Member Talk: Illuminating "Good Fire"

BigPicture and the Academy are delighted to welcome members to this exclusive talk featuring Maddy Rifka whose image, Good Fire, was the first-place winner of the 2024 BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition, and Royale Williams (Karuk, Quartz Valley Indian Reservation), an Indigenous Fire Practitioner and current PhD student in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley.

From Royale, Academy Members will learn more about the history and importance of cultural burns. These burns not only promote cultural revival, but also ecological health, as they invigorate the overall health of forests, from vegetation to animals. Maddy, whose winning image depicts Hoopa Valley Tribal member Steven Saiz, facilitating a cultural burn with the Cultural Fire Management Council, will show and discuss her approach to photographing cultural burns alongside the community that practices it.

About Cultural Burns

Until the 20th century, lightning strikes ensured consistent natural burning, and Indigenous communities stewarded the land with intentional fire. Upon western contact, Indigenous communities like those on the Klamath River (including the Yurok, Karuk, and Hoopa Tribes) saw their right to burn taken away. Even now, their ability to wield fire as their ancestors did is stifled by federal fire restrictions. The absence of cultural fire coupled with wildfire suppression has primed forests for the current state of severe and destructive wildfire. Today, these communities are reclaiming their right to burn, and this practice not only promotes cultural revival, but also ecological health, as these burns invigorate the health of forests, from vegetation to animals.

About the Speakers

Maddy Rifka is a fish and wildlife biologist, wildland firefighter, and conservation storyteller. Her work as a biologist takes her to remote areas of Northern California to track California condors and snorkel to monitor native fish populations. For her work as a storyteller, Maddy tells conservation stories that focus on human-wildlife relationships. She has documented stories covering wildfires, cultural burning, California condor reintroduction, river restoration, fish migration, mountain lion behavior, and the environmental impact of illegal cannabis cultivation by drug cartels. Maddy has worked on projects for outlets such as National Geographic, Audubon and the BBC. She is an Emerging League member of the International League of Conservation Storytellers and a Girls Who Click Ambassador. Above all else, Maddy strives to tell stories that inspire action.

Royale Williams (Karuk, Quartz Valley Indian Reservation) is a young Indigenous Fire Practitioner and current PhD student in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley. As someone strongly connected to her cultural practices, her research reflects the Indigenous methodologies and teachings that have been passed down to her from her relatives and within her community back home on the Klamath River within Karuk Ancestral Territory. More specifically, her work speaks to the interrelationships between community knowledge, familial relationships, and Indigenous fisheries to promote ecocultural revitalization in the form of cultural fire management for ceremonies and for rearing and spawning Chinook and Coho salmon. With her work, Royale’s ultimate goal is to further restore Indigenous land management practices and Indigenous fisheries stewardship for the next generation of youth on the river.

This is a member event. Please contact membership@calacademy.org to RSVP.

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