In 2011, the Yurok Tribe purchased 22,000 acres of forestland and salmon habitat within its ancestral territory. Photo from Yurok Tribe
The Rez of the Story
The Ecology of Managing the Forest
By Vince Two Eagles
Lakota Country Times Columnist
www.lakotacountrytimes.com Hau Midakuepi (Greetings My Relatives), It seems like every other month (or so) we see on TV or read in the paper about a forest fire burning out of control leaving destruction in its wake including sometimes loss of life. Of course we can always replace things (depending upon what those things are) but we cannot replace loss of life. Isn’t it curious, though, how the natural world takes care of it self by replacing loss undergrowth and trees reclaiming otherwise “burned-out” areas and coming back even stronger than before. I’ve witnessed a few of these areas both on the prairie and in forested areas. The green that comes back seems to be greener than before the fire. When I started this column several years back I wanted to share information about the development and contributions of Native peoples to world culture to dispel the notion that Native people (here in the western hemisphere) were ignorant, backward, savages--a stereotype that persists to this day here in America. So, for your information and edification please consider the following in the spirit this columnist intends it to be. Emory Dean Keoke and Kay Marie Porterfield, co-authors of American Indian Contributions to the World
, remind the world that “American Indian peoples were well aware that forests and the wildlife [wild is a term for which we have no Dakotah word for] that lived in them thrived best when they were managed wisely. Although the land the Europeans encountered when they set foot in North America was less “tamed” than that of Europe, it was not the vast, wild, and untended expanse many history books describe. American Indians had been deliberately shaping the character of the forests for centuries before they began the practice of agriculture, thousands of years before the arrival of non-Indians.”
It is difficult to accept that Europeans brought to this land so called, “civilization” per se, when one recognizes the degree of sophisticated knowledge and the application of that knowledge the indigenous peoples possessed without “input” from Europeans thank you very much.
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Keoke and Porterfield continue: “The large trees and park-like grassy areas that the colonists reported seeing in the New England forests of North America were the result of controlled burning practiced by American Indians to remove underbrush and allow trees such as pines and the hardwoods used for canoes and roof beams of longhouses to grow unimpeded. these light burnings were carefully planned and executed to enhance rather than destroy the forest environment. The fact that the burns were planned and controlled is crucial to understanding their purpose. For example, Indians minimized the destruction of fires set by lighting strikes by removing easily combustible fuel for the flames; that is, because they used brush for fuel, they routinely cleared the forests of dead wood and undergrowth. which limited the effect of forest fires. They also knew how to use backfires to control larger fires. A backfire is a controlled burn behind the fire line and serves to destroy fuel the flames need to survive. American Indians taught settlers on the plains how to use this technique to protect their cabins and wagons during prairie wildfires.” “The benefits of controlled burns were many. Perhaps most important, they encouraged new growth, which attracted deer and other animals because of increased browsing. Modern forest management research has shown that deer grazing in new-growth areas produce more and healthier offspring than do those in other areas.” “Non-Indians in the eastern part of North America did not understand the technology of controlled burns. Once they had removed the Indians from the land, they routinely failed to clear or maintain the forests that were allowed to grow wild and dense until they became potential tinderboxes. In some areas, lumberjacks harvested all the trees, leaving the soil to erode. In many others, they cleared the old growth and left the trees they did not want along with the fallen dead trees. As railroads began to cross the United States, cinders from the boilers set off huge conflagrations, and in the early 1900s firestorms plagued parts of the country. Only after these disasters did the U.S. government realize the need to manage the forests. . .as the indigenous people had done. The U.S. Forest Service was therefore established in 1905 to manage the newly created national forests and parks.” And now you know the rez of the story. Doksha (later). . . Find the award-winning Lakota Country Times on the Internet, Facebook and Twitter and download the new Lakota Country Times app today.
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