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California Gov. Gavin Newsom has allocated millions of dollars to a program that funds Native American “foodsovereignty,” owlcountingand “culturalburns,” in which tribal groups use traditional fire techniques to clear brush from the landscape andpreservetheir “close kinship” with plants, animals and “other natural relatives.”
Since 2023, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, orCalFire, hasawarded$24 million to tribalgroupsand other nonprofits as part of its “Tribal Wildfire Resilience” program.
The man effectivelyoverseeingthe program, Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot,believesthat California was founded on a “state-sanctioned policy of genocide” and that the state has pursued “decades of land dispossession, discrimination, and disconnection.”
TheNewsom administration, he said, was making progress in returning the land to the “leadership ofCalifornia Native American tribes.”
As part of this commitment to “cultural burning,” California has created separate fire-certification processes for nontribal and tribal populations.
White, black, Latino and Asian fire bosses must receive technical certifications, including a40-hourburn-bosscourseand, in some cases, afederalcertificate.
“Cultural fire practitioners,” by contrast, are certified through simple tribal recognition that a person has “substantial experience” burning for cultural purposes.
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The “cultural burns” themselves follow various rituals. Somebeginwith drumming,sageburning and a prayer. Attendees sometimes go around in a circle, introducing themselves to the land. In the words of Ron Goode,chiefof the North Fork Mono Tribe, the landlistensto the incantations, and the intention is “to make sure that everything on the landscape — Mother Earth, Creator, everybody — understands why we’re there and what we’re there for.”
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
