Centering Indigenous Voices: The Role of Fire in the Boreal Forest of North America

Abstract

Purpose of Review Indigenous perspectives have often been overlooked in fire management in North America. With a focus on the boreal region of North America, this paper provides a review of the existing literature documenting Indigenous voices and the historical relationship of Indigenous peoples in northern North America to fire and landscapes that burn. Recent Findings Early research on the topic explored how Indigenous people used fire in the boreal forest, with most research coming out of case studies in northern Alberta. Emerging research in the last two decades has broadened the geographic focus to include case studies in Alaska, Ontario, Labrador, and other regions in North America. This broadening of focus has shown that the diversity of Indigenous peoples in North America is reflected in a diversity of relationships to fire and landscapes that burn. Of note is an emerging interest in Indigenous fire knowledge in the wake of settler colonialism. Summary Indigenous peoples in the boreal forest have applied fire on their landscapes to fulfill numerous objectives for thousands of years. More than a tool, Indigenous peoples in the boreal view fire as an agent, capable of movement, destruction and creation, acting on the landscape to create order, within a living, connected environment. Unfortunately, restrictions on the application of Indigenous fire knowledge and practice initiated during early colonial times remains a contemporary challenge as well.

Buffalo on the Edge: Factors Affecting Historical Distribution and Restoration of <em>Bison bison </em>in the Western Cordillera, North America

“…However, restoring the top-down process posed by Indigenous people's harvest of bison may benefit bison populations from reduced disease prevalence in low-density herds under top-down pressure [122], higher social tolerance from more involved local communities [121,123], reduced risk of excessive herbivory that degrades their ecosystems [23,24,84], and, as an additional but substantial benefit, Indigenous people may restore deep cultural connections [124]. Our analysis supported the hypothesis that this top-down process may have limited bison populations in the Western Cordillera, adding to a large body of recent evidence demonstrating that Indigenous people were a key ecological force shaping North American landscapes by affecting the abundance of large mammals [30,88], cultivating and gathering plant and animal species [114,125], and manipulating fire regimes across the continent [113,[126][127][128]. Restoring these socio-ecological dynamics may help restore bison across the Western Cordillera.…”

“…While the records of some journals describe traditional ecological knowledge shared by Indigenous guides or groups encountered when travelling, they often do not describe plant use, or female perspectives on seasonal resource availability. Future research requires further Indigenous knowledge of historic bison and other resources to better understand the nuance of historic human-bison interactions [6,101,106,[113][114][115].…”

“…Adjusting 19 th and 20 th century socio-political decisions that excluded Indigenous people [19,20] and restoring their socio-ecological role in managing both bison and their ecosystems may have numerous benefits [6]. In addition, human harvesting of bison is only one process in complex Cordilleran ecosystems and cannot be restored in isolationit must be done in the context of a holistic ecosystem restoration method that recognizes long-term human roles as not only harvesters, but also as gatherers, cultivators, and prescribed burners [30,88,113,114,[125][126][127][128]. There are several examples of successful co-management models built on strong relationships between science and traditional ecological knowledge [6,129,130], and we encourage bison restoration projects to follow suite.…”

Buffalo on the Edge: Factors affecting Historical Distribution and Restoration of <em>Bison bison </em>in the Western Cordillera, North America

“…Therefore, bison restoration in the Western Cordillera without also adequately restoring the key socio-ecological role of Indigenous harvest is likely to lead to challenges for conserving ecological integrity and human-wildlife conflict. Our findings add to a large body of recent evidence demonstrating that Indigenous people were a key ecological force shaping North American landscapes by affecting the abundance of large mammals [23,79], cultivating and gathering plant and animal species [103,111], and manipulating fire regimes across the continent [102,[112][113][114]. Acknowledging and restoring the role of Indigenous bison harvest in creating source-sink population dynamics is therefore needed for all bison restoration initiatives, and especially those at the edge of historic bison range.…”

“…While the records of some journals describe traditional ecological knowledge shared by Indigenous guides or groups encountered when travelling, the often do not describe plant use, or female perspectives on seasonal resource availability. Future research requires further Indigenous knowledge of historic bison and other resources to better understand the nuance of historic human-bison interactions [6,92,95,[102][103][104].…”