Decolonizing Forestry & Unlearning Fire Suppression

By Nicoletta Dinelli & Echo Hertzberg

Listen to the podcast HERE!

In this episode, Nico & Echo explore the concept of decolonial forestry through the indigenous practices of controlled, or prescribed burns. How has colonization affected the management of forests, and how has that changed the forests and the way that they burn? Special guest Elizabeth Azzuz joins this episode to chat about the importance of prescribed burns and unlearning fire suppression. Azzuz is a Yurok Tribal Member and secretary of the Cultural Fire Management Council (CFMC), performing prescribed burns and training others on how to safely do the same.

To stay up to date with the Cultural Fire Management Council, check out their website, their Facebook, and their Instagram.

References that informed this podcast:

• To Manage Wildfire, California Looks To What Tribes Have Known All Along
• What California Stands To Learn From Indigenous Fire Management Practices

• ‘Fire is medicine’: the tribes burning California forests to save them
• Cultural Fire Management Council 
• Indigenous People’s Burning Network – started by Yurok, Karuk, and Hoopa Tribes 
• Mid Klamath Watershed Council – Fires and Fuels 
• Native approaches to fire management could revitalize communities, Stanford researchers find
• Native land management could save us from wildfires, experts say | Street Roots
• Our land was taken. But we still hold the knowledge of how to stop mega-fires | Wildfires | The Guardian

• The Karuk Tribe fights a growing wildfire threat and a lack of funding 
• Karuk Climate Change Action Plan 
• Sacred Fires (Pikyav)and Food Systems with Ron Reed 
• The Karuk’s relationship with fire: Adapting to climate change on the Klamath