SYMP 24-1 - Indigenous Relational Ecologies: Fire stewardship praxis and protocol in Northern California

Indigenous peoples and the roles we play in combating climate change are currently being called on with regard to climate change public discourse. Since time immemorial, many Native American tribes have always conducted cultural fires, low intensity small scale purposely lit fires. We’ve also burned as spiritual and ecological protocols to tending and caring for our lands (Lake and Christianson 2020; Ericksen and Hankins 2014; Lake and Long 2014). These fire practices not only improve the ecosystem, but they also provide socio-cultural medicine which strengthens the intergenerational bonds between tribal members. Indigenous peoples relationship to Native plants is part of myriad land stewardship practices that Tribes have held for millennia. In what is now known as California, Tribes have been applying culturally led fire to landscapes for the revitalization of plants, soils, and our cultures. Further, placement of slow, low temperature prescribed fire has been proposed for broader implications that include mitigation of wildfire and the effects of climate change in California, and in the west more broadly. Conceptually, this work braids together eco-cultural restoration praxis concentrating on climate futurity (the act of living out the futures we wish and the creation of the conditions for these futures; Harjo 2019), led by Indigenous ecologies frameworks and grounded in Native American Studies frameworks. Here, I seek to center Indigenous relational ecologies by grounding restoration efforts prioritizing relationality (relationships to the land, more-than-human relatives); reciprocity (connectedness that positions individuals in set of relationships with each other and with the environment); re-membering (collective and individual connection of bodies with place); and futurity (intergenerational exchanges and intertribal linkages) (Archibald 2008; Wilson 2008; Nelson 2009; Smith 2012; Johnson et al. 2016). These protocols are commonplace in Native American and Indigenous studies and have potential to be deployed by disciplines such as Ecology and Environmental Science, and Geography. This research moves away from dominant approaches which center western concepts of fire and science, but rather the purpose and protocol is to “acknowledge Indigenous/local knowledge as an equally relevant knowledge system” (Hausdoerffer 2021; Lam et al. 2020; Kawagley 2006; Kimmerer 2003:2013).