"For millennia, Native Americans in California have used controlled burns to manage land, promote a healthy ecosystem, and ensure the safety of their communities. In 1769, when Spanish colonization spread with the Portola expedition, Native Americans were forced from their land and were no longer permitted to practice their ancestral methods of land management. The state-control of wildfire management continued under the Spanish crown, the Mexican government from 1821-1846 and eventually a U.S. federal policy called the "10 a.m. rule" started in 1935."
"Although the U.S. Forest Service started controlled burns in the late 1970s as the thinking on land management evolved, Native American communities are working to regain the autonomy to do it themselves. Indigenous groups also are seeking to shift the narrative of fire as a destructive force that harms the environment and our health to one that acknowledges its necessity and value to the ecosystem."
Native Americans in California used controlled burns for millennia to manage land, support ecosystem health, and protect communities. Colonial and later U.S. policies, including the 1935 "10 a.m. rule," suppressed traditional burning and contributed to larger, uncontrolled wildfires. Since the late 1970s the U.S. Forest Service resumed some prescribed burns, but tribes are pushing to regain authority to conduct burns themselves. Indigenous groups seek to reframe fire as a necessary ecological process rather than solely destructive. The Karuk Tribe helped pass SB 310 to allow federally recognized tribes to burn after agreements with state and air-quality officials, and museums are exhibiting Native fire stewardship.
Read at The Oaklandside
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]