Research Database
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A tale of two fire systems: indigenous fire stewardship in British Columbia and California
Year: 2025
BackgroundAn increasing wildfire problem in western North America has created a policy space for Indigenous fire stewardship (IFS) to mitigate wildfire. We compare how British Columbia and California have supported IFS—two jurisdictions with distinct ecosystems but similar histories of colonialism and its socio-ecological consequences. We examine how IFS is incorporated into each jurisdiction’s institutional framework, and the barriers to, and opportunities for implementation.ResultsEach jurisdiction’s approach to recognizing IFS is shaped by different…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Power and planning: a critical discourse analysis of tribal and non-tribal Oregon wildfire protection plans
Year: 2025
BackgroundSince the late 1800s, the US government has largely removed Indigenous fire stewardship practices from the landscape by implementing a top-down fire suppression system that criminalized traditional fire practices and denaturalized the role of fire in forested environments. A century of routine fire suppression produced dense, homogenous forests capable of sustaining high-intensity wildfire that exceeds the suppression capabilities of land management organizations in many regions, spurring federal leaders to modify management approaches. As part of this change,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Governance of Indigenous data in open earth systems science
Year: 2025
In the age of big data and open science, what processes are needed to follow open science protocols while upholding Indigenous Peoples’ rights? The Earth Data Relations Working Group (EDRWG), convened to address this question and envision a research landscape that acknowledges the legacy of extractive practices and embraces new norms across Earth science institutions and open science research. Using the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) as an example, the EDRWG recommends actions, applicable across all phases of the data lifecycle, that recognize the sovereign rights of…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Indigenous stewardship rights and opportunities to recenter Indigenous fire
Year: 2025
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…
Publication Type: Journal Article