Indigenous Fire and Lifestyle

During 2020 I began producing radio programs for the Institute for Sustainable Forestry that air on KMUD (Redway, CA). This fascinating and wide-ranging interview, on Native American landscape practices, aired on Dec 30. The speaker is Adam Canter, botanist and Wiyot Tribal Spokesperson; he was interviewed by ISF board member Greg Condon.

Biochar production should be understood as one of many practices comprising sustainable land management. It is that larger understanding that is discussed in this radio program. Biochar is not mentioned, but excess fuels are—along with practices dating back 10,000 years that eliminated them consistently, efficiently, and safely. Wiyot people may not have had much use for charcoal, but they do now, equally with all humans, as a means to restore the natural balance of carbon in the environment. By their own account, reparations for indigenous groups will not entail going backward to a landscape as it was, but forward into a synthesis of new and old. But as Adam says in conclusion, there is much that native nations can teach us about conducting ourselves in harmony—so that tools like biochar are employed with respect for all life.