FIRE STEWARDSHIP UPHOLDING INDIGENOUS SOVEREIGNTY
GILBERT, JOSHUA MITCHELL, JORDAN TWIST, MIRIAM SAINNAWAP, NATASHA CAVERLEY, PAUL COURTOREILLE, PEARL DORIS MORIN, AND WINSTON DELORME
In recent years there has been a steep rise in Arctic fire activity, including the unprecedented 2023 Arctic wildfire season that captured worldwide attention. Due to a warmer climate and extended spring and summer seasons, permafrost tundra and peat defrost, and fires are occurring in new areas with greater intensity and burn durations. This trend is expected to continue as the Arctic region continues to warm in the coming decades, narrowing the window for implementing proactive prevention and mitigation strategies. Indigenous Peoples in the Arctic, such as the Sámi, Inuit, First Nations, and various Siberian Indigenous groups, have deep-rooted knowledge of their environments and established Indigenous fire stewardship practices that can contribute to sustainable fire management.
Indigenous Peoples have stewarded the environment by using fire practices deeply tied to their cultural traditions, ecological knowledge, and spiritual relationships with the land. These cultural practices continue to be disrupted through colonization, under which Indigenous land stewardship practices are restricted and colonial authorities assume jurisdiction over Indigenous lands and people.
Colonization has disrupted burn cycles enacted by Indigenous Peoples and degraded landscapes by removing both natural and cultural fire as an agent of renewal. In this context, the efforts of Indigenous Nations, Peoples and communities to return fire to the land, to have greater control over emergency management including fire fighting and evacuation processes, and to document Indigenous fire knowledge for their communities, are an act of re-asserting governance over their territories. Indigenous fire stewardship is an act of decolonization – where land back, the return of Indigenous jurisdiction and governance over Indigenous life, land, and culture – requires reinstating cultural or traditional use of fire to protect the landscape, or fire back.
DEFINING INDIGENOUS FIRE STEWARDSHIP
As a collective of Indigenous and nonIndigenous practitioners working in the field of Indigenous fire stewardship, the REDfire Lab (Reciprocity, Ecology and Diversity in Fire lab) has recognized the need for a definition that accurately recognizes the assertion of Indigenous sovereignty that is central to many Indigenous-led fire stewardship practices. Within the REDFire lab and affiliated projects, Indigenous fire stewardship is defined as a range of practices, informed by Indigenous Knowledge, through which Indigenous Peoples, Nations, and communities exercise their rights and jurisdiction with fire.
REDFire follows University of Alberta scholar Kim TallBear, who defines Indigenous Knowledge as “any knowledge that helps us survive as Peoples.” The definition includes traditional and contemporary land-based knowledge from elders and knowledge keepers, including knowledge gained from scientific study and firefighting experience. By rights, we mean the inherent rights linked to Indigenous Peoples through the natural law of the land, our governance systems, and international and colonial legal agreements (including constitutional and treaty rights). By jurisdiction, we mean having the authority – based on inherent, constitutional, and other legal rights – to make decisions regarding how a particular area of land and people are governed.
Indigenous Peoples are not merely stakeholders in land management; they are rights holders with inherent rights to their territories. This distinction is critical in shifting from tokenistic inclusion in discussions to meaningful partnership and decision-making authority in wildfire management.
Embracing a broad scope of practices and activities that fall under the definition of Indigenous fire stewardship is crucial as there are many interrelated facets to building fire resilience within a community or region just as there are numerous activities and practices that fall under the umbrella of Indigenous fire stewardship. Integrating Indigenous fire stewardship into contemporary Arctic fire management requires ensuring Indigenous Nations, Peoples and communities have the resources and authority to engage in Indigenous fire stewardship practices. In this way, embracing Indigenous fire stewardship is a form of restorative justice, acknowledging the value of Indigenous Knowledge and rectifying past wrongs.
EXAMPLES OF STEWARDSHIP
Indigenous fire stewardship activities are not static in time nor limited in scope or application; they are inherently adaptive to changing environmental, political, and scientific conditions. Indigenous fire stewardship includes a variety of activities through which Indigenous Peoples assert their rights and jurisdiction with fire.
CULTURAL BURNING
Cultural burning is one of the most recognized expressions of Indigenous fire stewardship. Cultural burning involves the direct and intentional application of fire to a landscape using Indigenous Knowledge to manage landscapes, mitigate catastrophic wildfire risk, promote biodiversity, build community connections, and enable cultural resurgence. For example, the Muskrats to Moose project (www.wearefire.ca), an Indigenous-led cultural burning project, focuses on reviving land stewardship practices and restoring balance to ecosystems by bringing good fire back to the land.
Cultural burning has been limited by numerous barriers that prevent Indigenous Peoples from engaging in Indigenous fire stewardship, including access to a land base, settler regulation over different types of land (private, public and Crown land), insurance costs and liability, and access to sustained funding structures to support cultural burning activities. Accordingly, cultural burning groups have had to develop unique strategies to assert their jurisdictions with fire, ranging from purchasing private land to developing agreements with non-Indigenous governing bodies and corporations to burning outside of settler legal frameworks.
PREPAREDNESS, RESPONSE AND TRAINING
Consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) Article 18, which emphasizes Indigenous Peoples’ rights to participate in decision making affecting their lands, Indigenous-led practices regarding fire preparedness, training and response are a crucial component of Indigenous fire stewardship; this may include Indigenousled community preparedness projects such as traditional knowledge documentation, fuels mitigation work near communities or culturally important areas, or FireSmart ™ practices developed by Indigenous Nations and communities (see FireSmart Canada’s Celebrating Indigenous Fire Stewardship guide at www.firesmartcanada.ca).
An example of Indigenous fire stewardship within fire response includes Indigenousled values-at-risk protection practices, which prioritize protecting cultural, ecological, and spiritual values as deemed important by REDfire logo by Jordan Twist. All images were created by Twist over a series of feedback meetings with the REDfire lab. Designs came from personal experiences with fire and teachings from Indigenous fire stewardship researchers and practitioners.
Indigenous Nations, Peoples, and communities. Values at risk may include those requiring protection from fire (through fire suppression) but may also include those values that are at risk from fire’s exclusion (see www.wearefire. ca). Enabling Indigenous rights to valuesat-risk protection is an essential element of Indigenous fire stewardship but remains a barrier when settler agencies retain sole decision-making authority over values protection or when Indigenous organizations do not have resources to identify or protect values on their own terms.
Training is central to enabling Indigenous-led fire preparedness and response practices and may include a variety of initiatives aimed at intergenerational sharing of Indigenous fire stewardship knowledge within and among Indigenous Nations; this may include training and employment of Indigenous firefighting crews, fire behaviour analysts and scientists, and the development of fire guardian programs by Indigenous organizations. Having trained personnel ensures Indigenous Nations, Peoples and communities have the expertise to prepare for and respond to fires and supports decision-making and governance efforts.
INDIGENOUS FIRE RESEARCH
Lastly, Indigenous-led fire research projects are a form of Indigenous fire stewardship when Indigenous Nations, Peoples and communities define research questions, objectives and methods. Indigenous research can take many forms but ultimately provides information that is useful to the goals of Indigenous Peoples and can support their governance objectives; this may include traditional fire knowledge documentation, scientific study, or expressive arts. As with all research, opportunities for trial and error are necessary to test research hypotheses.
Indigenous fire stewardship research follows best practices for Indigenous data sovereignty, which involves ensuring Indigenous groups have control over how data is stored, shared and interpreted. Various tools exist to guide researchers in how to do so. For example, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami has published the National Inuit Strategy on Research (2018) to guide how research is done in Inuit homelands, known as Inuit Nunangat. Many Indigenous Nations have their own research guidelines that should be followed when co-developing Indigenous fire stewardship projects.
Where does this leave us?
Now is the time for Indigenous communities to exercise their jurisdiction with fire and reaffirm their sovereignty over their lands and people. As stated by Kira Hoffman, Amy Cardinal Christianson and others in a 2022 journal article, titled The Right to Burn, barriers and opportunities for Indigenous-led fire stewardship in Canada, “Correcting power imbalances, increasing capacity, and supporting [Indigenous fire stewardship practices] without significant agency oversight are necessary steps in respecting Indigenous governance structures and community practices while upholding UNDRIP.” To accomplish this, collaborative policy frameworks should be developed where Indigenous Peoples and Nations equally share decision-making authority with government agencies and other stakeholders. These collaborative frameworks should develop policies that explicitly recognize Indigenous fire stewardship as a legitimate and valuable approach to wildfire management, ensuring Indigenous Peoples have a seat at the table in decision-making processes.
Supporting Indigenous fire stewardship in the Arctic could proactively address the prevention and mitigation of Arctic fires while benefiting Arctic ecology, fire regimes, and residents. Supporting proactive wildfire prevention and mitigation activities requires the allocation of consistent funding and the provision of technical support for Indigenous fire stewardship activities. Importantly, supporting Indigenous fire stewardship is necessary for respecting the inherent rights and sovereignty of Arctic Indigenous Peoples, Nations and communities.
Increasing Indigenous fire stewardship and Indigenous land management in the Arctic requires a multifaceted approach that aligns with the principles of UNDRIP and advances Indigenous rights. By supporting Indigenous fire stewardship in Arctic fire regimes, governments and societies can not only address the growing wildfire crisis but also uphold justice, reconciliation, and the rights of Indigenous Peoples; this approach fosters a more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable future for all Arctic people.
The REDfire Lab is an interdisciplinary research collective of Indigenous fire stewardship practitioners. All authors are affiliated with the REDfire Lab as members or advisors. Author affiliation is as follows: Amy Cardinal Christianson (Indigenous Leadership Initiative); Alex Zahara, David Young, Jordan Twist, Joshua Mitchell, Miriam Sainnawap (Natural Resources Canada); Jaci Gilbert (First Nations’ Emergency Services Society of British Columbia); Pearl Doris Morin (Prince Albert Grand Council); Paul Courtoreille (Gift Lake Development Corporation); Natasha Caverley (Turtle Island Consulting Services Inc.); Winston Delorme (Rocky Mountain Cree). The REDfire lab functions as Natural Resources Canada’s Centre of Expertise in Indigenous Fire Stewardship. REDFire is guided by the following principles: Responsiveness to Indigenous community needs; respect for sovereignty of Indigenous Nations, people, and communities; and strengthening relationships through fire research.
