Good Fire' exhibit in Oakland shows native land stewardship practices

"The impact of fire on land, the environment, health and communities, a topic often discussed in California, is often dominated by expressions of sensationalism. From news media reports magnifying catastrophic wildfires with shaky, first-person videos and panicky audio made on cell phones to partisan politicians and public persuaders whose voices on opposite sides of a dividing line strive to separate fire's ecology, history, culture and environmental causes into good or bad scenarios, it's easy to end up confused, distrustful, even dismissive."

"Good Fire displays fire seen through a new lens in three sections. The Working with Fire section focuses on the tools and techniques native communities used to sustain healthy ecosystems. Artwork, storytelling, plants and even seeds make visual the healthy, astonishing outgrowths generated by fire. Good Fire, Interrupted, the second section, asserts that settler colonists warped and discarded native people's knowledge and their respectful land stewardship activities such as cultural burning (good fire controlled burns) and prairie preservation."

Oakland Museum of California's Good Fire: Tending Native Lands presents Northern California Native land management practices, emphasizing controlled cultural burning as a tool for ecosystem health. The presentation highlights tools, techniques, artwork, storytelling, plants and seeds that demonstrate productive ecological outcomes from intentional fire. The narrative contrasts indigenous stewardship with settler-colonial disruption that marginalized traditional knowledge and practices like prairie preservation and cultural burns. The material avoids treating diverse tribes as a monolith and points toward contemporary possibilities by showcasing baskets, films, and examples that connect ancestral practices to present and future land stewardship strategies.

Read at www.eastbaytimes.com