How Much Indigenous Knowledge Has Been Lost?

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Henry t lewis was one of the first researchers to document indigenous fire stewardship and its role in shaping the landscape. He also made a 16 r documentary titled the fires of spring. All of this was managed by people who had developed a complex technology of fire to assure a continued successful adjustment to the northern boreal forests. And what was saying wat in the 19 seventies, when he did his work, that he thought that between 90 and 95 % of that knowledge had been lost.

Cultural burns. Prescribed blazes. A healthy forest. What exactly is “good fire?” Let’s ask Indigenous fire scientist Dr. Amy Christianson, who is a co-host of the podcast ...Good Fire. This wonderfully generous and informed scholar took a quick break from her Canadian wilderness vacation to fill me in on Indigenous history, collaborations between Western science & First Nations elders, Aboriginal thoughts on cultural burns, flim-flam, evacuations, snowmelt, hunting strategies, land stewardship, happy trees, climate strategies, and the social science behind wildfire education. Also learning from Native wildfire fighters. Huge thanks to her and Matt Kristoff -- who also hosts the Your Forest Podcast -- for allowing us to use excerpts from their interview to launch Good Fire. Subscribe to both podcasts to get more ecological knowledge in your ears.

Follow Dr. Amy Christianson on Twitter

Listen to the “Good Fire” podcast

Also great: Your Forest podcast

A donation was made to Indigenous Residential School Survivors

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Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray Morris