Healing California Ecosystems with Indigenous ‘Good Fire’ Burning Practices
- Nature Conservation
- Wildlands
- Land Habitats
- Intact Wilderness
- Indigenous
- Sustainable Livelihoods
- Youth Leadership
- Community Action
- North Pacific
- Northern America Realm
| Bioregion | Greater California (NA31) |
| Category | Nature Conservation Our project categories represent one of three core solutions pathways to solving climate change. Energy Transition focuses on renewable energy access and energy efficiency. Nature Conservation includes wildlife habitat protection and ecosystem restoration, as well as Indigenous land rights. Regenerative Agriculture supports farmers, ranchers, and community agriculture. |
| Realm | Northern America The Project Marketplace is organized by the major terrestrial realms divided into 14 biogeographical regions – N. America, Subarctic America, C. America, S. America, Afrotropics, Indomalaya, Australasia, Oceania, Antarctica, and the Palearctic realm, which coincides with Eurasia and is divided into Subarctic, Western, Central, Eastern, and Southern regions. |
| Status | active Seed indicates an early stage project that needs some level of support to develop into a larger funding proposal. Active indicates any project that needs core programmatic funding. Urgent indicates a short-term project initiated in response to a natural disaster or other impending risk. |
| Partner | Tribal EcoRestoration Alliance (TERA) |
The One Earth’s Project Marketplace funds on-the-ground climate solutions that are key to solving the climate crisis through three pillars of collective action — renewable energy, nature conservation, and regenerative agriculture. This project rejuvenates ecosystems through Indigenous-led controlled fires.
Over 170 years after cultural burning was made illegal, good fire is returning to California.
In the 1850s, California's Indigenous peoples were systematically forced off their lands, and their traditional burning practices were outlawed. This devastated the state's ecosystems, which had evolved to depend on fire for renewal.
Recently, however, there has been a growing movement to revive cultural burning practices due to the recognition that good fire is essential for managing California's fire-prone landscapes and the increasing awareness of the importance of Indigenous knowledge and practices.
The Tribal EcoRestoration Alliance (TERA) is one of the organizations leading this movement. Support for this project will help support their Good Fire program.
Indigenous fire management practices are based on detailed local ecological knowledge and cultural traditions. Image credit: Courtesy of TERA.
Advancing Indigenous-led stewardship
The Tribal EcoRestoration Alliance (TERA) is a cross-cultural, multi-organizational collaborative that works to revitalize ecology, economy, and culture through Indigenous-led land stewardship. Based in Lake County in the ancestral territories of Eastern Pomo, Southeastern Pomo, Lake Miwok, and Wappo people, TERA employs an all-Native hand crew that implements various types of land restoration work centered in Traditional Ecological Knowledge and EcoCultural objectives.
Their work is seeded at the intersection of society’s current workforce gap to address California’s wildfire risks and the economic and social empowerment of Tribal communities. Throughout the year, they offer training programs primarily catered to the local Tribal community to build capacity for Tribal peoples to steward their ancestral homelands.
After graduating from their training programs, students are well-equipped to go onto employment with their Tribe, at local fire and land management agencies, or for private businesses.
Good Fires are often seasonally timed to minimize the impact on wildlife and ensure the land recovers more quickly. Image credit: Courtesy of TERA.
Restoring ecosystems and communities with ‘Good Fire’
Every year, TERA coordinates and implements the Lake County EcoCultural Prescribed Fire and Cultural Burning Training Exchange (TREX). TREX is a year-long training program that incorporates federally recognized wildfire training courses and EcoCultural and Traditional knowledge practices to bring 'Good Fire' back into the hands of Native peoples.
Cultural burning has been a practice implemented by Native peoples since time immemorial as a way of caring for the land, cultivating plants for food, shelter, and medicine, and maintaining traditional lifeways, stories, and practices.
With the arrival of European settlers, colonization, and fire suppression, as well as the genocide, displacement, and dispossession of land of Indigenous peoples, the use of fire as a way of maintaining forest health was lost. It was replaced by Westernized constructs of land as “wilderness” to be protected or a commodity to be extracted for resources like timber.
Indigenous-led Good Fire will mitigate the impacts of climate change and help prevent large wildland fires from destroying habitats and homes. Native people will be able to practice cultural sovereignty through traditional ceremonies that utilize Good Fire. — Lindsay Dailey, Executive Director, Tribal EcoRestoration Alliance.
The knowledge of when, where, and how to burn is passed down through generations, reflecting a deep connection to and understanding of the natural environment. Image credit: Courtesy of TERA.
A powerful tool for healing the land people
Now that Western scientific knowledge has come around to understanding what Native peoples always knew, fire is important to maintain the balance of our fire-adapted landscapes, TERA’s mission is to ensure that Good Fire is brought back into the hands of Native peoples.
The staff, the EcoCultural On Call Crew, and the partners willing to learn with them will restore Good Fire to balance Native peoples' collective relationship with the land and restore their sacred connection.
By embracing cultural burning practices and supporting Indigenous-led land stewardship, California can move towards a more just and sustainable future.