Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute), Shifting Fire Regimes, and the Carpenter One Fire in the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, Nevada

Spoon, Jeremy; Arnold, R. W.; Lefler, Brian J.; Milton, Christopher

doi:10.2993/0278-0771-35.1.85

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Holling (2003:xvii) states, "Sustainable development and management of global and regional resources are not an ecological problem, nor an economic one, nor a social one. They are a combination of all three," and as such, may be addressed with adaptive management (Allen et al 2011), adaptive governance (Folke et al 2005), and related collaborative decision-making and management frameworks (Berkes et al 2000, Hahn et al 2006, Armitage et al 2009, Miller et al 2012, Spoon et al 2015. Although system adaptability is a major focus of SES thinking, it is not always feasible to adapt to change while maintaining characteristic system structures and functions over the long term.…”

Section: Interdisciplinary Approaches To Problem-solvingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to formal institutions and rules for governing human activities within SES, practices that benefit the long-term coexistence of systems of people and nature, i.e., sustainability, are often informally embedded in local cultures via diverse mechanisms (Ostrom 2005). As part of a larger process of embracing local knowledge in the adaptive management of Great Plains landscapes (Ratajczak et al 2016), we suggest that future studies actively engage with TEK by involving contemporary indigenous or Native American societies and stakeholders, an example of which is provided in the collaborative stewardship framework proposed between the Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute) and the United States Forest Service (Spoon et al 2015). These collaborations, or habitual cross-cultural exchanges, could increase the diversity of knowledge, adaptive capacity, and resilience of SES (Turner et al 2003) for responding to ecological problems, and promote local, placed-based, i.e., spatial, thinking and approaches to living and problem solving (Pierotti and Wildcat 2000).…”

Section: Reclassifying a Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Culturally induced range infilling of eastern redcedar: a problem in ecology, an ecological problem, or both?

Krug¹,

Uden²,

Allen³

2017

E&S

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The philosopher John Passmore distinguished between (1) "problems in ecology," or what we might call problems in scientific understanding of ecological change, and (2) "ecological problems," or what we might call problems faced by societies due to ecological change. The spread of eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana) and conversion of the central and southern Great Plains of North America to juniper woodland might be categorized as a problem in ecology, an ecological problem, or both. Here, we integrate and apply two interdisciplinary approaches to problem-solving-social-ecological systems thinking and ecocriticism-to understand the role of human culture in recognizing, driving, and responding to cedar's changing geographic distribution. We interpret the spread of cedar as a process of culturally induced range infilling due to the ongoing social-ecological impacts of colonization, analyze poetic literary texts to clarify the concepts that have so far informed different cultural values related to cedar, and explore the usefulness of diverse interdisciplinary collaborations and knowledge for addressing social-ecological challenges like cedar spread in the midst of rapidly unfolding global change. Our examination suggests that it is not only possible, but preferable, to address cedar spread as both a scientific and a social problem. Great Plains landscapes are teetering between grassland and woodland, and contemporary human societies both influence and choose how to cope with transitions between these ecological states. We echo previous studies in suggesting that human cultural values about stability and disturbance, especially cultural concepts of fire, will be primary driving factors in determining future trajectories of change on the Great Plains. Although invasion-based descriptors of cedar spread may be useful in ecological research and management, language based on the value of restraint could provide a common vocabulary for effective crossdisciplinary and interdisciplinary communication about the relationship between culture and cedar, as well as an ethical framework for cross-cultural communication, decision-making, and management.

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Section: Interdisciplinary Approaches To Problem-solvingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Reclassifying a Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Culturally induced range infilling of eastern redcedar: a problem in ecology, an ecological problem, or both?

Krug¹,

Uden²,

Allen³

2017

E&S

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“…Griffin (2002) generalized practical purposes for setting fire into three categories typical of hunter-forager societies namely: (1) to increase the quantity and quality of useful vegetation, (2) to improve or maintain habitat for important animals, and (3) to drive game in hunting. In addition to utilitarian applications, aboriginals may have conducted pyro-modification of Great Basin landscapes to fulfill perceived stewardship responsibilities born from prevailing belief systems (Spoon et al, 2015). Numerous, allegedly human-set fires were observed and recorded in the fall of 1776 by the Dominguez–Escalante expedition while passing through the eastern margins of the Great Basin (Chavez and Warner, 1976).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate and human influences on historical fire regimes (AD 1400–1900) in the eastern Great Basin (USA)

Kitchen

2015

The Holocene

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High fire activity in western North America is associated with drought. Drought and fire prevail under negative El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) phases in the Southwest and with positive phases in the Northwest. Here, I infer climate effects on historic fire patterns in the geographically intermediate, eastern Great Basin and seek out evidence of human influence on reconstructed fire regimes. Surface fire chronologies were constructed for 10 sites using tree-ring-based fire scars. Regional (67) and local (247) fire years and no-fire (187) years were identified from 1400 to 1900 CE. I compared fire chronologies with indices of the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), ENSO, and PDO. Regionally, fires were significantly more common during drought and were associated with negative ENSO and positive-to-negative PDO transitions while no-fire years were associated with positive ENSO and negative-to-positive PDO transitions. Conditions were significantly wetter 2 years prior to regional fire years and drier 4 years prior to no-fire years, providing evidence that fires were historically fuel limited. Local fire years occurred under a broad range of climate conditions. Most sites showed either persistent late or bimodal (early and late) fire seasonality patterns. These patterns are distinct from the mid-season peak observed for modern lightning-caused fires, suggesting a human influence on historical ignition patterns. Results demonstrate that climate was an important synchronizer of fire at the regional scale and that locally fire regimes were the product of climate-regulated fuels and some combination of human and lightning ignition patterns.

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“…, Sullivan and Forste , Spoon et al. ). Yet, the region also has some of the highest rates of lightning ignitions: “lots of lightning, plenty of people” (Allen ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This spatial and temporal variability of declining fire regimes has generated multiple hypotheses regarding causal factors, including the removal or decline of Native American populations and fire use (Spoon et al. ), intensive livestock grazing and industrial logging associated with settlement by Euro‐Americans and arrival of the railroad (Leopold ), active fire suppression (Pyne ), and climate variability (Biondi et al. ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatiotemporal variability of human–fire interactions on the Navajo Nation

et al. 2019

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Unraveling the effects of climate and land use on historical fire regimes provides important insights into broader human-fire-climate dynamics, which are necessary for ecologically based forest management. We developed a spatial human land-use model for Navajo Nation forests across which we sampled a network of tree-ring fire history sites to reflect contrasting historical land-use intensity: high human use, primarily in the Chuska Mountains, and low human use, primarily on the central Defiance Plateau. We tested for and compared human-and climate-driven changes in the fire regimes by applying change point detection, regression, and superposed epoch analyses. The historical fire regimes and fire-climate relationships reflect those of similar forests regionally and are similar between the two Navajo landscapes until the early 1800s. We then determined that a previously identified, localized, early (1830s) decline in fire activity was geographically widespread across higher human-use sites. In contrast, fires continued to burn uninterrupted through this period at the lower use sites. Though the 1830s included significantly wet and cold periods that could have contributed to fire regime decline, human factors pose a more spatiotemporally consistent explanation. A rise in Navajo pastoralism in the 1820s-1830s was concentrated seasonally in the heavy use sites. By the 1880s, livestock numbers more than doubled, grazing became far more spatially widespread, and frequent fire regimes of Navajo forests collapsed. The last widespread fire recorded on either landscape was in 1886. In the Chuska Mountains, livestock and fire coexisted for over 50 yr between the initial 1832 fire decline and the end of frequent fires after 1886, an exceptional pattern in the western United States. Though unique in its timing, character, and spatial dynamics, the collapse of historical fire regimes in Navajo forests contributed to now over a century without frequent surface fire, leaving Navajo forests at risk for large, uncharacteristic high-severity fires.

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Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute), Shifting Fire Regimes, and the Carpenter One Fire in the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area, Nevada

Cited by 10 publications

References 31 publications

Culturally induced range infilling of eastern redcedar: a problem in ecology, an ecological problem, or both?

Culturally induced range infilling of eastern redcedar: a problem in ecology, an ecological problem, or both?

Climate and human influences on historical fire regimes (AD 1400–1900) in the eastern Great Basin (USA)

Spatiotemporal variability of human–fire interactions on the Navajo Nation

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