...is becoming more common and better understood with each passing year. As researchers and indigenous peoples find stronger evidence for anthropogenic fire in the recent past and understand how it was used to create and maintain environments throughout California, and beyond, we are better able to use fire as a tool rather than fear it.
One example comes from Yosemite National Park which I've personally witnessed using prescribed burning. They have been doing so for quite some time now to reduce fuel loads and prevent catastrophic fire damage in the dense redwood forests within the park. The state of Georgia, US and parts of Canada have been using prescribed burning for decades to continue the work indigenous peoples started thousands of years ago.
Now please check out this short video on "Indigenous Fire Management, Sovereignty & the State of California" which features several indigenous Californian leaders and members fighting for tribal social justice as well as professors Kent Lightfoot and Scott Stephens talking about fire suppression's colonial history that stripped tribes of their traditional knowledge and rights to practice it.
Colonialist fire suppression has been incredibly destructive to the California landscape and the tribes that rely on it. Fire is made more devastating with each consecutive year of fire suppression. By allowing fuel loads to pile up and dead tree branches and saplings to draw the inevitable fire up into the canopy the fire burns hotter and higher. This is a tree killer.
Many trees do in fact die during regular controlled burns, but not old growth trees. Older trees are taller and more tolerant of fire, particularly in drier, more fire adapted environments, like parts of California and Australia. That being said, when fire crawls up into the canopy, all bets are off. By preventing hotter and higher canopy fires by reducing fuel loads and saplings, we protect the older trees from catastrophic fires while also promoting heterogeneity, open spaces for wildflowers, grasses, bushes and animals, as well as saving water resources.
Several hydrological surveys of burned and unburned areas have shown a significant increase in water resources following burns. Some burned areas of California have even turned into marshlands following wildfires, as noted in Scott Stephens TEDxBerkeley from my last post. With California in a perpetual state of drought, water resources are becoming scarcer. Controlled and cultural tribal burning could be one way to preserve our water resources.
One way each of us can participate in ecological preservation efforts is to support politicians and legislature that gives protections to California Indians and other indigenous peoples. These laws protect their rights to practice their traditional ecological knowledge and land management, such as cultural burning.
By educating ourselves and others on the importance and benefits of fire in our environments, as well as supporting indigenous peoples and their allies, we support a more sustainable and resilient environment. With a healthier environment we can anticipate greater water resources, more drought and climate change tolerant ecosystems, and more open spaces for us to hike, flowers to bloom and animals to roam.
The occasional anthropogenic fire leads to so many great results it's hard to argue against it.
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