indigenous fire stewardship

Background

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.

Indigenous Peoples have been stewarding lands with fire for ecosystem improvement since time immemorial. These stewardship practices are part and parcel of the ways in which Indigenous Peoples have long recorded and protected knowledge through our cultural transmission practices, such as oral histories.

With the growing scale of wildfires, many First Nations are demanding a stronger role in wildfire response.

In the face of global climate change, Indigenous communities around the world have increasingly gained recognition as significant actors in the fight for environmental justice and sustainability.

The Yurok Tribe, along with other tribal communities in northwest California, non-profit organizations, universities, and governmental agencies are working to restore forests and woodlands to be more resilient to wildfires, drought, pests and diseases.

Our understanding of forest dynamics and successional pathways in coastal Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var menziesii) forests with relatively frequent mixed-severity fires is limited by a lack of annually precise dendroecological reconstructions that combine records of historical fires and tree establishment.

The climate crisis has exacerbated many ecological and cultural problems including wildfire and drought vulnerability, biodiversity declines, and social justice and equity.

Background

Historical and contemporary policies and practices, including the suppression of lightning-ignited fires and the removal of intentional fires ignited by Indigenous peoples, have resulted in over a century of fire exclusion across many of the USA’s landscapes.