Written by Chas Jones, Frank Lake, Joe Hostler, Margo Robbins, Elizabeth Azzuz, Dawn Blake, Jonathan Long, Brenden Tweig, and Coral Avery
In late July 2021, our team stood upon the ancestral lands of the Yurok Tribe near Weitchpec, California, located in the vicinity of the confluence of the Klamath and Trinity Rivers. We stood amongst a magnificent grove of the most-inland redwood forest in Northern California. We were told that the Ancient trees, which include coast redwoods, incense cedars, Ponderosa pine, tanoak, Pacific madrone, sugar pine, white oak, black oak, and bay laurel, keep watch over us just as they have the Yurok, Karuk, and Hupa peoples since time immemorial. Douglas fir were also identified as being present historically, but not to the extent that the forests are currently managed for. We also found ourselves amongst a wide variety of culturally important understory species that include huckleberry, mushrooms, hazelnut, yerba buena, princess pine, and Indian potato, among others. Many culturally important animal species share the forests as well, including pileated woodpeckers, acorn woodpeckers, black bear, tanagers, cougars, elk, deer, quail, eagles, fishers, and more. Some of the less desirable species include poison oak, scotch broom, Douglas fir, and blackberry. Coral Avery (Bureau of Indian Affairs / Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center [NW CASC]) and Dr. Chas Jones (Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians / NW CASC) were invited by Dr. Frank Lake (U.S. Forest Service) and Joe Hostler (Yurok Tribe) to join them and Brendan Twig (Univ. of California Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension Services) on their site visits with cultural practitioners from the Cultural Fire Management Council, who included Margo Robbins and Elizabeth Azzuz.
In 2019, the NW CASC funded Frank and Joe’s project titled, ‘Designing forest treatments to promote resilient forest socio-ecosystems for tribal communities in Northern California’. The Yurok Tribe and the US Forest Service (USFS) are interested in forest landscape restoration to promote forests that are more resilient to wildfires, drought, pests and diseases. This project evaluates innovative forestry treatments (e.g., fuels reduction, tree harvesting, and intentional burning) informed by tribal traditional stewardship practices. In this project, tribal practitioners are sharing how their knowledge of forest conditions relates to standard forest-industry metrics. Engagement of traditional practitioners, Tribal staff, and government scientists help to integrate the concepts of holistic forest management and system resilience. This research builds upon the Yurok Tribe’s Climate Change Adaptation Plan, which emphasizes restoring forestlands for ecosystem health, species conservation, water quality improvements, carbon sequestration, and improved cultural resources. The project may also help identify opportunities for the USFS and Tribal governments to collaborate in upholding their land stewardship responsibilities.
In essence, the traditional practitioners from the Cultural Fire Management Council were offering their visions for what potential treatments they would prescribe to different forested areas that range from 20 to 80 acres. They applied their traditional cultural lens with an eye for promoting culturally important plants and animals and a holistic approach to ecosystem and forestry stewardship. Frank and Joe asked the practitioners what forest management approaches they would use to foster a positive relationship with the trees, other plants, animals, soils, their Tribe, their descendants, and their ancestors. The suggested approach differed at each site but included common themes. Their guidance included 1) applying a holistic perspective that includes an integrated, multi-purpose management approach (rather than for a single species or purpose); 2) decreasing the prevalence of Douglas fir (and other vegetation that has grown in since fire exclusion over a hundred years ago) in the forest because of their proclivity for using large quantity of groundwater (this would increase the amount of water available to other plants and as shallow groundwater flow into cold-water streams; 3) promoting culturally important species in the over and understory; and 4) providing spaces for community members to come together, share stories, and share knowledges among other activities.
Our team was in the field for just a couple of days. On the first day, Elizabeth Azzuz joined us as the traditional cultural practitioner from the Cultural Fire Management Council. Elizabeth grew up on the land and learned her specialized cultural knowledges and perspectives by cultivating and gathering foods, medicines, and other important gifts from the Yurok ancestral lands with her Yurok/Karuk family. She commented on the current conditions of the forests, “You have to realize that this is us neglecting nature.” The next day, Margo Robbins (also of the Cultural Fire Management Council) added, “We’re to the point where fire exclusion has made it so that hot burns are the only option… if you burned this forest and mountain, you might think that the trees will be gone forever, unless you are a cultural practitioner that knows better… People from this place are leading the burn effort for cultural purposes, which makes this a cultural burn… It’s an approach to managing forests for cultural purposes.”
Everyone that was with us in the field seemed enthusiastic about the NW CASC-funded project and that the project partners were collaborating to make it happen. Elizabeth expanded, “We need to start talking [together] to save this planet… There are so many things out here that we need to do, and we need everyone available to help us do it.”
These project collaborators all seemed to acknowledge the enormous challenge that the U.S. and Tribes face after more than a hundred years of excluding fire from our forests. Beyond the number of acres that would benefit from various treatments, there are many other existing barriers that include development of forest management plans, funding limitations, timing constraints on burn windows, timber and wood salvage requirements, and the available workforce. In some cases, there need to be more folks that have an inherent understanding of the holistic approaches of cultural burning. Margo pointed out that the return of cultural burning to the nation’s forests “will require multiple entries [application of repeatedly over time]; it is not a one-time treatment.” Elizabeth discussed how “sometimes you need to be completely unscientific to teach people what they need to learn”, and that the Yurok Tribe needs to continue promoting “community literacy through their living culture”.
