Indigenous stewardship rights and opportunities to recenter Indigenous fire

Wild and intentionally ignited fires are not new to North American landscapes or to the Indigenous cultures whose ancestral places encompass them. For millennia, Indigenous fire stewardship has been regionally and locally distributed across North American ecosystems. These practices reshaped fire regimes to provide safe living and foraging conditions and reduced wildfires and their emissions prior to Euro-American colonization. Euro-American colonization impacts initially included introduction of foreign diseases and widespread genocide, which broadly diminished the extent of Indigenous fire stewardship. Colonial policies and practices thereafter effectively altered vegetation and fuel patterns, fire regimes, and the once far-reaching effects of Indigenous fire stewardship. These influences have contributed to the current state of wildfires and their climate effects. Prior to colonization, Indigenous stewardship rights had been passed down through generations for millennia of active stewardship, and those rights were and continue to be protected under Indigenous law. However, US federal laws do not recognize these fundamental rights despite their legal standing in international law. Re-instating these rights would provide many advantages to addressing the modern wildfire and climate crisis. Re-instatement could be accelerated through linked land access, policy reform, and learning opportunities.