With reforms in place, California's Karuk Tribe works to reestablish cultural burning as 'common practice'

The WTREX program runs prescribed burn camps to provide hands-on training for Indigenous women. This training allows them to reclaim parts of their culture and bring cultural burns back to their land in a safe learning environment.

A review of 120 years of data found that traditional indigenous fire burning practices, which are low-intensity and controlled, lead to an increase in biodiversity. The practice has been done for years in indigenous communities to clear forage space, stimulate growth, or clear waterways. In Australia, where the practice has wide support, traditional low-intensity fires have led to a reduction in the intensity of large wildfires. They have also reduced and methane and nitrous oxide emissions by close to 40 percent. Other countries like Canada face hurdles to implementing the practice on a wider scale.

Revegetation and fire management practices are helping to preserve Australia’s biodiversity. In Western Australia, collaborative efforts between Environs Kimberley, an environmental NGO, and local rangers from the First Nation communities of the Dampier Peninsula are working to document, conserve, and manage the region’s monsoon vine thickets (MVT). As part of the Kimberley Nature Project (KNP), local rangers employ traditional methods like seasonal burns to allow for revegetation and to reduce the threat of larger bushfires.

After decades of failed legislation, over 17,000 acres of public land was finally restored to the Umpqua Tribe with the passage of the Western Oregon Tribal Fairness Act. The land was a constant source of tension between the tribe, the government, and environmental conservation groups, “under the pretext that Native peoples didn’t know how to manage them.” But in December 2018, with the passage of the Act and the return of 3% of the land that was originally seized, a sense of justice was felt.

After initially not involving the indigenous Q’eqchi community in designating land for the Río Sarstún Multiple Use Area – land that this community lives on – the government and the Q’eqchi since partnered together to advance conservation efforts and land management. Over a decade later, the two stakeholders work together on things like overfishing and ecotourism, part of a larger global trend of governments and local communities working collaboratively toward conservation.

Prescribed Burn Associations (PBAs) in Oklahoma bring together landowners to share equipment, labor, and expertise needed to conduct prescribed burns. Early evidence of efficacy include restored native plants and improved land health, suggesting the model can help reverse woody encroachment and improve grassland and wildlife habitat on participating properties.

Indigenous women in British Columbia are leading the revival of cultural burning practices and integrating Indigenous knowledge into wildfire management. Organizations like the Salish Fire Keepers Society have led to policy changes and an increase in Indigenous representation in firefighting roles.

After two seasons, an unconditional cash-transfer pilot project for Indigenous peoples in Peru’s Amazon has resulted in a positive impact on families who, in the past, would turn to unsustainable or illegal forest activities as a response to economic stress and food insecurity. According to the pilot's latest internal assessment, three communities are no longer engaging in illegal forest activities to make ends meet.

Farmer associations and Indigenous and local communities across Guatemala are working together to recover ancestral agricultural practices and educate farmers in agroecology. The collective, called the Utz Che’ Community Forestry Association, is building agroecology schools that are free to attend and facilitate co-learning in which students learn from each other. Their work protects native forests and local livelihoods from the damage caused by intensive monoculture.

A community-led conservation project spurred by traditional knowledge allowed the residents of Khonoma, India, to become self-sustaining and earn additional income from ecotourism, as opposed to relying on hunting and logging.