Sparking Regeneration With Indigenous Science

On the first day of the cultural burn, attendees gathered in a circle on a deergrass meadow for an opening ceremony, in which Goode explained the significance and history of burning in California. The lands we sat on were both the ancestral homelands of the North Fork Mono, and the private property of Goode and his wife.

“Land calls Fire, together they call Wind, and they bring Water,” says Goode, repeating an adage that explains the intertwined relationship between fire and the landscape.

Fire has historically been an integral part of Indigenous culture in California; indeed, Native Californians used to light low-intensity fires so often that they burned more land than is razed by megafires today. But throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, U.S. officials increasingly suppressed these burns, creating the overgrown, megafire-ripe conditions we see in western forests today.

Goode and other Native Californians are now at the forefront of efforts to reincorporate these intentional, ecosystem-balancing burns in the state’s approach to wildfire. By working in tandem with forest management and other Tribes, Goode and traditional fire practitioners plan to expand these burns from private lands to state and federal properties.

Back at the burn site in Mariposa, leadership convened to discuss cross-organizational collaborations while practitioners started surveying meadows and fields for ideal burning grounds. They settled on an oak grove packed with dried sourberry bushes, near patches of previously burned plots that were ready to be watered and tilled.

Nearby, Goode says a newly rejuvenated spring and a meadow of flowers popped up after years of intentional burns. White, yellow, and purple flowers dotted the landscape, indicating the return of water to formerly parched and overgrown lands.

When the sun started setting, participants equipped with bright yellow bladders full of water hosed down the fire piles. Others used rakes to push around ashy remains and snuff out any lingering flames, until all that remained was a thin trail of smoke coming from the ground.

Goode, now in his 70s, hovered nearby to survey the ongoing burns. His best advice? Go slow, take your time, and enjoy the day.

Seeing the diversity of perspectives represented by the participants—storytellers, community members, elders, scientists, government workers, and volunteers alike—underscored the need for collaboration and community building as we strive to restore our state’s ecosystems.

It reminded me of nascent efforts in science to infuse Western and Indigenous knowledge, creating space for multiple ways of seeing and knowing the natural world. While Academy scientists have already applied their experience in biodiversity research to prescribed burns in the Sierras, for example, we stand to learn much more from the regenerative work being done by Native partners in California, and the ages-old practice of cultural burning.