Fire and tribal cultural resources

Abstract

Native American tribes regard plants that have evolved with frequent fire and other natural resources as living cultural resources that provide, water, food, medicines, and other material goods while also sustaining tribal cultural traditions. Collaborations between management agencies and tribes and other Native American groups can incorporate traditional ecological knowledge to facilitate placed-based understanding of how fire and various management practices affect tribal cultural resources and values. Collaboration approaches reviewed in this chapter and in chapter 9.6, “Collaboration in National Forest Management,” can foster restoration opportunities that would benefit tribal communities and broader values. A strategy to promote socioecological resilience may include efforts to reestablish frequent fire regimes by emulating traditional burning practices, and to learn how larger highseverity fires may affect cultural resources and associated values.

Parent Publication

• Science synthesis to support socioecological resilience in the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascade Range

Citation

Lake, F.K.; Long, J.W. 2014. Fire and tribal cultural resources. In: Long, J.W.; Quinn-Davidson, L.; Skinner, C.N., eds. Science synthesis to support socioecological resilience in the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascade Range. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-247. Albany, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station: 173-186. Chap. 4.2.