Climate Justice on Stolen Lands? Indigenous Cultural Burni

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Play, download and edit the free video Climate Justice on Stolen Lands? Indigenous Cultural Burning and (Re)claiming Traditional Land Stewardship Practices: M. Adams.

Lightning Talk as part of the Climate Justice Symposium for Transforming Education (chesc.org/cjste/). By Melinda Adams. Throughout California, Native American Tribes are actively managing the effects of climate change with innovative strategies and Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Prescribed burns are an example of applied TEK and can be viewed as “climate action”. In winter 2019, 2021 and 2021, the course “Keepers of the Flame” was offered through the UC Davis Plant Science Department and Department of Native American Studies. This course introduced students to the significance and long-term benefits of revitalizing cultural fire with the Patwin Peoples of California, whose traditional homelands the University of California, Davis occupies. Here, we offered hands-on learning experiences working with Indigenous cultural practitioners and engaged with Tribes in California to carry out cultural burns. The goals of this work were to: (1) understand and reclaim the reciprocal relationships and land stewardship ethics that Native Americans hold (climate justice) (2) absorb how cultural burns can slow fire frequency/intensity throughout California, and to a greater extent, reduce the effects of climate change. In a broader context, this work will assist in (re)building relationships with the Native American Tribes whose traditional homelands we currently reside. In the spirit of reconciliation, UC Davis must be at the forefront in moving beyond Indigenous Peoples land acknowledgement, toward actionable futurity.

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