Winter 2020 Newsletter

November Fire Symposium Recap and Q&A Report Back 

On November 19th, 2020,  AMLT hosted our first ever “Fire Symposium'' online webinar. You can view the full webinar recording (with captions in English) here. With the catastrophic wildfires throughout California this past August, and AMLT’s increasing knowledge and work with cultural burning, this webinar discussion on building better relationships to fire came together at a pivotal time. 

The AMLT Fire Symposium brought together tribal leaders, fire researchers, archaeologists, and over 750 viewers. The aim of the webinar was to share traditional knowledge and results of research about how Native people used fire to steward landscapes locally and throughout California for thousands of years. We also discussed how the Amah Mutsun are working to revitalize prescribed burning as a land stewardship tool. The webinar’s presentation topics and panelists included:

• Eco-Archaeological Research on Indigenous Prescribed Burning Kent G. Lightfoot, Ph.D., Professor, Anthropology Dept., UC Berkeley Rob Q. Cuthrell, Ph.D., Director of Archaeological Resource Management, Amah Mutsun Land Trust

• Long-term Fire History and New Research in the Santa Cruz Mountains
  Scott Stephens, Ph.D., Professor, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Dept., UC Berkeley

• Indigenous Fire Stewardship in Central California
  Don Hankins, Ph.D., Professor, Geography & Planning Dept., CSU Chico 

• Amah Mutsun Land Trust’s Work to Revitalize Indigenous Fire Stewardship
  Sara French, Interim Executive Director, Amah Mutsun Land Trust

Due to the limited time of the webinar we were not able to take any questions, but as promised, we plan to answer a few of the repeat questions we received throughout the talk in our newsletters. 

One of the main questions that came up throughout the webinar was:

“What are the ways in which AMLT has collaborated with local Santa Cruz agencies to develop more cultural burning practices on the land, and what is still needed to support indigenous cultural burning locally?” 

AMLT strongly believes in the power of partnership. AMLT has memoranda of understanding, co-management agreements, and collaborative projects with many agencies and conservation organizations within the Santa Cruz Mountains, including the California Department of Parks and Recreation (State Parks), the Bureau of Land Management, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, Sempervirens Fund, Save the Redwoods League, CalFire, Pie Ranch, the Resource Conservation Districts, and more. AMLT has collaborated with all of these partners to promote Indigenous cultural burning and Indigenous perspectives in resource stewardship and research. 

For example, AMLT has been part of multi-year fuel reduction projects at San Vicente Redwoods, and within Año Nuevo State Park, and also participates regularly in the California State Parks Santa Cruz District’s prescribed burning program. In any given week, you can find the AMLT Native Stewards building and burning piles of hazardous vegetation to increase wildfire safety on public lands throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains. With a grant from the California State Coastal Conservancy and support from individual donors, AMLT is building organizational capacity to eventually lead broadcast burns to reduce wildfire hazards and promote natural and cultural resources within Mutsun and Awaswas territories. 

While there has been a great deal of support, there is always more work to be done to encourage more prescribed and cultural burns in Amah Mutsun territory and beyond. The most fundamental need comes down to shifting people’s overall relationship to fire within our culture at large. We shouldn't fear and avoid fire, rather we should encourage ways to put more good fire on the ground, to keep bad fire at bay. We see a need for more everyday people to cultivate a relationship with and understanding of fire in their lives, through efforts such as prescribed burn associations, fire safe councils, prescribed fire training exchanges, on-call hand crews, CalFire’s Vegetation Management Program, and spreading the word that good fire exists and the land needs it. We see a need for strengthening relationships between prescribed fire lighters and the agencies that regulate the use of fire, to build mutual understanding and capacity. 

 AMLT aims to be a leader of cultural burning in Mutsun and Awaswas territories. AMLT is also looking to deepen our relationships with other Tribes using fire, and form new partnerships with Tribes who are using or have an interest in cultural burns. To help this vision come to fruition, we need your support. You can help by making a direct donation to AMLT, by purchasing this brand new AMLT cultural burning sticker, and by spreading the word about this work and vision of AMLT to lawmakers, agencies, and private landowners that could be potential collaborators.