Fire and Tribal Cultural Resources In Science Synthesis to support Forest Plan Revision in the Sierra Nevada and Southern Cascades: Science Synthesis

Lake, Frank and Jonathan Long. 2013. Section 4 Chapter 2. US Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station.
 

Executive Summary: 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 such tribal cultural resources and values. Collaboration approaches reviewed in this chapter and in the Collaboration chapter (9.6) can foster restoration opportunities that would benefit Native American 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 the larger and more severe fires expected in the future may affect cultural resources and associated values.

View Full Article PDF >