As California continuous to experience deadly and devastating wildfires each year across its landscape, the Indigenous practice of cultural burning and 鈥済ood fire鈥 is earning renewed attention.
The University of California published this week an excellent feature by UCOP writer Robyn Schelenz and videographer Jessica Wheelock called
The feature includes 嘿嘿视频 professor of Native American Studies Beth Rose Middleton Manning and the Honorable Ron W. Goode, Tribal Chairman of the North Fork Mono Tribe. They have worked together to teach 嘿嘿视频 students and others about traditional Indigenous burns鈥攁n experience highlighted by our own 2020 story, 鈥Rethinking Wildfire.鈥
The excerpt below focuses on important differences between 鈥減rescribed burns鈥 and 鈥渃ultural burning:鈥
The difference between prescribed burns and cultural burning
[T]here are important differences in philosophy and execution between prescribed burns and cultural burning in their approach to the land, Goode says.
Agencies tend to focus on acreage and fuel reduction, relying upon natural features or previous fires to control potential spread. Forestry technicians may prioritize large-scale pile burning, for example, then leave when it is done.
Indigenous cultural burns focus on what needs to be burned to revitalize the land with the intent of returning to make use of it again. Traditional baby baskets of the Yurok and Karuk Northern California tribes, for instance, are made from hazelnut shrub stems that are collected after fires as part of the clean-up process. Only those types of stems are strong enough to create the baskets. But in order to collect them, hazelnut shrubs must be propane torched, a step agencies do not currently take.
Indigenous preparation of land for a burn can also involve promoting oak trees in place of pines, for example, creating a new food source for animals and people alike. The ecological and spiritual importance of cultural burns is written into a North Fork Mono creation story 鈥 how the Inchworm was able to retrieve the Falcon caught on a high rock by going up the rising water table created by fires put on the land by the Mono.
鈥淐ultural burning comes back to what we are burning for, and it鈥檚 not burning for acres,鈥 Goode says. 鈥淲e're burning to restore the land, restore the resources, restore water. Bring it back to where it can reproduce on its own.鈥
Now go read
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Kat Kerlin is an environmental science writer and media relations specialist at 嘿嘿视频. She鈥檚 the editor of the 鈥What Can I Do About Climate Change?鈥 blog. kekerlin@ucdavis.edu.