Integrating Tribal and Western Knowledge for Fire Management

[00:00:05]hi everybody welcome to the webinar I'm Vita Wright of the Northern Rockies fire science Network our network works to increase awareness and understanding of science for fire and fuels management on behalf of our team and partners welcome today's webinar returning fire to the land celebrating traditional knowledge and fire with Frank Lake search ecologist with the duals program at the Pacific Southwest Research Station his current research involves wildland fire effects traditional ecological knowledge climate change and ethanol ecology with an emphasis on cultural management and fire ecology of forest shrub grassland and riparian environments in the Klamath Siskiyou bio region welcome Frank I'll turn it over to you ok good morning everybody and the diversity of people calling in so welcome everybody from our Canadian and first stations friends and guests and you know there's some people from Australia and the rest of you from across the United States and different tribal communities and tribes so I'm gonna go ahead and get started here I wanted to thank Megan evita for helping me organize this and then also just real quickly the co-authors on this paper that we're featuring today in the work of a lot of my other partners that I'll be featuring so today's presentation for topics and our objectives really here to look at what are the findings in the discussion and a lot of the things that came out of two main workshops that we had also from the literature and then bringing in the findings from across the nation for integrating trishal knowledge into fuels and wildland fire management and resource projects I'll talk briefly about traditional knowledge and different types of personal knowledge --is frequent additional fire knowledge what were some of the main topic identified and working with tribes and First Nations and then what are the applications of that knowledge and indigenous knowledge today and then what I have sprinkles through the through the presentation are some regional examples that feature some but not all the work being done by tribes particularly here in the United States around different fields reduction prescribed fire and managing wildfires and then also prickly highlighting an example is that link that personal burning and modern context to achieve different resource objectives so there has been recognition in a growing interest for the incorporation of personal ecological knowledge or indigenous knowledge our traditional fire knowledge into research and management and so that's an feature here by the joint fire science but really we're trying to look at and learn and highlight and really share a broad diversity of work that's happening both regionally nationally and internationally so how does traditional knowledge differ from say ecological knowledge well really that the two are differentiated and being that the personal knowledge is I guess is broader or more inclusive of tribal tribal beliefs philosophies and practices that integrate both the metaphysical and biophysical ways of knowing on the landscape and across different ecosystems it is cumulative collective knowledge and understanding derived from individuals and communities about ecological processes natural resources and your socio-cultural adaptive responses to the environment and you can see some of these definitions by other like the work of burkas and also this paper by Mason and in the context for me just as I tribal dis in it in my tribal community here in Northwest California it's like learning things as you see here on the right from my grandfather during subsistence activities but then also working at tribes this is a build trip here of the croute tribe and my son leland when we connected the scribe burn its archers all knowledge that comes in and generationally about the context of our responsibility and fire use and so for me it's really being able to pass that on to share that between the relationship of elders to youth and a billion upon the work here of Mary Huffman personal fire knowledge is really as fire related knowledge beliefs and practices that have been developed and applied on specific landscapes for specific purposes by longtime inhabitants and her paper and synthesis really looks at 69 distinctive elements of that and you know and the kind of relations are the pictures that we see over here it really varies by tribe and tribal community or even indigenous community it might be everything from ceremonial fires or food processing fires to some communities really having a strong an aversion to fire use there and how we learned that and put that in the context of what our trishal fire knowledge being taught today and some of those challenges around that there's these factors of fire that are important and really looking at some of these elements is that it spans a very broad part of the environment also the the socio-cultural aspects of how indigenous people live with fire and work with fire in their environment it could be everything from the geology topography and soil looking at culturally important vegetation or the fuel types strictly indicators and ways of evaluating the weather and broader effects of climate on those systems thinking about fire behavior and fire operations and you really also put given they're all kind of a local level or particular perspective on what are the beneficial or negative fire effects how those are evaluated also looking at fire governance and that might be everything from the First Nations or Aboriginal community and in tribal communities kind of a governmental structure all the way down to governance at the family and traditional roles that individual fire use is taking place in an array of other social factors whether it be local community values versus out of the broader society or the public and my pictures here just kind of show this and might work with Kreuk indigenous basket Weaver's just how that kind of plays itself out and learning that at the local level and putting it in the context of other things happening nationally internationally I want to kind of kick this off and this talk a little bit about trishul knowledge and fire philosophies and how that kind of relates to operational projects so Tercel knowledge of fire used by many First Nations and indigenous people option people is considered a spiritual obligation for resource stewardship practices there's also this broader understanding for many indigenous communities that fire is medicine for both people in the land and I think in particularly as we see altered systems and fire regimes that when you think about prescribed fire not enough fire the land and people can be sick and if you have too much fire as far as catastrophic higher severity extensive fires go there might be bad as that might be bad are non desired as well and really under underlying theme and a lot of my work of tribes and other indigenous people is that fires connected to water at all scales and that water is sacred and it's one of the highest values to consider and so for me again kind of a social context here is looking about the ceremonial practices and the things I'm involved with and then how those relate to our traditional burning today in a modern context to achieve multiple resource objectives and so that could be the maintenance of personal knowledge and fire effects down to looking at the wildland urban interface and Road access around the community supporting food research and then also the church nor subsistence gathering opportunities so there's many documented reasons for why American Indians had fire use our burns this is just a short list and I'm gonna be going into all these but I'll be touching on elements of these throughout examples in the presentation there is hunting crop management pest management range certainly for the forage quality of many of the large game that were hunted are used fireproofing areas thinking about the wildlife habitat clearing areas for travel was an important one particularly as it took the travel networks from communities to resource areas and clearing that and using fire along those clearing riparian areas and long stream sides and wetlands there's another important element of fire use vascular material and fibers fuel with for both heating and cooking and then many others that were acknowledged with in the literature and brought up during the workshops so when we think about a historical context I often like to talk about and many of the other researchers have think about natural versus cultural fire regimes and so many tribal fire use objectives connected knowledge systems cultural practices their willingness to the local economy security and the quality of life or their livelihoods and many examples in the literature may talk about natural fire regimes and identify their store achill tribal burning practices as a component that the fewer acknowledges significance of the actual cultural fire regime or that the methods and the extent in which there's aboriginal or native burning was used as part of the landscape scale influence some of this is at least in the United States is kind of at a broad scale depicted as part of the landfire by regime condition class and so really there's changes in climate and fire regimes that affect tribal cultures but also through tribal war histories and multiple scientific sources they describe the effects of colonization and fire exclusion on North America and also those tribal cultures you'll hear me talk about fire dependent cultures and that's an important element that links the fire regimes but there's an array of different reasons from disease and removal and disruption to both the cultural practices and the land manager practices that linked fire and culture together and there's still some of those issues that are the legacy of colonization today that was important when working with aboriginal or indigenous our first station our tribal communities to consider that as part of the change in fire regime and changing culture so what are some of the reasons why researchers and land managers may want to work with tribal governments and communities to document historical landscape changes that resulted from fire suppression or the removal of those indigenous land use practices and occupancy and we can think about those and and I just kind of pose that as a kind of a opening question as we go through the rest of this talk so we can think about understanding their role fire has and maintaining healthy ecosystems and for tribal communities and so there's opportunities here for relearning attritional fire knowledge and those cultural burning practices thinking about the ways that we collectively evaluate the landscape to local level resource fire effects learning the fire effects from reintroducing fire to culturally valued habitats and the responses of resources whether it's species or sites in those areas of importance and thinking about integrating fire associated resources back into family activities and cultural practices and you know I guess by two examples here thinking about the work of the indigenous peoples burning Network on restoring tribal or family based burning and in thinking about the other efforts here like the Confederated Tribes of the Salish and Kootenai and thinking about their their their stories and bringing fire back on the land project or a fire on the land projects they have and documenting their tribal histories and importance of today the way that I have within my research and also this has been influenced a lot by working with tribes and my colleagues what are the tribal a valued resources and habitats and putting is kind of within a resource perspective for both resources and habitats but under a cultural ecosystem services framework and not to go into this too much but really for the resources think about the tangible and intangible elements of the environment and that really there's a component there that are the landscapes are these areas that are of significant sites it also could be the objects or even a state of mind for the traditional people that are using that those place and those habitat and resources thinking about natural and cultural resources that are needed to perpetuate those tribal customs practices and knowledge systems and then breaking that down into the peculiar habitats what are the characteristics of those and really what are the resources that support those habitats to support not only single but multiple resources and if you look at the picture here on the right for at least here in Northwest California I'm showing kind of the fire effects here on this Douglas fir but also how those fire effects affect the mushrooms or the mycorrhizal relationship that ties that huckleberries that ties back to the oaks and so there's all kinds of foods and materials as far as the resources that are there that make up that as a culturally significant fire affected habitat so jumping into the workshops now kind of that overview we have the methods and we're understanding the challenges to the use of personal knowledge with fire management research so there was two workshops were convened the first one was in Paulson Montana organized with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes forestry department and that was really fallen upon the recommendations by the Mason a tall paper bringing keepers of Tercel knowledge together with representatives of management entities practitioners and academic and research institutions and as part of that workshop there was Salish Kootenai we had field trips and breakout sessions and as part of that we focus really on these key topics which will be kind of an underlying theme of this presentation cross jurisdictional management fuels reduction strategies wildfire management and then research building upon that first workshop we convened the second workshop at the large wildland fires conference in Missoula Montana in 2014 and really putting this together between the the co-leaders we organize discussion topics and questions around the first workshop themes and we built that and focus that around communication understanding and trust and we'll get into this a lot more because I think that's at the core the foundation of the the broader level of things that got down to some of the specifics looking at our fuels reduction in prescribed fire and in a wildland fire and so I here's some pictures here of me basically guiding that along and then also talking about these key elements in this table that we have towards the later part of this presentation so here's some of the findings and discussion cross-jurisdictional work and cultural resources came up as pretty strong important topics and so across jurisdictional work its fuels reduction in wildland fire planning implementation across multiple land ownerships and also being that in a way that's closely sensitive that achieves both cultural and ecological objectives cultural resources are legally protected by treaties laws executive orders and other regulations particular here in the United States and resources they're really culturally important to tribes including the living resources and this is one of the things that came up just besides things like shown here in the pictures as artifacts or a historical cabin but thinking about the living cultural resources like habitats plants animals and even mushrooms or fungi and in their workshop participants recommended involving tribes in the development of collaborative management plans such as participatory geographic information system planning and then in the United States we use here the wildland fire decision support system for identification of the culturally sensitive values at risk some examples of cross jurisdictional fire management in western Oregon I have a little slide here of some of the work that's being done here between the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ron and a Nature Conservancy and the prescribed fire Council here they really have their objectives to restore diverse habitats for multiple cultural uses and plant species reduce invasive species reduce hazardous fuels and I'm really to demonstrate to the public that is that these cooperation across multiple jurisdictions is an important it can be conducted an example from the Southwest tribes and partners working to burn together a variety of tribes here in federal agencies and local fire management departments are working together and you know one of their main objectives here is to reduce hazardous fuels for fire suppression and improve the wildlife habitat so that's another example there in the southwest us and in moving from this cross-sectional examples into this decision support system is talking about which is how do we think about the protect and the mitigation of impacts of coastal resources interest tribal values an example here that I often working with the Forest Service and the local tribes is using tribal representatives or heritage consultants who will assist the resource advisors or lead resource advisor with identification and locating natural cultural resources as values at risk particularly in the long term planning of where the fire is expected to go under two different burning conditions linking those to identifying what objectives and management actions are mitigation measures are part of the incident action plan and then with that think about your development of your protection and mitigation strategies plan for both the long short-term tactical responses to just to achieve your desired fire effects and so by working with the tribes and using heritage consultants really you can look at focusing on point protection or areas that you need to consider for your operational planning and actions but also managing the wildfire to achieve a variety of resources ejected under additional parts for findings and discussion fuels reduction strategies was an important one that was brought up during the workshops although these often focus around the wildland urban interface or the woolie many hazardous fuels reduction strategies or projects may also not recognize that fire has a role in promoting broader culturally important plants habitats and tribal torsions across the landscape in that hazardous flows direction could be conducted and those trees can be conducted in a way that both meet ecological and cultural objectives and that these strategies can promote cultural resources will also reducing the undesirable impacts of large since wildfires and so in thinking about the panel of examples here we have a broader landscape of the community we have some fuels reduction along major roads and educating but particularly at least of my work with tribes there's concern about mastication using masticators or doing massification as a fils reduction strategy because it often can be indiscriminate on what's taken down as a fuels and if those fuels are important foods or medicines or a culturally significant shrub or tree then incorporating that tribal knowledge and values could improve the effectiveness so that feels treatment because it's gonna what's going to be retained in other cases you have food reduction strategies that might be more on this contractor grid where you have a non-local contractor who comes in and does things by standard spacing and just every season every tree as kind of a fuel rather than the other culturally cuz some services that it might provide so just to think about that when you're doing fields rection planning how you can incorporate tribal knowledge and values into those operations and methods in alaska and thinking about kind of a regional example there having changes in fire regimes up there and a lot of the hazardous fillers russian work is around the the villages that were in interphase we're thinking about community-based natural resource management there and generally suppression is kind of more of the desired action to protect subsistence uses but there's also changes in that culture and community with the dirt with a difference of cultures across the alaska for their cultural adaptation to changing fire regimes and thinking about the effects it is that habitats and resources and so in some cases you might have strategies that need to look at all that and thinking about wildland fire management especially the planned ignitions prescribed fires are a great opportunity to think about Tercel life ways increased landscape resilience and heterogeneity many tribes identified burning for cultural purposes but this is often restricted because of land tenure competing internal and external societal values and capacity and so prescribed fires that can be designed to maintain culturally important species habitats and places tribal solutions and other resource objectives was one of those things that came out during the workshops in the literature but also identify obstacles or identified obstacles of prescribed fire to meet cultural and land management goals and so some of those were the lack of funding other than just kind of directly fuels management but also administrative and jurisdictional challenges across landscapes with mixed land management so in some cases you might have a working forest or commercial timber lands just opposite of are just adjacent to the one jurisdiction and you have to think about well if we want to burn across this landscape where are some of those competing interests on there and in my examples here just to help me frame this was started off working with the local fire safe Council and basket weavers but now I see more and more at least here in Northern California with the six other national forests and creek tribe cross-jurisdictional burning to meet different local and tribal objectives some examples here in the northwest is the future the Quinault Indian nation and Nature Conservancy and their partners their objectives are to enhance personal food species promote basket material restore what lunar Prairie for for wildlife and cultural resources and some of the work out there that you're doing there in the Midwest tribes burning Prairie woodlands and more feature in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Winnebago agency in other Sioux tribes of Nebraska some of their objectives are restoration and maintenance the feeling of force rangelands reduction hazardous fuels around the while in term interface as well as cultural sites and then you can basically see here that there's a picture here of the Osage Nation working around some of their ceremonial sites but also reducing those hazardous fields with sky burning in the southeast they're a different fire regime and climate have an opportunity to burn almost all year long applying fire every three to five years removes invasive plants and disease and allows fires to burn with less intensity and there's a series of objectives there for them around quotient important plants for wildlife forage looking at the quantity and quality and access of important medicine plants for their spiritual practices practitioners and removing vegetation that poses risk of tribal infrastructure homes and safety and constructing party slides I want to recognize Robin Broyles from BIA communications an education specialist for sharing her information and the featuring the law that worked at the Peruvian affair dozen tribes continuing on the southeastern US integrating fuels management they're taking about Range and wetland habitat improvement another strong one there is basketry in wildlife particularly riparian systems in the region hazardous fuels around the wild interface and so this is an example of cost restriction we'll work with the National Park Service Muskogee tribe in Florida and Seminole tribes down there in the southeastern United States in the Great Lakes region again tribes they're having altered forests and fire regimes but looking for opportunities with partners and so Chippewa and Ojibwe tribes work in a prescribed fire councils they're having some of their objectives focused on hazardous fuels reduction maintaining wildlife habitat firstly moose browse site prep and thinking about restoration of both plants and wildlife species controlling insects and diseases here another emphasis on traditional foods linked to cultural Burney and fire regimes and then also broader goals and objectives linking the cultural landscape scenic values so kind of moving off from those little regional examples here you know we would think about wildfire management and as an unplanned ignition and identified key topics for that we're really fires managed to meet objectives on tribal lands or across jurisdictions communication planning education and then funding to support wildland fire management and some of those overarching themes for that we're again lack of communication or miscommunication between managers and local communities between agencies and between agencies and tribes and I think one part here is to try to get out of a little bit when we're talking to tribal communities our tribal partners as well as the other community members is looking at the kind of jargon we use in both fire science and fire management and kind of using our more plain and clear and more personable forms of communication and how that facilitates trust and being able to understand each other and part of that was the develop strategies and approaches that improve communication between the incident managers or Tribute incident management teams the agency decision-makers and tribes there's also the identification of efforts are needed to improve our mitigate adverse impacts the cultural resources such as sacred sites or other highly significant cultural areas where fire suppression tactics may have undesirable impacts and a part of that and my work as a resource advisor here in Northern California is a lot of times tribes will say this allow wildfire to burn through these areas or assigning local tribal staff such as as heritage consultants to work on point protection or mitigation as part of those treatments and that should be considered an example here from the Interior Pacific Northwest and Columbia Basin we're kind of an alignment of both timber resources with cultural resources featuring some of the tribes there they fight they face increasing in larger wildfires and threats that our communities predator force rangelands and different resources across the landscape and so these tribes collectively have looked at the effects of suppression on fires that threaten life and property and those resources managing wildfire to reduce impacts or enhanced fire dependent resources that also includes timber and cultural resources together and thinking about how fires burning through these jurisdictions range management or rangeland management for grazing and non forest resources and a particular one there as the many First Nations or other tribal communities the protection of water resources and and fisheries and the Rocky Mountain region often they're looking at managing wildfire is it suppression or fire use and the opportunities that you have depending on large long duration wildfires in this example here with the Salish Kootenai tribes on the flat in your reservation is looking at integrating also multiple seasons of prescribed fire and managing wildfire having those objectives to again focus around the Wilander interface around communities protect and enhance both commercial forest products and to improve wildlife habitat while not impacting those cultural resources and also maintaining vegetation diversity particularly to those tribal important foods and medicines another example here our case study area look into Rocky Mountain region United States for the southern you described burning objectives for them or cultural and personal values providing employment and training opportunities if I don't mention this I think it's a important element is a lot of tribes are wanting to have workforce training and recruit and retain as part of their workforce their tribal members and community members another element of that was looking at fiscal accountability and responsibility for the management of wildfires and the cost that goes into that the linking that also to force restoration for timber for wildlife habitat and then some of the other tribes they're featured in an area for their objectives like with the crow fire safe firefighter and public safety again focusing on reducing fields around the wildland interface thinking about control Shubb growth and forage range improvement again another thing on noxious weeds and thinking about the reduction in those and then trying to manage wildfire for resource objectives and then the last ones certain reservations of certain jurisdictions based on their capacity and the resources they have the manage fire is in some cases a recipe suppress fire and control that as far as unplanned ignitions on reservations it imagines wildfire for those resource objectives were and when possible in the southwest working to burn for many resources and for culture they're featuring this work here at a San Carlos Apache and your co-operators identified some of their objectives and values as restoring to maintaining resilient landscapes increased community and firefighter safety enhanced fire management opportunities particularly looking at the sequence of recent fires and burning into that that former fire footprint and using their landscape fuels treatments to link into that as well and having a greater potential to reduce suppression costs and minimizing fire size and also generally minimizing the negative effects of fire on those valued resources touch here a little bit about the research and so out of the findings and discussion part we talked about the management but also the research is an important element and especially when we look at trishul knowledge RTK our Western knowledge as far as the Western knowledge system in that some of the issues around sharing personal knowledge in Western knowledge communication challenges between researchers and the tribes including the sharing of personal knowledge from tribal elders and with managers and researchers how comfortable they feel about that and having that good rapport and working relationship there's a need for having best practices for investigating and sharing personal knowledge are needed many tribes have cultural committees or resource advisory boards that have research protocols and so being aware of that and then this last one is that not so much on the researchers that's a negative point but just that research inquisitiveness can harm relationships if researchers inadvertently offend tribal members with their questions and assumptions and so sometimes there's kind of a cultural cultural training that needs to get there when you're working within the indigenous First Nations or Aboriginal community is to be like you know what are some of the protocols and the processes and that could be an elder dynamics gender dynamics but in a site example there have actually had researchers say after tribal elders have shared your perspective on spiritual beliefs or something that was important to them and how the researchers say and you really believe that and you know those kinds of things that can deteriorate working with a ship right off the bat so I just encourage researchers to be open and try to approach the respectful work to release but the best way they can and so you know defining that is important in a research the other element here is thinking about tribal questions are discussed that are relevant we'll also respectful and sensitive that trishul knowledge in tribal cultures and researchers are aware of tribal intellectual property rights data sharing and ownership agreements for the use of trishal knowledge and there's more and more I guess of a interest and tribes developing this so they actually know it's another project you know who has the rights for everything from images of the photos down to the data and having that all worked out and the framework we'll talk about that a little bit later some findings and discussions trust and understanding also leads to effective management research relationships built on common understanding and trust among those partners involved manners of the research need to be able to understand both broad versus specific tribal fire related issues and values and also thinking about the prescriptions and treatments that reflect with local and general public values for projects and for those programs and research partnerships that incorporate tribal knowledge and values can really help support and foster the development of the best available science to guide management and for the formation and meaningful policy that serves not only the tribal community but the public some of the implications or recommendations that came out of the workshops in the literature review and were brought up by that workshop participants kind of led me to wanting to work with my co-authors on developing this framework and might get into this now for a few slides but really the to provide the framework for improving fire management research based on traditional Western knowledge systems including these 10 key elements which I'll go into further and then really the objective of this framework we're hoping was to strengthen communication for developing trust and those partnerships among managers scientists and for tribal members so the first two elements here the kind of structure this way is the first one being element 1 is sources of personal knowledge and not going to go all into these but just as a point of reference so you to go back and if you want to look at the paper or the webinar later is framed that are basically a column of management and a column of research that pertains to each of the elements on the left so for sources of personal knowledge and the management michel publications and presentations for research is conducting a literature review on the tribal outreach element you know request the tribal government cultural committee or members for the corporation or tribal knowledge contact those tribes do the outreach you know learn of what their short and long term project objectives are on the research side contact tribes and or tribal organizations really for what are the researchable questions and an interest and what is the science support needs they have often researchers come into a tribal or indigenous community say this is what I want to research you know but I think it's important that researchers be open-minded broadly for their research topic of interests around fuels and fire management or use of indigenous knowledge but go to those tribal communities or First Nations or Aboriginal communities and say what are you researching Balcon and what are your science support needs you come in there and more as a support service rather than a more attractive initial contact under these other parts for the third and fourth element the third one would be tribal consultation at least here in the United States there's this mandates for government the government for federal agencies the federally recognized tribes and so consult with those tribes whether it be under the management of both a project that might have the National Environmental Policy Act requirements or an emergency consultation as far as wildfire on a research side request input from tribal councils departments and committees to develop your preliminary research questions and methods and how you're going to go about for that science important research needs and building that and then that goes on to building trust which was tribal identification transfer an authorization of trishal knowledge use on a management side thinking about these management agreements identify tribal representatives and those heritage advisors to support that and then on the research side thinking about the institutional review board or other federal agency or state agency requirements and then tribal approval process that goes along with that element five learning and active learning and for trishul knowledge and and Western knowledge thinking about cross cultural appreciation for use of knowledge both in management actions and research methods on the management one here workforce education is really important to think about the effects on heritage and cultural resources and that the social knowledge can inform your environmental analysis or this with this the wildland fire decision support system planning during wildfires on the research side really thinking about researcher and student education on personal knowledge fire use and fire effects do their academic courses this is a tribes having good academic relationships with professors and teaching that in the curriculum is important also hosting workshops such as the ones we did and fostering field trips and that on learning on the ground an important one for me is having a tribal resource mentor who I'm really kind of took me under her wing and showed me a lot of what I needed to as a researcher in my tribal community tribal oversight this six element is an important one and thinking about coordination the tribes on the planning implementation of projects on the management side having tribes review those proposed management treatments and those incent objectives and identifying missing values or issues and then on the research side tribes basically approving that research method thinking about the metrics that you're going to use the analysis Etta's plan and identify specific values they're addressing issues of concern early on in that project another part of these elements was active listening and sharing you know a lot of I see increasing awareness of working at tribal partners particularly government the government so having tribal participation or community members on maybe even interdisciplinary teams or working as a tribal liaison and working with those in command teams on the research side there's a lot of emphasis from tribes that I have worked with on including tribal members and youth as research assistants helping them collect data of tribal members and then if you need to conduct interviews or other things that are needed to help shape and develop that research further and on this other la element applying these knowledge together really trial participation in those stewardship our research activities going to helping understand what's going to go on with the treatment the fire operations and mitigation on the management side and then really here on the research side thinking about all trishul knowledge collaborating the experimental methods your study site selection the types of treatments what are your indicators or how you're going to evaluate a changing condition or the effects of a treatment for your research and then what are the variables of research interests that how those are developed you start with the scientist wants but what also those are important to try our tribal community and in this last part on the element nine tribal review is important typically on the management to look at project implementation or the fire management maybe modify or have efforts to support adaptive management to improve the treatment effectiveness on the research side the one thing that I would say here is important is that as a researcher one that we finally conducted the research and we have the analysis done we've developed our results and our findings is before that goes out to a journal for peer review is having a chance for the cultural committee or the resource advisory board of the tribe or your tribal park our review that and for me as a research scientist at PSW when that goes to my technical and policy review before I submitted to a journal that's when I often give the tribe a chance to look at that one more time before it's sent to the journal and then the last part on reporting I think we really need to share and celebrate our accomplishments and what we learned from that cooperative working arrangement and that an impart can be you know on the management side how were things there as far as athos fire after-action review what were some of our lessons learned and then again on the research side really helping create together as a partnership the best available science that's presented in our publications and our presentations the co-authorship and the acknowledgement of that truthful knowledge and that investment from that tribal community into that work and thinking about implications recommendations as how truthful knowledge informs effective fire management switching from the table there a little bit it can inform managers researchers in the public about how violent fire effects the tangible and intangible values associated with natural cultural resources everybody talked about that a bit both how that both knowledge is can enhance understanding the fire effects and associated cultural practices for fire influence landscapes for different ecosystems habitats and a range of fungi plant and animal species and I think really here on this one is that if you're working with one tribe or indigenous community in one area or region it may be similar but also could be very different when you go to a different region or work with a different tribe or a different indigenous community and so this thinking that you learn from one place may be transferable but also may have certain limitations as you go to another indigenous community or region the way that I've helped kind of frame this as a researcher actually working a Kevin Ryan and through this idea of the thrower fire effects but you have basically a direct and then you have your indirect impacts to the fire environment and your first sort of fire effects but then this idea here that there's those impacts and so you might have living cultural resource and this example here in a photo of a conifer or sugar pine tree here that was identified as a hazard tree on the line but the tribal people say in there hey there's a special rich system there and you might find cultural features like this artifact of a river rock near there and so when we think about fire impacts this is not the suppression activities or the fire effects but it's all that natality that has both those indirect and direct and so we think about that both as a tangible and intangible effect on that particular system in place moving forward here again a lot of it was again consultation coordination and communication promotes good strong effective collaboration and so building relationships and Trust require fire management challenges across jurisdictional boundaries so thinking about cross jurisdictions particularly with an ancestor or Aboriginal territory of your first stations our tribal or Aboriginal group consultation policies and directives for at least here in United States for American Indian tribes support coordination and communication that helped build that trust gain respect and foster that collaboration plus also the willingness of what you can both bring to that initiating communication across cultural and jurisdictional boundaries improves the formation and use of personal knowledge and Western knowledge for effective fire management and research and then really making sure that your collaborate collaboration or your collaborative goals are clear and that member of roles and responsibilities and how they contribute to that and what's the decision-making authority and so that was another part there as you know do we all understand what we're bringing to that and what we're going to do together and ultimately at least here in the United States when there's many different collaborative is it the agency that's going to be the final decision-making authority like the line officer or is it a code management project in which there's a equal authority power there about the actions and the implications of that work made between say the lead agency and and a tribe so just to think about the different structure and now that across jurisdictions is going to play out some of our key findings can kind of wrapping things up here a little bit more on our conclusions some of the key findings that emerge during the workshops that were rated in the literature and were brought out by session participants is communication is critical to effective communication across tribal and non-tribal management research entities communicate about social knowledge should be done in a culturally sensitive and respectful way to honor the traditions cultures and the sensitivities of types of knowledge that are shared I'm often told within my tribal community that trishal knowledge is a responsibility and even though I may gain that knowledge as a researcher I still have a responsibility and how I conduct myself for the sharing of that knowledge or the promotion of the cultural management systems that perpetuate that knowledge and so just as researchers like example here are my projects getting scientists out on the ground with the managers and with the tribal leaders and the practitioners is important there and thinking about that as being one the best ways of communication and also thinking about what we need to disclose or not for what we learn out in the field and part of that is also that trust and a sensitivity around the topics are places that you visit as persective research and management sites in addition to identifying culturally sensitive resources and values trishal knowledge can inform and guide fuels and fire management to perpetuate those living and non-living resources that are culturally important collaboration will be most effective if time is spent to build those relationships gain treasure share knowledge and recognize the different perspectives on the outcomes and implications of fire and resource management and I am thankful to some of my tribal partners at the crew can Yurok tribe or often just because you've learned this in a cultural setting Frank doesn't mean that you necessarily have the right to share all that but also helping me understand you know what are the implications of if I publish this or share this as a way of a learning tool what's the sensitivity or the vulnerability that might reflect on the tribes or the people I'm working with so I that in the back of my mind I share that with you some of the other findings there were to gain support for using fire as a tool for multiple objectives and for community awareness the perspective are just the silo understanding of fire and then what are the traditional ecological roles of fire was including the closely important ecosystem services and they're going to bring that back around because often we think about because some services but as a build trip a colleague of mine is khrushchev says it's human services to the ecosystem in that traditional stir ship responsibility that's important to keep in mind for a resource objective and fire management today there's really a need to identify and highlight examples of successful across jurisdiction collaboration for research and management being conducted at tribes and for me at least my work both as a practitioner and as a researcher is with the Nature Conservancy's tracks training exchange and indigenous peoples burning network as making a real difference here in my community on the ground with my work and in others that I'm working with so just some kind of we've gone through the specifics of some of the workshop findings I wanted this in the last few slides here on some kind of broader context that's at least applicable United States but also think about if you're in Canada or Australia or your other country how that might also work for you but thinking about landscape restoration strategies that focus on this heterogeneity or diversity and resilience considerations particularly resilience of social cultural systems thinking about climate change vulnerability assessments adaptation planning efforts identifying those both climate and on climate threats and stressors particularly those associated with fire thinking about planning considerations for those culturally custom services within that climate approach with here within the United States we have the National Police of strategy for wildland fire management implementation it has three components resilient landscapes fire adapted communities a part of that is this not only being a fire adaptive community but what about your indigenous First Nations or Aboriginal people that are fire dependent cultures in thinking about how we support that thinking about safe and effective wildfire management response as part of that third component and then lastly for me I think really leaking linking these together the tribal and local community values is the alignment of multiple resource objectives with community values for the redirection of fire or for managing wildfire to achieve those resource benefits and the part here is really that thinking about trishal knowledge artisanal ecological knowledge as far as restoration of forest fire regimes and cultural practices I think in many many areas that can be a form of climate adaptation and so let's think about our objectives to restore cultural fire regimes that would promote the structure composition ecological and closely value valued functions the forest shrub and grasslands or other habitats teaching it traditional knowledge and fire ecology to both you the you tribal youth and adults and so we have collective learning together thinking about initial fillers reduction and prescribed fire treatments that are located near our communities that focus around the while in air interface also those critical Road our trail systems and in those ridges our district features around our communities so we can start thinking about managing fire both near and across other broader aspects of the landscape so having those treatments that promote socio ecological resilience the fire adapted habitats while supporting those fire dependent cultures and then really again my theme there's you know reinstating traditional burning in a modern context to achieve multiple resource objectives and again I feature some opportunities here that are played out and being shown across the nation here in other places what the Nature Conservancy's tracks the work of the fire safety councils are prescribed fire councils and working at tribal and tribal communities and other things like here the Bureau of Indian Affairs reserve treaty lands program that might be looking at opportunities across jurisdictions within a tribes ancestral territory then the last little part here is just you know as any government or institution there's these existing policies and authorities I've mentioned the cohesive strategy they have a workshop coming up in Reno Nevada and end of March and I'm helping to propose a session there are incorporating tribal knowledge and so if there's any tribes that are interested in our working as the national cousteau strategy is part of their fire well I learned fire management like the solicit your participation in that there's also things like the co-operative wildland fire master management in the Stafford act response agreement for involving tribes and cost sharing benefits during large wildfire incidents there's other things like the National Park preservation act archaeological resource Protection Act and then there's other authorities that pertain to certain jurisdictions that you should be aware of and there's others that are probably nationally or locally applicable but at least here in the United States there's this one right now currently HR 2930 six another resilient federal Forest Act of 2017 that has this authority here just to point this out that a geographic area that presents a feature or involved circumstances principally relevant to that American Indian tribes such as the federal forest lands ceded by the United States by treaty federal land within the boundaries of a current or former reservation or a forest and adjacent land to be treated as tribal homelands and so there might be some opportunity there and it's looking at the more emergent policy that could affect working you know personal knowledge across multiple jurisdictions and with that I just want to again thank all the different tribal managers resource specialists who share their knowledge and who I work with joint fire science program our partners at Rocky Mountain Research Station in the Northern Rockies fire science Network and my own PSW fire fuels program and then my work is done closely a lot with the Nature Conservancy's and news people's burning Network and lastly my my co-authors who feature this work here in this webinar but really I couldn't done it with them and this last bit over here I have a suggested resources for additional informations here that you probably can't see but as you download the webinar you can learn those and have those available in the future so thank you thanks Frank that was a great summary I'm sure we could spend a lot of time on quite a few of the topics that you raised so thank you for summarizing those it appears that we Megan are you two there's a question but we I can't see it Megan I'm gonna cheat Megan is that who I should change it to now is Megan so we could do the question and answer I'm passing it to you and there will go to our question and answer session now and while that's happening I'd like to reiterate on behalf of the Northern Rockies fire science Network our appreciation of the Confederated Salish Kootenai tribes they was Cooney College and University of Idaho for helping organize about 2014 workshop and thanks to Frankfort helped with both of those workshops so Megan if you see a question can you share that with frankly sure it looks like it's just an FYI that the Florida tribe is the Miccosukee okay that was that's the only question we have right now at someone's hand was raised earlier and if you have a question and your hand was raised if you still have a question you could raise it again and I can unmute you to ask it or if you want to type in the question quickly we can do that as well it looks like some more questions are coming in and I might pologize right now if I miss said tribal names if I got something wrong it's really there was so much content to try to think about sharing so if I said something wrong my I my apologies I just wanted to make sure that uh I was trying to represent and if I misrepresent them apologize okay Frank here's another question were smoke impacts of concern are also part of the study or studies smoke was identified so yes it was but it was one that we didn't really get down into a whole bunch other than that I know that it was during some of the air air quality and emission standards that we had these long duration wildfires that smoke is an impact to both tribal in the public and other communities but if anything that I saw and this was kind of something for the air quality managers perspective was that they never really highlighted the beneficial role that wildfire smoke has and so often tribes acknowledge and least my work here in Northwest California with the carrucan Arak and other tribes is that and burning in certain forest types that you also see smoke as a fumigant that were really kind of clear out non desired pests and other insects in the canopy of the trees and so there's kind of this beneficial under invert effect of smoke also I have research going on with US Fish and Wildlife Service and the tribes and another associate looking at the beneficial smoke effects of smoke on cooling river temperatures that benefit fish and so I guess the one thing there's yeah smoke was but didn't really have time to get into that mostly a lot of the prior literature and research has focused on a negative impacts I think I'm looking at the Churchill knowledge and a beneficial role that smoke has at different scales is an emergent place of the research that could be investigated further in other tribal communities great thanks Frank next question is how do we accommodate the dean the needs for keeping confidential information about traditional knowledge and cultural resources that's what I'd say having a good working relationship with your tribal partners in thinking about what they feel comfortable that should be shared or disclosed or not particularly as I do a whorl presentation but even in the publications and in public presentations so there's that and then having a check-in so like when I initiate a research project it'll go through tribal council or cultural committee review artists advisory board and then again before you go to share those findings or even your preliminary results is going back and working with them and saying what do you feel comfortable with how much should be disclosed or shared here another element of that is I often knew a lot of ethnographic or historical research that were work done by early anthropologists on tribal communities and just because it was written down and it's part of those notes on that microfiche at the University Archives doesn't mean that that same thing even though it's deep and buried but it's publicly available should be reiterated or share it again and so I've had sometimes a caution shared with me say notice because you found out in the field notes of this anthropologist about our spiritual beliefs are about a particular area of cultural significance does it mean that you should share that publicly and so just some ideas around that about checking in and and figuring out what you should share or shouldn't share and to what degree great one more question so far I'm building trust with tribal communities is essential how do you recommend beginning those communications at the tribal council level or something else I found in my work that working with a tribal practitioner or elder and and that's often a leader in your community who then also raise the other hat or has another role that's often on the cultural advisory committee or on tribal council and so find that strong tribal leader a practitioner elder person who you can develop that friendship with develop that trust get that working project forward and then have them be the one that also carries your research interest forward or your management four projects forward and so that's that's worked for me and I recommend that also I think there's a lot of tribal communities have like organizations like it could be the inter tribal timber Council or it could be the Newton California basket Weaver's Association there's other associations out there that are tribal organizations that have interest in the fire and forest management and working with them to kind of help promote your work in your interest is another way to go about that perhaps great and we have another one how could this information or experience be integrated into the planning of future protected areas nationally and even internationally they gots an important one particularly where there's generally the protected areas have a high conservation value have a higher level of biological integrity and are probably highly significant and most of the indigenous or Aboriginal or First Nations people that are there when thinking about that is what are the long term planning goals for that for that jurisdiction and if fires am a NACA logical process there how much of that fire essentially was a cultural fire regime and how do you in what are the ways that you could work with those tribal or indigenous communities to perpetuate in reinstate that traditional or cultural burning as part of those larger conservation approaches I think also to is that and my work a lot of those areas that are highly bio diverse are also culturally significant or have a lot of sacred area attribution to them and so thinking about what you do in an area for your so your corridors and your planning what are the other management or not that's going to be allowed as part of that protected area I think at least in Australia and other places they have examples of protected areas that involve indigenous communities as Rangers or as local Stuart's that's a that's a good approach and also I think about ways that if you have say whether it's a federal or crown or whatever it might be for the jurisdiction at that kind of higher level is is there opportunities for local tribal or indigenous involvement on the the committees or does a decision-making authority that happens for that protected lands and so just because it's protected that doesn't necessarily exclude indigenous participation and involvement and and and life life ways on that protected area if you have bigger conservation goals how can you still achieve that with an involving and not excluding that indigenous community but working together to perpetuate those broader conservation tenets and practices and the integrity of that place great thanks Frank and we have one more question for Mary Huffman to wrap up the question period it seems that in Australia indigenous peoples and others work to sustain living culture in the u.s. we talk more about artifacts how can we open minds in the u.s. to keeping living culture thriving thank you Mary for that it's important and that's the part where I think the findings of these workshops and and from our tribal partners were that cultural resources also are living living components of the landscape and it's just you know I often use an example of that if you're just going through the the policy or the laws the acts like the archaeological resource Protection Act and you're going to protect the stone tool that's the process that's the indicator of the processing features food features in that site then you're protecting Iraq but you're letting the habitats that produce that food that the artifact was a part of basically degrade and so we need to move away from that and I think as more tribes and indigenous communities voice the Living cultural resource aspect of their work then that's going to affect the policy development and that's going to affect the ways that these things such as the national preservation act for attritional cultural properties in the United States is understood that you're just not protecting the relic but you're actually protecting the continuance of that cultural practice and knowledge system today and into the future on that piece of landscape answers which tribes and First Nations or other Aboriginal groups want to share the living cultural aspects of the landscape then that will strengthen that that approach any other questions or thoughts there are some more questions but given the time I think we better wrap up thank you Frank and thank you Megan before ending I'd like to share a information about two upcoming webinars that are being hosted by the joint fire science program fire science exchanges one is on December 6th using narrative stories to understand traditional ecological knowledge in the Great Basin and one is on December 19th a climate change assessment of vegetation fire and ecosystem services for tribal lands in the Pacific Northwest you can find information on both of those at our fire science org under upcoming events and webinars again the recording to this webinar will be a 10 hour fire science org under past events and webinars and as you close the webinar every survey a pop-up if you can take a minute to complete that we would really appreciate your feedback if you have more questions regarding this webinar or requests for future webinars please email or call Megan who's listed at the bottom of this slide thank you all for your participation today and thanks Frank for a great presentation this is your time