mexico, and where my mother and father have close connections to their tribal homelands. Learning about the environment through storytelling, storysharing and placing ourselves within the environment was such a holistic way to learn my responsibilities to the land and how to carry myself as an Indigenous woman.

Melinda Adams lights a field of Deergrass on fire
Melinda Adams lights a field of deergrass during the Tending and Gathering Garden Indigenous Fire Workshop at the Cache Creek Nature Preserve in Woodland. The workshop was part of an ongoing collaboration between local members of the Native American community and 嘿嘿视频 students from the 鈥淜eepers of the Flame鈥 class, which Adams co-instructs. (Alysha Beck/嘿嘿视频)

What led you to get involved with studying fire?

I鈥檒l tell you the academic story and the family story.

The academic story is that after I finished undergrad at a tribal college in Kansas, I found my way to plant ecology and environmental science at Purdue by working with biochar, a soil amendment and form of charcoal created through burning. It鈥檚 a conservation restoration tool created by Indigenous people in the Amazon basin. Like with cultural burning, they purposely burned for millennia for many reasons 鈥 to sustain communities with food, get rid of waste, to make healthy soils. I was captivated by this!

We decided to apply the practice to tallgrass prairie 鈥 one of the most devastated ecosystems in the United States. I participated in some prairie burns, and we had good results with our biochar research. That was inspiring. This is how I got into fire research.

We鈥檙e participating in a community of healing.

Then there鈥檚 the family story: A lot of our Native communities have a dark history of removal, and we don鈥檛 always want to share part of the past related to intergenerational trauma. Recently, my mother shared something with me. She never told me this until I brought up my research with cultural fire. She said, 鈥淵ou know, I fought fire as a young person.鈥

I was like, 鈥淲hat?!鈥

鈥淵eah! Every summer in Arizona, I served as a wildland firefighter for our tribe. You come from a line of fire keepers. It鈥檚 in your blood.鈥

I鈥檓 sure that was a surprise! So, two key questions: Do you feel climate anxiety, and what do you do about it in those moments? 

I grapple with my approach to climate anxiety. I think we need to confront that we鈥檙e experiencing it, especially here in California, with drought and wildfire. When I was in the Midwest, I taught about air pollution and smog by showing pictures of New York and California. Now I鈥檓 here and seeing it. And the orange skies are something we have to prepare ourselves for. That struck me, vividly. This is happening. We all need to pay attention and think about collective climate solutions. 

As a Native community member, I see firsthand how extreme climatic events displace, remove and leave our people in vulnerable positions environmentally and with our public and mental health. In most instances, our culture, language and identities are formed through our connections with lands and waters.  So when our homelands are degraded or when we鈥檙e removed from them, there are threats to cultures that have persisted for millennia. That鈥檚 a heavy thing to carry.

Native American woman Melinda Adams in field
Melinda Adams, a Native American studies scholar and environmental scientist at 嘿嘿视频, stands in a field at the Tending and Gathering Garden in Woodland, California. (Alysha Beck/嘿嘿视频)

I choose to remain committed to the work I do because there are elders, tribal members and young people all in a sense relying on the work I help with to dispel a lot of the misconceptions about Native Peoples and to respectfully foreground our land stewardship practices. Given the spaces and fields I have access to, it鈥檚 my responsibility to challenge the oversimplification and erasure of my Peoples.

That鈥檚 kind of what lights the fire, if you鈥檒l forgive the pun. We talk a lot about responsibility in our community. We want to be good relatives so that one day we can be good ancestors.

What excites you about the work you do? 

For people who study climate change, it can be disheartening. They know the statistics and what the science is pointing to. It鈥檚 hard to remain optimistic and solutions oriented. But I鈥檓 seeing and feeling a shift in people鈥檚 perspective.

Back of Native American woman looking toward field. Back of her shirt says "Rematriate the Land."
Melinda Adams looks out at the Tending and Gathering Garden at Cache Creek Nature Preserve in Yolo County. (Alysha Beck/嘿嘿视频)

I think the surge of social justice movements in 2020 demands that we look at how certain perspectives have been left out of national conversations and how we must invite these perspectives into climate solutions. I think we鈥檙e experiencing a moment, and it might be naive of me, but I see this as an opportunity. We can return the gaze. I think if we could have had a broader Indigenous perspective hundreds of years ago, perhaps some of these climate change issues would probably not be occurring at the rate they are.

 I think we鈥檙e experiencing a moment, and it might be naive of me, but I see this as an opportunity. We can return the gaze.

That鈥檚 a great way of tying together the social justice and climate change issues. They really can鈥檛 be separated.

Yes! For example, I recently served on the committee to rename the John Muir Institute of the Environment here at 嘿嘿视频. We heard from people wanting to keep it and from Native peoples about how we need to stop naming things for people who have caused harm to underrepresented communities. At the end of the day, as a committee, we voted to rename JMIE and now it鈥檚 the .

For me, that was such an exciting moment! Being part of the renaming dialogue was a way to uplift the visibility of my people, especially in a space dedicated to science and climate research. It was a bit of a heavy load to carry in educating people about why it鈥檚 necessary. But changes like these are profound.

[My ancestors] never gave up. They withstood colonization and the collapse of their worlds. Who am I to give up when they didn鈥檛? 

When I was brought up, I heard stories about people fighting for change, whether it be for federal status recognition or environmental issues. My relatives shared with me: 鈥淚 might not ever see that change in my lifetime. We come to these spaces and fight our fights with this in mind.鈥 We lead with, 鈥淚鈥檓 not doing this for me, but for my children, my grandchildren.鈥

So to see something like a renaming, or a racial slur like the Redskins or the Indians be changed. To see Deb Haaland, a tribal member and U.S. secretary of the interior be the highest-ranked government official overseeing the greatest proportion of our public lands 鈥 I鈥檓 not an elder yet, but I never thought I鈥檇 see that change in my lifetime! 

Native American scholar Melinda Adams in grassland of Yolo County
Melinda Adams of 嘿嘿视频 at the Tending and Gathering Garden in Woodland, California. The garden is a collaboration between Native American community members and Cache Creek Conservancy to demonstrate traditional land and plant management practices of California鈥檚 Native people. (Alysha Beck/嘿嘿视频)

I think that extends to a lot of underrepresented communities. There鈥檚 such momentum in social and environmental activism right now. Our youth are taking on the challenge of climate change. They inherited this, but they鈥檙e savvy and smart. They鈥檙e calling out racial injustices. They are very prepared to take on this fight.

I share your admiration for today鈥檚 youth. But I also know some young people are quite anxious and scared about the future. Some quite literally think the world is about to end. There are videos of kids on Tik Tok in tears over climate anxiety. Do you have any thoughts or advice for them? 

I would say their feelings are very real, they are valid, and I understand. For example, some students taking the 鈥淜eepers of the Flame鈥 class have climate anxiety, some were displaced from wildfire. The point of taking the class is to have that change in perception of our approaches to stewardship. Cultural burning and other Indigenous-led environmental practices are led with our future, all people鈥檚 future, in mind.

For me, I haven鈥檛 reached the point of feeling like there might not be a future or a California. That might be how I choose to see the world based on the stories of resiliency and hope I鈥檝e inherited from my ancestors.

They never gave up. They withstood colonization and the collapse of their worlds. Who am I to give up when they didn鈥檛? They didn鈥檛 give up on their youth or their future, and neither will I. 

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Kat Kerlin is an environmental science writer on the 嘿嘿视频 News and Media Relations team. 530-750-9195, kekerlin@ucdavis.edu. Twitter 

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