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Native American use of fire in ecosystems

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sudopudge (talk | contribs) at 06:13, 12 December 2021 (→Altered fire regimes: According to the dictionary definition of "colonist," no colonists were involved in the removal of restrictions on the use of fire for forest management. I'd you'd like to contest Werriam-Webster, please use the talk page.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Prior to European colonization of the Americas, indigenous peoples used controlled burns to modify the landscape.[1] The controlled fires were part of the environmental cycles and maintenance of wildlife habitats that sustained the cultures and economies of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.[2] What was initially perceived by colonists as "untouched, pristine" wilderness in North America was actually the cumulative result of those occasional managed fires creating an intentional mosaic of grasslands and forests across North America, sustained and managed by the original Peoples of the landbase.[3][4][5][6][7]

Radical disruption of Indigenous burning practices occurred with European colonization and forced relocation of those who had historically maintained the landscape.[8] Some colonists understood the traditional use and potential benefits of low-intensity broadcast burns ("Indian-type" fires), but others feared and suppressed them.[8] In the 1880s, impacts of colonization had devastated indigenous populations, and fire exclusion had become more widespread. By the early 20th century, fire suppression had become the official US federal policy.[9] Understanding pre-colonization land management and the traditional knowledge held by the Indigenous peoples who practiced it provides an important basis for current re-engagement with the landscape and is critical for the correct interpretation of the ecological basis for vegetation distribution.[10][11][12][13]

Human-shaped landscape

Authors such as William Henry Hudson, Longfellow, Francis Parkman, and Thoreau contributed to the widespread myth[14] that pre-Columbian North America was a pristine, natural wilderness, "a world of barely perceptible human disturbance.”[15] At the time of these writings, however, enormous tracts of land had already been allowed to succeed to climax due to the reduction in anthropogenic fires after the depopulation of Native peoples from epidemics of diseases introduced by Europeans in the 16th century, forced relocation, and warfare. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Native Americans had played a major role in determining the diversity of their ecosystems.[16][14]

The most significant type of environmental change brought about by Precolumbian human activity was the modification of vegetation. [...] Vegetation was primarily altered by the clearing of forest and by intentional burning. Natural fires certainly occurred but varied in frequency and strength in different habitats. Anthropogenic fires, for which there is ample documentation, tended to be more frequent but weaker, with a different seasonality than natural fires, and thus had a different type of influence on vegetation. The result of clearing and burning was, in many regions, the conversion of forest to grassland, savanna, scrub, open woodland, and forest with grassy openings. (William M. Denevan)[17]

Fire was used to keep large areas of forest and mountains free of undergrowth for hunting or travel, or to create berry patches.[18][16][19]

Grasslands and savannas

Further information: Pre-Columbian savannas of North America
Fire regimes of United States plants. Savannas have regimes of a few years: blue, pink, and light green areas.

When first encountered by Europeans, many ecosystems were the result of repeated fires every one to three years, resulting in the replacement of forests with grassland or savanna, or opening up the forest by removing undergrowth.[citation needed] Terra preta soils, created by slow burning, are found mainly in the Amazon basin, where estimates of the area covered range from 0.1 to 0.3%, or 6,300 to 18,900 km² of low forested Amazonia to 1.0% or more.[20][21][22]

There is some argument about the effect of human-caused burning when compared to lightning in western North America. As Emily Russell (1983) has pointed out, “There is no strong evidence that Indians purposely burned large areas....The presence of Indians did, however, undoubtedly increase the frequency of fires above the low numbers caused by lightning.” As might be expected, Indian fire use had its greatest impact “in local areas near Indian habitations.”[23][24]

Reasons for and benefits of burning

Reasons given for controlled burns in pre-contact ecosystems are numerous and well thought out. They include:

  • Facilitating agriculture by rapidly recycling mineral-rich ash and biomass.
  • Increasing nut production in wild/wildcrafted orchards by darkening the soil layer with carbonized leaf litter, decreasing localized albedo, and increasing the average temperature in spring, when nut flowers and buds would be sensitive to late frosts.
  • Promoting the regrowth of fire-adapted food and utility plants by initiating seed germination or coppicing – shrub species like osier, willow, hazel, Rubus, and others have their lifespan extended and productivity increased through controlled cutting (burning) of branch stems.
  • Facilitating hunting by clearing underbrush and fallen limbs, allowing for more silent passage and stalking through the forest, as well as increasing visibility of game and clear avenues for projectiles.
  • Facilitating travel by reducing impassible brambles, underbrush and thickets.
  • Decreasing the risk of larger scale, catastrophic fires which consume decades of built-up fuel.
  • Increasing population of game animals by creating habitat in grasslands or increasing understory habitat of fire-adapted grass forage (in other words, wildcrafted pasturage) for deer, lagomorphs, bison, extinct grazing megafauna like mammoths, rhinoceros, camelids and others, the nearly extinct prairie chicken; and the populations of nut-consuming species like rodents, turkey and bear and notably the passenger pigeon through increased nut production (above); as well as the populations of their predators, i.e. mountain lions, lynx, bobcats, wolves, etc.
  • Increasing the frequency of regrowth of beneficial food and medicine plants, like clearing-adapted species like cherry, plum, and others.
  • Decreasing tick and biting insect populations by destroying overwintering instars and eggs.
  • Smoke density cools river temperatures and decreases evapotranspiration by plants, which increases river flow.
  • Rivers cooled by smoke density alert salmon that they may begin upstream migration.[18][16][19][25][26][27]

Impacts of European settlement

Main article: Population history of American indigenous peoples

By the time that European explorers first arrived in North America, millions of acres of "natural" landscapes were already manipulated and maintained for human use.[3][4][5] Fires indicated the presence of humans to many European explorers and settlers arriving on ship. In San Pedro Bay in 1542, chaparral fires provided that signal to Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, and later to others across all of what would be named California.[28]

In the American west, it is estimated that 184,737 hectares (465,495 aces) burned annually pre-settlement in what is now Oregon and Washington.[29]

By the 17th century, native populations were on the verge of collapse due to the genocidal structure of settler colonialism.[30][31] Many colonists often either deliberately set wildfires and/or allowed out of control fires to "run free." Also, sheep and cattle owners, as well as shepherds and cowboys, often set the alpine meadows and prairies on fire at the end of the grazing season to burn the dried grasses, reduce brush, and kill young trees, as well as encourage the growth of new grasses for the following summer and fall grazing season.[16] Changes in management regimes had subsequent changes in Native American diets, along with the introduction of alcohol has also had profound negative effects on indigenous communities. As Native people were forced off their traditional landbases or killed, traditional land management practices were abandoned and were eventually made illegal by settler governance.[32]

By the 19th century, many Indigenous nations had been forced to sign treaties with the federal government and relocate to reservations,[33] which were sometimes hundreds of miles away from their ancestral homelands.[16] In addition to violent and forced removal, fire suppression would become part of colonial methods of removal and genocide. As sociologist Kari Norgaard has shown, "Fire suppression was mandated by the very first session of the California Legislature in 1850 during the apex of genocide in the northern part of the state."[34] For example, the Karuk peoples of Northern California "burn [the forest] to enhance the quality of forest food species like elk, deer, acorns, mushrooms, and lilies, as well as basketry materials such as hazel and willow, but also keep travel routes open.”[27] When such relationships to their environment were made illegal through fire suppression, it would have dramatic consequences on their methods of relating to one another, their environment, their food sources, and their educational practices.[34][35][36] Thus, many scholars have argued that fire suppression can be seen as a form of "Colonial Ecological Violence," "which results in particular risks and harms experienced by Native peoples and communities."[37]

Through the turn of the 20th century, settlers continued to use fire to clear the land of brush and trees in order to make new farm land for crops and new pastures for grazing animals – the North American variation of slash and burn technology – while others deliberately burned to reduce the threat of major fires – the so‑called "light burning" technique. Light burning is also been called "Paiute forestry," a direct but derogatory reference to southwestern tribal burning habits.[38] The ecological impacts of settler fires were vastly different than those of their Native American predecessors, and further, Native fire practices were largely made illegal at the beginning of the 20th Century with the passage of the Weeks Act in 1911.[39]

Altered fire regimes

Removal of indigenous populations and their controlled burning practices have resulted in major ecological changes, including increased severity of wild fires, especially in combination with Climate change.[33] [40]Attitudes towards Native American-type burning have shifted in recent times, and Tribal agencies and organizations, now with fewer restrictions, have resumed their traditional use of fire practices in a modern context by reintroducing fire to fire-adapted ecosystems, on and adjacent to, tribal lands.[2][41][33] Many foresters and ecologists have also recognized the importance of Native fire practices. They are now learning from traditional fire practitioners and using controlled burns to reduce fuel accumulations, change species composition, and manage vegetation structure and density for healthier forests and rangelands.[33][42][43]

See also

Further reading

  • Blackburn, Thomas C. and Kat Anderson (eds.). 1993. Before the Wilderness: Environmental Management by Native Californians. Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press. Several chapters on Indian use of fire, one by Henry T. Lewis as well as his final “In Retrospect.”
  • Bonnicksen, Thomas M. 2000. America's Ancient Forests: From the Ice Age to the Age of Discovery. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Especially see chapter 7 “Fire Masters” pp. 143–216.
  • Boyd, Robert T. (ed.). 1999. Indians, Fire, and the Land in the Pacific Northwest. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, ISBN 978-0-87071-459-7. An excellent series of papers about Indian burning in the West.
  • Lewis, Henry T. 1982. A Time for Burning. Occasional Publication No. 17. Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta, Boreal Institute for Northern Studies. 62 pages.
  • Lutz, Harold J. 1959. Aboriginal Man and White Men as Historical Causes of Fires in the Boreal Forest, with Particular Reference to Alaska. Yale School of Forestry Bulletin No. 65. New Haven, CT: Yale University. 49 pages.
  • Pyne, Stephen J. 1982. Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 654 pages. See Chapter 2 “The Fire from Asia” pp. 66–122.
  • Russell, Emily W.B. 1983. "Indian‑Set Fires in the Forests of the Northeastern United States." Ecology, Vol. 64, #1 (Feb): 78–88.l
  • Stewart, Omer C. with Henry T. Lewis and of course M. Kat Anderson (eds.). 2002. Forgotten Fires: Native Americans and the Transient Wilderness. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. 364 pages.
  • Vale, Thomas R. (ed.). 2002. Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape. Washington, DC: Island Press. An interesting set of articles that generally depict landscape changes as natural events rather that Indian caused.
  • Whitney, Gordon G. 1994. From Coastal Wilderness to Fruited Plain: A History of Environmental Change in Temperate North America 1500 to the Present. New York: Cambridge University Press. See especially Chapter 5 “Preservers of the Ecological Balance Wheel”, pp. 98–120.

References

  1. ^ Stewart, O.C. (2002). Forgotten fires: Native Americans and the transient wilderness. Tulsa, OK: Univ. of Oklahoma Press. pp. 364. ISBN 978-0806140377.
  2. ^ a b Lake, F. K., Wright, V., Morgan, P., McFadzen, M., McWethy D., Stevens-Rumann, C. (2017). "Returning Fire to the Land: Celebrating Traditional Knowledge and Fire" (PDF). Journal of Forestry. 115 (5): 343–353. doi:10.5849/jof.2016-043R2.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ a b Arno & Allison-Bunnel, Stephen & Steven (2002). Flames in Our Forest. Island Press. p. 40. ISBN 1-55963-882-6.
  4. ^ a b Anderson & Moratto, M.K, and M.J. (1996). Native American land-use practices and ecological impacts. University of California, Davis: Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project: Final Report to Congress. pp. 187–206.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ a b Vale, Thomas (2002). Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape. United States: Island Press. pp. 1–40. ISBN 155963-889-3.
  6. ^ Pyne, S.J. (1995). World fire: The culture of fire on Earth. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
  7. ^ Hudson, M. (2011). Fire Management in the American West. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado.
  8. ^ a b Weir, John (2009). Conducting Prescribed Burns: a comprehensive manual. Texas: Texas A&M University Press College Station. pp. 1–12. ISBN 978-1-60344-134-6.
  9. ^ Brown, Hutch (2004). "Reports of American Indian Fire Use in the East". Fire Management Today. 64 (3): 17–23.
  10. ^ Barrett, S.W. (Summer 2004). "Altered Fire Intervals and Fire Cycles in the Northern Rockies". Fire Management Today. 64 (3): 25–29.
  11. ^ Agee, J.K. (1993). Fire ecology of the Pacific Northwest forests. Washington, DC: Island Press.
  12. ^ Brown, J.K. (2000). "Introduction and fire regimes". Wildland Fire in Ecosystems: Effects of Fire on Flora. 2: 1–7.
  13. ^ Keeley, Jon (Summer 2004). "American Indian Influence on Fire Regimes in California's Coastal Ranges". Fire Management Today. 64 (3): 15–22.
  14. ^ a b Denevan, William M. (1992). "The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492". Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 82 (3). Washington, DC: Association of American Geographers: 369–385. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8306.1992.tb01965.x. ISSN 0004-5608.
  15. ^ Shetler, Stanwyn G. (1991). "Faces of Eden". In Herman J. Viola and Carolyn Margolis (ed.). Seeds of Change: A Quincentennial Commemoration. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. pp. 226. ISBN 1-56098-036-2.
  16. ^ a b c d e Williams, Gerald W. "References on the American Indian Use of Fire in Ecosystems". USDA Forest Service. Retrieved 2008-08-24.
  17. ^ David L. Lentz, ed. (2000). Imperfect balance: landscape transformations in the Precolumbian Americas. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. xviii–xix. ISBN 0-231-11157-6.
  18. ^ a b Williams, Gerald W. (Summer 2000). "Introduction to Aboriginal Fire Use in North America" (PDF). Fire Management Today. 60 (3). USDA Forest Service: 8–12. Retrieved 2021-10-04.
  19. ^ a b Chapeskie, Andrew (1999). "Northern Homelands, Northern Frontier: Linking Culture and Economic Security in Contemporary Livelihoods in Boreal and Cold Temperate Forest Communities in Northern Canada". Forest Communities in the Third Millennium: Linking Research, Business, and Policy Toward a Sustainable Non-Timber Forest Product Sector. USDA Forest Service. pp. 31–44. Retrieved 2009-08-01.
  20. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-08-20. Retrieved 2008-05-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) “Discovery and awareness of anthropogenic amazonian dark earths (terra preta)”, by William M. Denevan, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and William I. Woods, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 20, 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  21. ^ “Classification of Amazonian Dark Earths and other Ancient Anthropic Soils” in “Amazonian Dark Earths: origin, properties, and management” [1] by J. Lehmann, N. Kaampf, W.I. Woods, W. Sombroek, D.C. Kern, T.J.F. Cunha et al., Chapter 5, 2003. (eds J. Lehmann, D. Kern, B. Glaser & W. Woods); cited in Lehmann et al.., 2003, pp. 77–102
  22. ^ "Carbon negative energy to reverse global warming".
  23. ^ Keeley, J. E.; Aplet, G.H.; Christensen, N.L.; Conard, S.C.; Johnson, E.A.; Omi, P.N.; Peterson, D.L.; Swetnam, T.W. Ecological foundations for fire management in North American forest and shrubland ecosystems. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-779. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. p. 33.
  24. ^ Barrett, Stephen W.; Thomas W. Swetnam; William L. Baker (2005). "Indian fire use: deflating the legend" (PDF). Fire Management Today. 65 (3). Washington, DC: Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture: 31–33. Retrieved 2009-08-08.
  25. ^ Krech III, Shepard (1999). The ecological Indian: myth and history (1 ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. pp. 101–122. ISBN 0-393-04755-5.
  26. ^ David, Aaron T.; Asarian, J. Eli; Lake, Frank K. (2018). "Wildfire Smoke Cools Summer River and Stream Water Temperatures". Water Resources Research. 54 (10): 7273–7290. Bibcode:2018WRR....54.7273D. doi:10.1029/2018WR022964. ISSN 1944-7973. S2CID 134898973.
  27. ^ a b Norgaard, Kari Marie (2019-09-13). Salmon and Acorns Feed Our People: Colonialism, Nature, and Social Action. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-8421-8.
  28. ^ Neil G. Sugihara; Jan W. Van Wagtendonk; Kevin E. Shaffer; Joann Fites-Kaufman; Andrea E. Thode, eds. (2006). "17". Fire in California's Ecosystems. University of California Press. pp. 417. ISBN 978-0-520-24605-8.
  29. ^ K., Agee, James (1993). Fire ecology of Pacific Northwest forests. Washington, DC: Island Press. ISBN 1559632291. OCLC 682118318.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  30. ^ Wolfe, Patrick (2006-12-01). "Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native". Journal of Genocide Research. 8 (4): 387–409. doi:10.1080/14623520601056240. ISSN 1462-3528. S2CID 143873621.
  31. ^ Ostler, Jeffrey (2019-05-28). Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-24526-4.
  32. ^ William., Cronon (2003). Changes in the land : Indians, colonists, and the ecology of New England. Demos, John (1st rev. ed., 20th-anniversary ed.). New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 978-0809016341. OCLC 51886348.
  33. ^ a b c d Williams, G.W. (Summer 2000). "Reintroducing Indian-type fire: Implications for land managers". Fire Management Today. 60 (3): 40–48.
  34. ^ a b Norgaard, Kari. "Colonization, Fire Suppression, and Indigenous Resurgence in the Face of Climate Change". YES! Magazine. Retrieved 2021-02-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  35. ^ Whyte, Kyle Powys (2013-10-01). "Justice forward: Tribes, climate adaptation and responsibility". Climatic Change. 120 (3): 517–530. Bibcode:2013ClCh..120..517W. doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0743-2. ISSN 1573-1480. S2CID 149453106.
  36. ^ Kimmerer, R. W.; Lake, F. K. (2001-11-01). "The Role of Indigenous Burning in Land Management". Journal of Forestry. 99 (11): 36–41. doi:10.1093/jof/99.11.36 (inactive 31 October 2021). ISSN 0022-1201.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of October 2021 (link)
  37. ^ Bacon, J. M. (2019-01-02). "Settler colonialism as eco-social structure and the production of colonial ecological violence". Environmental Sociology. 5 (1): 59–69. doi:10.1080/23251042.2018.1474725. S2CID 158076503.
  38. ^ Williams, G.W. (Summer 2004). "American Indian Fire Use in the Arid West". Fire Management Today. 64 (3): 10–14.
  39. ^ "Fire Works!". karuk climate change projects. 2019-06-24. Retrieved 2021-02-08.
  40. ^ Norgaard, Kari Marie; Worl, Sara. "What western states can learn from Native American wildfire management strategies". The Conversation. Retrieved 2021-02-08.
  41. ^ Norgaard, Kari; Reed, Ryan; Scott, Joe. "Climate Change, Fire, and Indigenous Science - YouTube". Museum of Natural History. University of Oregon Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 2021-02-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  42. ^ Vinyeta, Kirsten; Lynn, Kathy (2015). "Strengthening the Federal-Tribal Relationship: A Report on Monitoring Consultation under the Northwest Forest Plan" (PDF). U.S. Forest Service Report.
  43. ^ Vinyeta, Kirsten; Lynn, Kathy (2013). "Exploring the role of traditional ecological knowledge in climate change initiatives". Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-879. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 37 P. 879. doi:10.2737/PNW-GTR-879.

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