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Gavin Newsom has been funding “cultural burns.” No, not theBurning Man festival— though that might be a better use of the money — but rituals byNative American tribesthat claim to be reviving indigenous practices of brush clearance.
The Manhattan Institute has revealed that the state ofCalifornia is spending millionsof dollars on grants through a “Tribal Wildfire Resilience” program.
Local tribes cite the ancient, precolonial practices of controlled burning that cleared brush and allowed for useful plants to be grown.
The state grants are part of an effort to revive those cultural practices, while also aiming to assist withwildfire prevention.
Perhaps it’s helpful to use indigenous brush clearance, since the state has been particularly bad at the modern kind in recent years.
Unfortunately, as Christopher F. Rufo and Austen Hufford point out, while some of the money is spent on legitimate projects, some of the burns are merely symbolic. And some of the cash is apparently being used for other purposes, as a “slush fund.”
That’s an insult to fire victims throughout the state, many of whom had pleaded for common-sense brush clearance on state-owned land near their homes — until it was, sadly, too late.
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Sometimes the state’s policies on Native issues actually prevent fire management.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
