As an indigenous wildland firefighter myself in the state of Oregon. I'd like to say, This is a very enlightening video to watch. I live close to the Klamath River so all of this hits close to home. I witness what the timber industry leaves/has left as slash piles every year in all different states. Accidents waiting to happen. The tiniest ember on the dryest day is all it takes. TEK.. keep up the good work and positive vibezz.
Those slash pile should be illegal, or they should be forced to be transported off site to be used for other positive purposes, such as mulch or house fuel. They shouldn't be able to be left there.
@@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999 well said friend! So much firewood fuel for families in need just sitting out there. I commend you for saying that. I definitely agree that the slash piles should be illegal and people/companies taking shortcuts should be held accountable. (Always) nvr too late to start.
@@dezmondw7927 agreed. Hopefully someone will send it up the legislature and it will be voted on by the majority and approved. It really is an unforgivable fire hazard and is an awesome resource with great potential. No need to let it go to waste. Oregon overall is a really fantastic place. I've lived there twice, semi-briefly,. I have no problem with sustainable timber harvesting but we gotta do it right. Clear cutting should be a no-no. There was a big algae bloom in 2018 because dumbass timber harvesting removed too many trees near Detroit lake, which allowed too much non-secured dirt to erode into the lake bed if I remember correctly leading to low oxygen conditions which caused a red algal bloom and a short-term drinking water issue in the surrounding regions. So it really is all connected. Irresponsible timber practices affect soil health, fire safety, soil erosion, drinking water, etc. The biosphere is an interconnected web that affects us in turn. Just a fact. Hopefully in time better environmental practices will get passed. There are certainly ways to responsibly use our timber resources.
If we're gonna retire Smokey, two suggestions for a new mascot: - Lightningbird (Thunderbird's partner): probably self-explanatory - Grandmother Spider: At least in the Southeast, Grandmother Spider was the only one who was able to successfully bring back fire (and in some accounts, the Sun) & her story has a good bit of fire wisdom baked into it. Always thought Smokey Bear was an odd choice to have picked originally--the traditional way to hunt bear was to smoke them out of their trees/caves during hibernation, so a smokey bear was one that was about to get an arrow in it...
I am from Australia and Indigenous/First Nations people from all parts of the continent also had their fire farming practices that were unique and tailored to each of the biomes found here. The stories of dispossession, displacement, cultural suppression & genocide are disturbingly all too familiar. And, unsurprisingly, the loss of Indigenous land management practices and knowledge have had devastating impacts on ecosystems. See for example the 2019/2020 Black Summer in Australia.
isn't that why we got it bad a few years back. From what I heard it was the government caved in to people who don't know anything. most just need a hobby but they don;t like can;t afford golf
I'm Australian too, and it also struck me how the use of "terra nullius" and the banning of Indigenous people from national parks is pretty much identical to what they did/continue to do in the US. We also have that same situation where Indigenous land managers warn us about the negative effects of projects like the straightening of waterways or removal of vegetation, we ignore them and do it anyway, and then all the things they warned us about happen
Indigenous peoples do national Parks better than the white man's government. I have only ever been to one where the White man did anything other than overpriced crappy camping.
I love the phrase "fire farming" -- such a quick and direct way to explain these practices without having to use academic jargon. (Let me hasten to add I'm all for academic jargon as well, but I know it can distance the public.)
the australian indigenous experience is similiar. And now we've got so much infrastructure and climate change impacts on good burning windows has resulting in major difficulties in applying indigenous or scientific burning
Yeah rubbish..please show me how the Aboriginals handled the large forests.. they did not..they only ever burnt scrub to force animals out for food...stop putting them on a pedestal they do not have...climate change has nothing to do with it...you cannot control burn large forests. ..they couldn't and we can't today either..
Growing up in the California coastal scrub area, we learned it was the Spanish who first stopped the burns so their cattle could graze. Plants like Chamise, that dries out and gets oily in the summer, absolutely will build up if the year is too dry, and I've seen enough wildfires in the fall to take them seriously. I've always seen thr Smokey messages as reminders to be aware *now* of fire safety, of stray sparks and cigarettes and making sure all camp fires are fully entinguished.
As the daughter of 4 generations of wildland firefighters, I highly agree with giving the stewardship back to native people. My husband grew up in the Klamath Basin any I grew up not far away, so we both know how beneficial those practices are to the local lands.
Few things I wanted to say starting with we don't need to be the only stewards of the land And that my family is heavily around wildland fire fighting aswell and one of the main ways people stop fires from spreading is by doing controlled burns and at least here in Canada they are trying to encourage more natives to take jobs in wild land firefighting. We don't need all natives to tend to the land we need a majority of people here to take an interest in the health of are Lands
I am a forestry major and in my school's program, we talk a lot about fire in land management. I myself have been able to participate in several prescribed burns to preserve prairies. There has been some push back to these practices and some of their points are that of terra nullius stating that nature does not need management as it created the landscape without us, but that just is not true. People have been on this continent and have influenced the ecology of the USA far before European colonization, and we continue to influence it to the present by introducing exotic species and deciding whether or not to manage or use the landscape. Here in the Midwest, we don't have very devastating fires, but a lot of our important oak-hickory forests have given way to a less ecologically valuable maple-basswood forests and prairies/savannas have closed up and turned into forests in absence of fire.
Omg. That's such a nonsense argument. Forests have evolved with humans. They evolved to resist the low level low temperature dires that early humans we're using to manage their land and many even need fire to reproduce. What the forests can't do is resist the super fires we have now due to the buildup of scrub brush and dead brush feeding a behemoth fire that will destroy the forests and every living thing in them. 😭
Sweet, thanks PBS for allowing us to drop comments so we can show our appreciation for wholesome public knowledge; it's too bad higher education hasn't been brought up to speed, 'cuz there's a lot of political Americans with knowledge from the 1960s secured in their permanent memories.
Only 1/2 the story here - in the end, about half of total tribes did not burn their land. Firing the land - aside from planting fields after harvest - was mostly a Plains, Cali and Southeast practice. I have worked with scientists and tribal elders on this and we have published and continue to publish proof that many regions were not burned traditionally.
My immediate assumption is that the practice would be much less appealing in, for example, much of the Midwest and Northeast, since the forests are wetter and historically dominated by hardwoods. Or is there a different pattern?
Thanks for your comment. I definitely would like to know more about this subject. It stands to reason that all tribes did not institute control burns and those that did I'm sure didn't do them all in the same way.
you are right. indigenous people only burn land in those places where natural fires are common and part of the natural cycle system of succession. in the northeast, there is no natural fire dynamic on any large or consistent basis@@danaroth598
Maybe I was smarter than the average bear, but growing up in the 80s, this is definitely not the message I garnered from Smoky the Bear. I knew about yearly burns and the fact the areas requiring them have seeds that just do not work without fire, and smoky was about preventing accidental fire. There is, after all, a big difference between someone purposely and knowledgeably doing a prescribed burn and someone who tosses a cigarette or doesn't fully put out a campfire and walks away, leaving it to smolder unwatched until it causes a blaze.
I think the point is that Smokey uses a language that suggests forest fires are only the consequence of personal irresponsibility and accidents when forest fires are also caused by bad policy and procedures but Smokey tells us otherwise he says "only YOU can stop forest fires"
@@tysonasaurus6392it really only does that when simple minded people sum up the message as just the “only you can prevent forest fires” slogan without remembering any of the details behind it.
Same here. I was in grade school in the 70s and in high school during the 80s. I always thought about Smokey saying things like, make sure your campfire is out and don't be irresponsible with fireworks. Stuff like that. I graduated in 1987 and became a firefighter in '89. Three-quarters of the times we were called out, it was for controlled burns. We were only there to make sure fires didn't spread to any unwanted places. Here in Southern Illinois, we have always done controlled burns, and still do, every year. Like he says in the video, it's part of life.
When I was on wildland fire, my crew chief was all about burning back. He was a 10 year hot shot before running a hand crew and understood the true meaning of fighting fire with fire. For one, it helped manage the safety and energy levels of a team.
FINALLY!! I see my people on my favorite platform, PBS. A'HO My Brother! Creek Indian here. I will now follow closer to your works on PBS & Social Media!
Aww the baby bear that survived is so cute though😢 I agree with most of the people here... the messages I got from Smokey the Bear were to not carelessly throw out cigarette butts and to extinguish camp fires completely. The Ph.D you spoke to: of course people have a fear of fire?? She made it seem like an irrational fear.
@@Ipomoea_Alba The term "An Inconvenient Truth" comes from a documentary about Al Gore's work to get climate change acknowledged and addressed by the American public and government.
it makes me think of 'The Most Unwanted Song.' a 22 minute epic that horrifies the ears while telling the story of America's destruction of nature and the takeover of capitalism. it's pretty good
Love this! I asked for more Indigenous programing when the survey came up and I got it! I love this! Checking the new chanel now! I'm sure I wasn't the only one that asked but I feel heard! Thank you PBS!
Yes! My mom and I always have voiced how important it is for indigenous programs to be a thing. There has not been nearly enough of it and our indigenous people have a lot of knowledge and stories that should be told. So, this is great.
It's interesting how this contrasts with how things are in my country (Chile). Here fires are extremely detrimental to native forests and wildlife. During the 70's timber and woodpulp industries grew enormously. They replaces native forests with man made pine and eucalyptus monocultures, both exotic species to the zone. Many of the recent wildfires begin in these single species plantations, because both pines and eucalyptus are adapted to fires and even help to spread them, pine cones also benefit from them in a way, as it helps open them and spread seeds. It's interesting to see the contrast. Here, indigenous people make everything to not have fires and preserve the native forests because they know it is detrimental, but in the US, they used controlled burns to manage the forest for generations.
And yet, the entire planet has serious environmental issues, including areas under control by people indigenous to their area. The reality is, people are largely ignorant and will damage the environment around them. This includes everyone, regardless of where someone is born or what they identify as.
@@natalie526 I believe you have pointed me to a whole series on KCET (PBS affiliate?) Cultural Burning | Tending the Wild | Season 1, Episode 1 | KCET I know I'll start watching this tomorrow evening. Thanks!
Smokey the Bear was introduced to me as an 00s kid as a mascot for preventing accidental forest fires. In that same field trip we learned about controlled burns too. The story of Smokeys rescue by the Taos Pueblo Snowballs is great history. Rather than changing to a frankly less charismatic mascot, why not change educational materials to ensure that history and the damaging history of colonial fire prevention is taught?
I also would like them to change educational materials for this purpose. More ways for adults to learn to find peaceful resolutions to current divisive chasms.
I just got an urge to write a kids book about a well meaning bear (cause i feel bad for bears being aligned with this nonsense) learning how to actually help prevent nature based calamities through direct action. I like the idea of promoting being humble enough to admit you messed up and wanting to learn to do better being presented young and with a lot of encouragement. You dont things right till you admit they were wrong.
Okay, but this didn't even answer my most pressing question about Smokey bear. Why is he wearing the hat of a Canadian Mountie? Did he eat them and take their hat? The world needs to know!
We were at the Smokey Bear State Park two days ago. The kids earned the Jr Ranger badges. It had a portion dedicated to recognizing that not all fire is bad, but 9 out of 10 forest fires are accidentally started by people, and that's what we need to work to prevent. It talked about the different kinds of forest fires, the tools firefighters use to manage them (including controlled burns), and honored the lives of fire fighters who have died combatting them. It was a really good experience for the family. I'm here for team Smokey.
When I was in high school my english teacher had somehow talked the school into an "eco-literacy" unit where we would learn about the ecosystem of the area around us and the unit culminated with the class actually going out to an overgrown meadow and burning it. It was pretty cool.
What a pearl. I loved the part about the assumption that when Europeans arrived that their New World that the land was blank or needed work. Need more info about concept of TEK. In all honesty, I am 71 years old and consider myself knowledgable and open minded--and I never heard about either of those things. I subscribed and ready for more. Jim
Love seeing lifelong learners! Braiding Sweetgrass is a book about native culture, including TEK. If you’d like to see the lie of Terra Nullus in (horrible) action, it was part of the founding myth of every colonial project, but most recently Israel- epitomized in the slogan “a land without a people for a people without a land”.
After 400 plus years of violence, dispossession and attempted genocide, the time is NOW for all Native communities to start getting their justice. Appreciating and applying Native knowledge is only the first step, which would benefit all of us. Reparations, representation in governing bodies and managing groups, giving land back and more will be part of this long process that has barely yet begun.
I think phrasing it as “Smokey made us view fires as scary” is a bit off and confusing some people in the comments. It would be more accurate to say Smokey made us view forest fires as ecologically damaging rather than a natural part of the ecosystem (that we humans can lend a hand with from time to time). This over time affected how we handle environmental policy. Mainly we dump more money into fire fighting than we do fire forest management (prevention) This is an unintended consequence of Smokey. Smokey would do better rebranded as general camp safety. That way there wouldn’t be these commercials that talk about “nothing very nice about homeless mice” because of a forest fire. But we could still talk about the benefits of making sure the embers are completely out before you leave the campsite and what not.
Interesting. Here in the Albany, New York area there is a pine barren that actually needs occasional fires in order to thrive. It’s also home to a rare species of butterfly.
I first encountered the idea of controlled burning to care for the land in a book i read as a teenager. The more i have learned about history and not just how the Natives were ad still are treated the more disgusted ive been with the country i was born in. We suddenly find something valuable or useful and we just take it even if it destroys a treaty. We pretend that caring for the land this way we came up with. We arent even taught in school how during the world wars we had a code system that wasnt broken by the enemy because it wasnt a code. It was a few hundred Navajo lending their aid and speaking in their mother tongue to pass information for us. Even after all that has been done, they still help if we let them. That makes them better than most of the people whose names we were taught to praise.
The Navajo Code Talkers were absolutely speaking in code, a code that they created to meet the need of the US military for secure communications during the war. Navajos' language was the best possible option to base the code on because of its uniqueness, and the Code Talkers created about 450 words for things that didn't have words in the language of the Navajo, like tank and submarine.
We don’t need to retire Smokey. You just need to change the message. Most people still see Smokey in a positive light. Controlled burns are obviously good.
I'm a white, I grew up in the forest of norther Idaho, US and love the land with it's rich diversity. Every aspect of respecting nature is something near and dear to my heart. Not only should we give back stewardship to those that successfully managed it, but also we should take the time to learn the ways!
This is what happens when we generally separate ourselves from nature. Either we exploit it as if it were endless, or we abandon it thinking our lack of involvement is a good thing.
Love this series so much! I return to these episodes again and again to find a starting place when it comes to research. I'm here today due to the 5 tribe agreement in Oklahoma, gaining new land stewardship. 😁😁😁
6:18 I wouldn’t mind something on how the papal decree of 1493, Doctrine of Discovery, has violated the human rights of native peoples. I believe there were religious schools into the late 20th century, still imposing inhumane practices on tribal children. It would be nice to have more notice of the injustices we face today, that stem from that law in 1493.
I was under the impression that Smokey was about warning people against doing irresponsible things that could lead to wildfires, rather than anti-control burn propaganda. It kinda feels like Smokey was dragged into this for clicks. Not that I disagree with the core of this video at all (I mean, it's just facts). People need to know about how this land was managed, and managed well, before settlers came. And the science behind prescribed fires is so interesting!
Yes, but he also stands for the idea that fire is something to be feared, which, when lands are properly managed and stewarded, is completely unnecessary as a stray spark or an unattended campfire wouldn't do any damage. But in an environment where burning isn't allowed, then messaging like smokey the bear becomes relevant. So as a result he now represents a society that has a suppression-dominant position towards fire.
Part of the issue is Smokey Bear tells people that only they can personally stop forest fires, which obfuscates the fact that policy and procedure play a major role in forest fires as well, such as whether the state implements controlled burns, it doesn't just involve the responsibility of individual citizens going camping or whatever
@@tysonasaurus6392 I don't know if it adds anything, but I don't remember the word "stop" being used? 😅 I remember him always saying "prevent", which makes it seem much more like individuals being mindful. You know, don't throw a cigarette butt down, stomp out your campfires, etc. prevent one from starting, and stopping one from spreading, seem like 2 different things to me lol
I agree. Like I think smokey the bear is more like "put our ur camp fires before u leave or don't play with fireworks in the woods" but I think the rest if the video was well done. I studied ecology in college and I think we would benefit from hearing more indigenous voices in that field considering most of the ecology we were studying is about ecosystems on indigenous land and western academic study of ecology has only been around since the 70s which is a lot less time than indigenous people have been observing and studying the environment.
I had to wear the Smokey Bear costume at the 1995 New Mexico State Fair because I was a forester for the New Mexico Forestry Division, which manages Smokey Bear Park and Smokey Bear's remains in Capitan, New Mexico. Children loved Smokey Bear and are easily drawn to him without understanding his one-sided message. I, personally, loved setting the woods on fire and loved the result. Conversely, I hated putting out a perfectly good forest fire.
I grew up with Smokey the bear, and until this video had NO knowledge whatsoever of how indigenous people used control burns to maintain the forest. Thanks!!
I know this isn't the point, but Dr. Adams is one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. I mean this with all respect, admiration, and appreciation. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and I pray that land stewardship is returned to the hands of indigenous peoples.
The way First Nations and Native peoples were treated by the Colonizing of North America was disgusting. They were stripped of a beautiful and rich culture. Boarding schools,!or Residential Schools as they are known up here in Canada were not just a means for assimilation, but they did awful things behind closed doors. I don’t know what has been happening to hold past governments accountable for the past in the USA but I’m pretty aware of what’s happening here in Canada. The big thing happening right now is the properties where residential schools used to stand, are being scanned for unmarked graves. So far thousands of graves of children that attended these schools, and it is validating parents from years ago, whose children went to school and never made it home. And at the time they were ignored and it was swept under the carpet. I’m enjoying this series. I wish there was more like this for Canadian First Nations history.
This is all the more important a topic these days, because I've also noticed a return to more traditional land management practices here in Europe as well. For decades, or maybe the past two centuries, many governments thought "we'll just do this or that sort of rigid-rules land management; this is the future, there is nothing the past could teach us", implemented various technocratic measures and legislation to support that decision-making... and decades later, people have realized that approach was very short-sighted. Since I'm mentioning a similar revival of old, traditional land management techniques in Europe, techniques that were once dismissed and ridiculed as "antiquated" and "quaint", but have since been proven to be invaluable by proper researchers, would be methods like natural grazing of meadows by livestock (sometimes also basic hand-mowing of meadows with ordinary scythes), especially meadows around wetland areas. It's been proven that these so-called "old-fashioned" management techniques actually help to increase and preserve biodiversity, and even water retention capability of the local area. With grass on meadows, both artificially heavily-mowed-down grass and grass that has grown too tall and become overgrown with weeds, are two particular extremes you want to avoid. The meadows need a certain degree of equilibrium. By keeping the grass shorter, but at a natural height, via grazing-on-the-move by ungulates, or the occassional hand-mowing with a scythe, you can actually guarantee the increase in local insect, other invertebrate and bird biodiversity, and an increase in various herbaceous plant biodiversity. The livestock, or traditionally large wild ungulates, also provided fertilization for meadows, both in lowland and mountainous environments. All these meadow-related land management techniques have also been tried and proven in my own country, and they're nothing new. Even though decades of technocratically-minded governments had dismissed these as "the dated ways of ignorant peasants and rural types". Turns out, they were not ignorant at all. Same goes for Native American controlled burn techniques. Long story short, a moderate degree of land management, as long as it fits the context of a particular ecosystem, and isn't about de-wilding an ecosystem (i.e. logging, monocultures in the agri and forestry sectors), can be very beneficial to a local environment. Whether it's controlled burns for overgrowth management, gradual mowing of meadows around wetlands with natural and low-tech means, etc., it works.
This in a way reminds me of when they planted pine trees in salt water on Cape Cod to study. I made a point to go down to the beach and speak to the people doing this. I said, how much money does this cost? Did you not learn when the Indigenous people of Cape Cod and the Islands told the pilgrims to replant when they cut the trees, specifically pine tree's?. As the tip of the Cape erodes every year, I hope people do not forget. One day most of the Cape will be under water, very sad, but foretold by knowledge.
I've worked with an learned so much from Australian Aboriginals. We have a program call hotspots for proper ecological fire management. I've been a fireman for 25 yrs and been the equivalent to a US Smoke Jumper for 20 of those years of service. Listen and learn
I grew up near the Yurok and Hupa! The Hupa recently bought back (it bothers me that they had to buy it) ten thousand acres so they could demolish two dams! And the Klamath dam is coming down!
Thanks for showing this y'all! Jake Kosek has a chapter about this phenomenon in his book "Understories" titled "Smokey the Bear is a Racist Pig." However, having Dr. Adams to discuss indigenous techniques with TEK was a great and an extremely necessary expansion from what that book did not and could not discuss. Keep up the amazing work!!
I kinda like Smoky as a character, he just needs to learn and adapt just as the people who find forest management do. I like Ember the fox too, but I don’t think smoky needs to go.
As to when, not sure. As to why, probably because old grazed lands full of invasive grasses and scrub brush lands are just as prone to fires, thus not limiting wildfires just to forests.
The policy of fire suppression in Western society arises from the myth that nature can be controlled. Ironically, trying to control nature through fire suppression has led to greater unpredictability. The indigenous worldview emphasizes the dual nature, creative and destructive, of all forces. Fire can be a force for good as it warms homes and stimulates grasses, but it can also be immensely destructive. The role of humans is not to control nature, but to maintain a balance between these opposing forces. For example, fire was used to create prairies to attract elk, deer, and other game. In contrast, fire was used by the colonists to create uniformity - pastures, cropland, plantations. Indigenous people skillfully modified the fire regime to create to create a range of forest openings in many different stages of postfire succession, enhancing diversity and yield of game, berries, root crops, edible seeds, and medicinal plants. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Frank Kawaha Lake. “The Role of Indigenous Burning in Land Management”
That is fascinating, I had no idea about any of that. Yeah I agree that it would be great to have people who know about the land and how to take care of it taking care of it.
I’ve read so many articles of how dead fall and underbrush have piled up in California from decades of neglect and ridiculous regulations, which have been major contributors to the strength of the wildfires on the West Coast. Even some places like the military bases here in the south (Fort Benning and Fort Stewart), they do controlled burns every year or so. It does affect quality, but it helps with the regulating of wildfires.
I'm curious how this would work on a large scale? If we practiced prescribed burning on a scale necessary to avoid impacts on human settlement, would the increase in greenhouse gasses be worth it?
I would think prescribed burns would result in fewer total acres burned, especially with some of the massive fires we’ve had the last few years. It would probably reduce the number of homes burned, too, which produces more dangerous chemicals than brush and trees.
I would also add that all native peoples living in non equatorial forest areas used control burns as a way to create pasture, land and cropland. Pasture land because when you have just forests and no pastures, there's Very little game compared to when you have large, open pasture areas where rumornance can come and gather in large flocks or herds.
It's almost as if you listen to the land, it'll guide you what to do. People wonder how great knowledge is lost to time... I'm glad the original knowledge of the land is finally fighting back against the propaganda
The problem is people going out into the woods and carelessly causing fires. That’s what Smokey was designed to fight against. The practice of prescribed burning vs full suppression has nothing to do with the mascot. I’m sure indigenous peoples were responsible with fire outside of prescribed burns. You don’t go out on a super windy day after a month of hot, dry conditions, and try a prescribed burn. Even today, if a fire is burning in a remote area and not threatening structures, the focus of firefighting response is containment, rather than suppression.
Except fire suppression (and expanding wildlands-urban interfaces) create the fuel conditions in which accidental ignitions become more hazardous and costly…
Anybody notice, at least in oregon, the smokey bear message is now only you can prevent human caused wild fires, instead of blanket forest fires. Specifying, careless acts and separating them from prescribed burns and natural wildfires.
When I first learned about prescribed fires, I mistakenly believed it was a novel and perhaps dangerous approach to forest management. Like, this is someone's crazy idea that should go away. We need more research before we even begin this insane idea of lighting fires, intentionally! Yeah, I was raised on Smokey The Bear ads telling us forest fires are never, ever good.
In Paradise (which was devastated by the Camp Fire in in 2018), they have Wildfire Ready Raccoon. He's kind of scary but at least he's pro putting good fire on the ground. Although I think making a wildfire Ready Raccon rap set to the theme of Gangsta's Paradise was a little too soon...
Thinking back to how I grew to prefer the self checkout, I have to suspect now that all the stupidity we were constantly dealing with when using the Walmart manned cashier lanes was probably intentional - to push us to the U-scans. Having to deal with double-scanned item overcharges every single time a cashier scanned my stuff only to tell me, “You’ll have to go to the customer services desk and have them fix it”, then having to go wait in yet another line after checking out to make some other employee correct the mistakes of their cashiers got to be infuriating. So when U-scans multiplied I was glad to finally have a competent person scanning my groceries. In hindsight maybe that was their goal - to make the self checkout more attractive.
I first learned about the benefits (in-depth) of prescribed burns back when I was going to UCF; there, they tried doing as many prescribed burns in their Arboretum as they could.
A question for you to share, ponder, and perhaps work with. Is it possible for the Yurok to petition Gov. Newsom to task the CCC (California Conservation Corp) to both fund and assist the Yurok with re-establishing their TEK?
This video's use of smoking the bear is clickbait. The fact of the matter is the original catchphrase was smokey, says care will prevent nine out of ten forest fires, and then in nineteen forty seven, it's shifted to remember only you can prevent forest fires. Nothing about wildfires Until 2001, Which was mainly as a response to the increased number of wildfires on grasslands and forests and mixed use areas due to encroachment by humans and increasing interactions that involve fire potential, but also as a response to increase droughts and firepron.Ecological situations because of climate change and global heating
As an indigenous wildland firefighter myself in the state of Oregon. I'd like to say, This is a very enlightening video to watch. I live close to the Klamath River so all of this hits close to home.
I witness what the timber industry leaves/has left as slash piles every year in all different states.
Accidents waiting to happen. The tiniest ember on the dryest day is all it takes.
TEK.. keep up the good work and positive vibezz.
Those slash pile should be illegal, or they should be forced to be transported off site to be used for other positive purposes, such as mulch or house fuel. They shouldn't be able to be left there.
@@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999 well said friend!
So much firewood fuel for families in need just sitting out there.
I commend you for saying that. I definitely agree that the slash piles should be illegal and people/companies taking shortcuts should be held accountable. (Always) nvr too late to start.
@@dezmondw7927 agreed. Hopefully someone will send it up the legislature and it will be voted on by the majority and approved. It really is an unforgivable fire hazard and is an awesome resource with great potential. No need to let it go to waste. Oregon overall is a really fantastic place. I've lived there twice, semi-briefly,. I have no problem with sustainable timber harvesting but we gotta do it right. Clear cutting should be a no-no. There was a big algae bloom in 2018 because dumbass timber harvesting removed too many trees near Detroit lake, which allowed too much non-secured dirt to erode into the lake bed if I remember correctly leading to low oxygen conditions which caused a red algal bloom and a short-term drinking water issue in the surrounding regions.
So it really is all connected. Irresponsible timber practices affect soil health, fire safety, soil erosion, drinking water, etc. The biosphere is an interconnected web that affects us in turn. Just a fact. Hopefully in time better environmental practices will get passed. There are certainly ways to responsibly use our timber resources.
@@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999It is best for the soil if they stay on the property and are burned in the wet season.
@@karlrovey oh hmm. Yeah I could see that. Well it doesn't sound like they're doing that either tho. I wonder if Oregon has a controlled burn program.
If we're gonna retire Smokey, two suggestions for a new mascot:
- Lightningbird (Thunderbird's partner): probably self-explanatory
- Grandmother Spider: At least in the Southeast, Grandmother Spider was the only one who was able to successfully bring back fire (and in some accounts, the Sun) & her story has a good bit of fire wisdom baked into it.
Always thought Smokey Bear was an odd choice to have picked originally--the traditional way to hunt bear was to smoke them out of their trees/caves during hibernation, so a smokey bear was one that was about to get an arrow in it...
I'd rather have Smacky the frog
I like the idea of Lighningbird as a mascot
Someone is a Hedberg fan
Smokey is named after a real bear cub that was rescued by firefighters during a forest fire
Wouldn't Lightningbird just replace the lightning bug that teaches kids not to play near power lines? My vote would be for Grandmother Spider.
I am from Australia and Indigenous/First Nations people from all parts of the continent also had their fire farming practices that were unique and tailored to each of the biomes found here. The stories of dispossession, displacement, cultural suppression & genocide are disturbingly all too familiar. And, unsurprisingly, the loss of Indigenous land management practices and knowledge have had devastating impacts on ecosystems. See for example the 2019/2020 Black Summer in Australia.
isn't that why we got it bad a few years back. From what I heard it was the government caved in to people who don't know anything. most just need a hobby but they don;t like can;t afford golf
I'm Australian too, and it also struck me how the use of "terra nullius" and the banning of Indigenous people from national parks is pretty much identical to what they did/continue to do in the US. We also have that same situation where Indigenous land managers warn us about the negative effects of projects like the straightening of waterways or removal of vegetation, we ignore them and do it anyway, and then all the things they warned us about happen
Indigenous peoples do national Parks better than the white man's government. I have only ever been to one where the White man did anything other than overpriced crappy camping.
I love the phrase "fire farming" -- such a quick and direct way to explain these practices without having to use academic jargon.
(Let me hasten to add I'm all for academic jargon as well, but I know it can distance the public.)
the australian indigenous experience is similiar. And now we've got so much infrastructure and climate change impacts on good burning windows has resulting in major difficulties in applying indigenous or scientific burning
Just what I was going to say 👍🏽
Yeah rubbish..please show me how the Aboriginals handled the large forests.. they did not..they only ever burnt scrub to force animals out for food...stop putting them on a pedestal they do not have...climate change has nothing to do with it...you cannot control burn large forests. ..they couldn't and we can't today either..
Growing up in rural mountainous Ireland we used to burn gorse. It allowed to us to live. Sadly climate change has fucked us over
As much as the smoke stuffs my asthma, I always appreciate the controlled burns around us. It’s good to know they could squeeze it in.
Same thing here in Brazil
Growing up in the California coastal scrub area, we learned it was the Spanish who first stopped the burns so their cattle could graze. Plants like Chamise, that dries out and gets oily in the summer, absolutely will build up if the year is too dry, and I've seen enough wildfires in the fall to take them seriously. I've always seen thr Smokey messages as reminders to be aware *now* of fire safety, of stray sparks and cigarettes and making sure all camp fires are fully entinguished.
As the daughter of 4 generations of wildland firefighters, I highly agree with giving the stewardship back to native people. My husband grew up in the Klamath Basin any I grew up not far away, so we both know how beneficial those practices are to the local lands.
Few things I wanted to say starting with we don't need to be the only stewards of the land
And that my family is heavily around wildland fire fighting aswell and one of the main ways people stop fires from spreading is by doing controlled burns and at least here in Canada they are trying to encourage more natives to take jobs in wild land firefighting.
We don't need all natives to tend to the land we need a majority of people here to take an interest in the health of are Lands
I am a forestry major and in my school's program, we talk a lot about fire in land management. I myself have been able to participate in several prescribed burns to preserve prairies. There has been some push back to these practices and some of their points are that of terra nullius stating that nature does not need management as it created the landscape without us, but that just is not true. People have been on this continent and have influenced the ecology of the USA far before European colonization, and we continue to influence it to the present by introducing exotic species and deciding whether or not to manage or use the landscape. Here in the Midwest, we don't have very devastating fires, but a lot of our important oak-hickory forests have given way to a less ecologically valuable maple-basswood forests and prairies/savannas have closed up and turned into forests in absence of fire.
Omg. That's such a nonsense argument. Forests have evolved with humans. They evolved to resist the low level low temperature dires that early humans we're using to manage their land and many even need fire to reproduce. What the forests can't do is resist the super fires we have now due to the buildup of scrub brush and dead brush feeding a behemoth fire that will destroy the forests and every living thing in them. 😭
Sweet, thanks PBS for allowing us to drop comments so we can show our appreciation for wholesome public knowledge; it's too bad higher education hasn't been brought up to speed, 'cuz there's a lot of political Americans with knowledge from the 1960s secured in their permanent memories.
Only 1/2 the story here - in the end, about half of total tribes did not burn their land. Firing the land - aside from planting fields after harvest - was mostly a Plains, Cali and Southeast practice. I have worked with scientists and tribal elders on this and we have published and continue to publish proof that many regions were not burned traditionally.
My immediate assumption is that the practice would be much less appealing in, for example, much of the Midwest and Northeast, since the forests are wetter and historically dominated by hardwoods. Or is there a different pattern?
Thanks for your comment. I definitely would like to know more about this subject. It stands to reason that all tribes did not institute control burns and those that did I'm sure didn't do them all in the same way.
you are right. indigenous people only burn land in those places where natural fires are common and part of the natural cycle system of succession. in the northeast, there is no natural fire dynamic on any large or consistent basis@@danaroth598
Where can we read your research?
Do you have sources to share? I'd love to read more about this- it makes sense that different approaches would be used in different ecosystems.
Maybe I was smarter than the average bear, but growing up in the 80s, this is definitely not the message I garnered from Smoky the Bear. I knew about yearly burns and the fact the areas requiring them have seeds that just do not work without fire, and smoky was about preventing accidental fire. There is, after all, a big difference between someone purposely and knowledgeably doing a prescribed burn and someone who tosses a cigarette or doesn't fully put out a campfire and walks away, leaving it to smolder unwatched until it causes a blaze.
Very true. Smokey does have a good purpose for that. Accidental campfires spreading is a threat.
I think the point is that Smokey uses a language that suggests forest fires are only the consequence of personal irresponsibility and accidents when forest fires are also caused by bad policy and procedures but Smokey tells us otherwise he says "only YOU can stop forest fires"
@@tysonasaurus6392it really only does that when simple minded people sum up the message as just the “only you can prevent forest fires” slogan without remembering any of the details behind it.
Same here. I was in grade school in the 70s and in high school during the 80s. I always thought about Smokey saying things like, make sure your campfire is out and don't be irresponsible with fireworks. Stuff like that. I graduated in 1987 and became a firefighter in '89. Three-quarters of the times we were called out, it was for controlled burns. We were only there to make sure fires didn't spread to any unwanted places. Here in Southern Illinois, we have always done controlled burns, and still do, every year. Like he says in the video, it's part of life.
When I was on wildland fire, my crew chief was all about burning back. He was a 10 year hot shot before running a hand crew and understood the true meaning of fighting fire with fire. For one, it helped manage the safety and energy levels of a team.
FINALLY!! I see my people on my favorite platform, PBS. A'HO My Brother! Creek Indian here. I will now follow closer to your works on PBS & Social Media!
I'm Blackfoot! I'm a rarity here in Michigan. It's nice to see other peoples on this channel!
Aww the baby bear that survived is so cute though😢 I agree with most of the people here... the messages I got from Smokey the Bear were to not carelessly throw out cigarette butts and to extinguish camp fires completely.
The Ph.D you spoke to: of course people have a fear of fire?? She made it seem like an irrational fear.
“Inconvenient truth” is such a good way to describe things that are hidden from the public
This video is literally on a tax-funded channel on the world’s foremost video service. Not really hidden
@@LEFT4BASS I’m talking about things in general that people choose to hide because it would be too “inconvenient” to tell the truth
@@Ipomoea_Alba The term "An Inconvenient Truth" comes from a documentary about Al Gore's work to get climate change acknowledged and addressed by the American public and government.
it makes me think of 'The Most Unwanted Song.' a 22 minute epic that horrifies the ears while telling the story of America's destruction of nature and the takeover of capitalism. it's pretty good
Love this! I asked for more Indigenous programing when the survey came up and I got it! I love this! Checking the new chanel now! I'm sure I wasn't the only one that asked but I feel heard! Thank you PBS!
Yes! My mom and I always have voiced how important it is for indigenous programs to be a thing. There has not been nearly enough of it and our indigenous people have a lot of knowledge and stories that should be told. So, this is great.
It's interesting how this contrasts with how things are in my country (Chile). Here fires are extremely detrimental to native forests and wildlife. During the 70's timber and woodpulp industries grew enormously. They replaces native forests with man made pine and eucalyptus monocultures, both exotic species to the zone. Many of the recent wildfires begin in these single species plantations, because both pines and eucalyptus are adapted to fires and even help to spread them, pine cones also benefit from them in a way, as it helps open them and spread seeds. It's interesting to see the contrast. Here, indigenous people make everything to not have fires and preserve the native forests because they know it is detrimental, but in the US, they used controlled burns to manage the forest for generations.
I agree with your closing. Indigenous people manage land a 1000 times better than a gov't agency or department. It's evident all over the world.
Anything and anyone does things better than government lol
That’s because people who run the government aren’t of the land and never had any respect for the people they violently forced out.
@@BCc249 Truth
Land back
And yet, the entire planet has serious environmental issues, including areas under control by people indigenous to their area. The reality is, people are largely ignorant and will damage the environment around them. This includes everyone, regardless of where someone is born or what they identify as.
PBS,
Please do a deep dive into T.E.K.
Are you familiar with the documentary Tending the Wild? It's on youtube and a good deep dive I think. It focuses on California Native tribes
@@natalie526 I believe you have pointed me to a whole series on KCET (PBS affiliate?)
Cultural Burning | Tending the Wild | Season 1, Episode 1 | KCET
I know I'll start watching this tomorrow evening.
Thanks!
@@FarmerRiddick Yes, that's it! FYI there is an hour-long special that combines all the episodes into one video as well.
Thank you for sharing. I did not know the history/origins of Smokey the Bear. I respect the indigenous people and their stewardship of the land. ❤
Smokey the Bear was introduced to me as an 00s kid as a mascot for preventing accidental forest fires. In that same field trip we learned about controlled burns too. The story of Smokeys rescue by the Taos Pueblo Snowballs is great history. Rather than changing to a frankly less charismatic mascot, why not change educational materials to ensure that history and the damaging history of colonial fire prevention is taught?
I also would like them to change educational materials for this purpose. More ways for adults to learn to find peaceful resolutions to current divisive chasms.
I just got an urge to write a kids book about a well meaning bear (cause i feel bad for bears being aligned with this nonsense) learning how to actually help prevent nature based calamities through direct action.
I like the idea of promoting being humble enough to admit you messed up and wanting to learn to do better being presented young and with a lot of encouragement. You dont things right till you admit they were wrong.
Being born in New Mexico my grandma told me the story about Smokey the Bear but I’m happy to be enlightened!
Okay, but this didn't even answer my most pressing question about Smokey bear. Why is he wearing the hat of a Canadian Mountie? Did he eat them and take their hat? The world needs to know!
It's a Campaign Hat, also worn by various state troopers, and drill instructors in certain branches of the American military.
@@j3tztbassman123Ah, so he ate a state trooper. Thanks for the info!
Another burning question: what happened to his red suspenders?
@@KreativeKerriHe now wears a belt 😎✌️
@@gus473 Mandela effect
We were at the Smokey Bear State Park two days ago. The kids earned the Jr Ranger badges. It had a portion dedicated to recognizing that not all fire is bad, but 9 out of 10 forest fires are accidentally started by people, and that's what we need to work to prevent. It talked about the different kinds of forest fires, the tools firefighters use to manage them (including controlled burns), and honored the lives of fire fighters who have died combatting them. It was a really good experience for the family. I'm here for team Smokey.
But it didn't mention any of the native American history wrapped up in this... So ....
When I was in high school my english teacher had somehow talked the school into an "eco-literacy" unit where we would learn about the ecosystem of the area around us and the unit culminated with the class actually going out to an overgrown meadow and burning it. It was pretty cool.
Smokey taught us kids to not play with matches and tell the grown-ups to be careful with their cigarettes.
This is something that should be viewed by the millions after two weeks
What a pearl. I loved the part about the assumption that when Europeans arrived that their New World that the land was blank or needed work. Need more info about concept of TEK. In all honesty, I am 71 years old and consider myself knowledgable and open minded--and I never heard about either of those things. I subscribed and ready for more.
Jim
Love seeing lifelong learners! Braiding Sweetgrass is a book about native culture, including TEK. If you’d like to see the lie of Terra Nullus in (horrible) action, it was part of the founding myth of every colonial project, but most recently Israel- epitomized in the slogan “a land without a people for a people without a land”.
After 400 plus years of violence, dispossession and attempted genocide, the time is NOW for all Native communities to start getting their justice. Appreciating and applying Native knowledge is only the first step, which would benefit all of us. Reparations, representation in governing bodies and managing groups, giving land back and more will be part of this long process that has barely yet begun.
This was a good video. Traditional ecological wisdom can restore these lands.
I think phrasing it as “Smokey made us view fires as scary” is a bit off and confusing some people in the comments.
It would be more accurate to say Smokey made us view forest fires as ecologically damaging rather than a natural part of the ecosystem (that we humans can lend a hand with from time to time). This over time affected how we handle environmental policy. Mainly we dump more money into fire fighting than we do fire forest management (prevention)
This is an unintended consequence of Smokey.
Smokey would do better rebranded as general camp safety. That way there wouldn’t be these commercials that talk about “nothing very nice about homeless mice” because of a forest fire. But we could still talk about the benefits of making sure the embers are completely out before you leave the campsite and what not.
Interesting. Here in the Albany, New York area there is a pine barren that actually needs occasional fires in order to thrive. It’s also home to a rare species of butterfly.
I first encountered the idea of controlled burning to care for the land in a book i read as a teenager. The more i have learned about history and not just how the Natives were ad still are treated the more disgusted ive been with the country i was born in. We suddenly find something valuable or useful and we just take it even if it destroys a treaty.
We pretend that caring for the land this way we came up with. We arent even taught in school how during the world wars we had a code system that wasnt broken by the enemy because it wasnt a code. It was a few hundred Navajo lending their aid and speaking in their mother tongue to pass information for us.
Even after all that has been done, they still help if we let them.
That makes them better than most of the people whose names we were taught to praise.
The Navajo Code Talkers were absolutely speaking in code, a code that they created to meet the need of the US military for secure communications during the war. Navajos' language was the best possible option to base the code on because of its uniqueness, and the Code Talkers created about 450 words for things that didn't have words in the language of the Navajo, like tank and submarine.
We don’t need to retire Smokey.
You just need to change the message. Most people still see Smokey in a positive light.
Controlled burns are obviously good.
I’ve been telling folks about this for awhile now. Glad y’all are putting this out there!
Once again, I am surprised but not shocked by this.
I'm a white, I grew up in the forest of norther Idaho, US and love the land with it's rich diversity. Every aspect of respecting nature is something near and dear to my heart. Not only should we give back stewardship to those that successfully managed it, but also we should take the time to learn the ways!
This is what happens when we generally separate ourselves from nature. Either we exploit it as if it were endless, or we abandon it thinking our lack of involvement is a good thing.
Love this series so much! I return to these episodes again and again to find a starting place when it comes to research. I'm here today due to the 5 tribe agreement in Oklahoma, gaining new land stewardship. 😁😁😁
i’m loving this! i can’t wait to spend my night watching all the videos from Tai 😊
6:18 I wouldn’t mind something on how the papal decree of 1493, Doctrine of Discovery, has violated the human rights of native peoples. I believe there were religious schools into the late 20th century, still imposing inhumane practices on tribal children. It would be nice to have more notice of the injustices we face today, that stem from that law in 1493.
This was fantastic. I look forward to sharing it with my university students who are studying Natural Resources Management.
I was under the impression that Smokey was about warning people against doing irresponsible things that could lead to wildfires, rather than anti-control burn propaganda. It kinda feels like Smokey was dragged into this for clicks. Not that I disagree with the core of this video at all (I mean, it's just facts). People need to know about how this land was managed, and managed well, before settlers came. And the science behind prescribed fires is so interesting!
I always thought it was a thing for accidental fires.
Yes, but he also stands for the idea that fire is something to be feared, which, when lands are properly managed and stewarded, is completely unnecessary as a stray spark or an unattended campfire wouldn't do any damage. But in an environment where burning isn't allowed, then messaging like smokey the bear becomes relevant. So as a result he now represents a society that has a suppression-dominant position towards fire.
Part of the issue is Smokey Bear tells people that only they can personally stop forest fires, which obfuscates the fact that policy and procedure play a major role in forest fires as well, such as whether the state implements controlled burns, it doesn't just involve the responsibility of individual citizens going camping or whatever
@@tysonasaurus6392 I don't know if it adds anything, but I don't remember the word "stop" being used? 😅 I remember him always saying "prevent", which makes it seem much more like individuals being mindful. You know, don't throw a cigarette butt down, stomp out your campfires, etc. prevent one from starting, and stopping one from spreading, seem like 2 different things to me lol
I agree. Like I think smokey the bear is more like "put our ur camp fires before u leave or don't play with fireworks in the woods" but I think the rest if the video was well done.
I studied ecology in college and I think we would benefit from hearing more indigenous voices in that field considering most of the ecology we were studying is about ecosystems on indigenous land and western academic study of ecology has only been around since the 70s which is a lot less time than indigenous people have been observing and studying the environment.
I had to wear the Smokey Bear costume at the 1995 New Mexico State Fair because I was a forester for the New Mexico Forestry Division, which manages Smokey Bear Park and Smokey Bear's remains in Capitan, New Mexico. Children loved Smokey Bear and are easily drawn to him without understanding his one-sided message. I, personally, loved setting the woods on fire and loved the result. Conversely, I hated putting out a perfectly good forest fire.
I grew up with Smokey the bear, and until this video had NO knowledge whatsoever of how indigenous people used control burns to maintain the forest. Thanks!!
More content about indigenous people and history please.
Soo completely love this ❤❤❤❤❤thanks for the respectful and truthful story❤❤❤❤
I know this isn't the point, but Dr. Adams is one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen.
I mean this with all respect, admiration, and appreciation.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and I pray that land stewardship is returned to the hands of indigenous peoples.
I love that yall are doing this! Awesome episode. 😊
The way First Nations and Native peoples were treated by the Colonizing of North America was disgusting. They were stripped of a beautiful and rich culture. Boarding schools,!or Residential Schools as they are known up here in Canada were not just a means for assimilation, but they did awful things behind closed doors. I don’t know what has been happening to hold past governments accountable for the past in the USA but I’m pretty aware of what’s happening here in Canada. The big thing happening right now is the properties where residential schools used to stand, are being scanned for unmarked graves. So far thousands of graves of children that attended these schools, and it is validating parents from years ago, whose children went to school and never made it home. And at the time they were ignored and it was swept under the carpet. I’m enjoying this series. I wish there was more like this for Canadian First Nations history.
Great Video. Thank you for producing this.
This is all the more important a topic these days, because I've also noticed a return to more traditional land management practices here in Europe as well. For decades, or maybe the past two centuries, many governments thought "we'll just do this or that sort of rigid-rules land management; this is the future, there is nothing the past could teach us", implemented various technocratic measures and legislation to support that decision-making... and decades later, people have realized that approach was very short-sighted.
Since I'm mentioning a similar revival of old, traditional land management techniques in Europe, techniques that were once dismissed and ridiculed as "antiquated" and "quaint", but have since been proven to be invaluable by proper researchers, would be methods like natural grazing of meadows by livestock (sometimes also basic hand-mowing of meadows with ordinary scythes), especially meadows around wetland areas. It's been proven that these so-called "old-fashioned" management techniques actually help to increase and preserve biodiversity, and even water retention capability of the local area. With grass on meadows, both artificially heavily-mowed-down grass and grass that has grown too tall and become overgrown with weeds, are two particular extremes you want to avoid. The meadows need a certain degree of equilibrium. By keeping the grass shorter, but at a natural height, via grazing-on-the-move by ungulates, or the occassional hand-mowing with a scythe, you can actually guarantee the increase in local insect, other invertebrate and bird biodiversity, and an increase in various herbaceous plant biodiversity. The livestock, or traditionally large wild ungulates, also provided fertilization for meadows, both in lowland and mountainous environments. All these meadow-related land management techniques have also been tried and proven in my own country, and they're nothing new. Even though decades of technocratically-minded governments had dismissed these as "the dated ways of ignorant peasants and rural types". Turns out, they were not ignorant at all. Same goes for Native American controlled burn techniques.
Long story short, a moderate degree of land management, as long as it fits the context of a particular ecosystem, and isn't about de-wilding an ecosystem (i.e. logging, monocultures in the agri and forestry sectors), can be very beneficial to a local environment. Whether it's controlled burns for overgrowth management, gradual mowing of meadows around wetlands with natural and low-tech means, etc., it works.
This in a way reminds me of when they planted pine trees in salt water on Cape Cod to study. I made a point to go down to the beach and speak to the people doing this. I said, how much money does this cost? Did you not learn when the Indigenous people of Cape Cod and the Islands told the pilgrims to replant when they cut the trees, specifically pine tree's?. As the tip of the Cape erodes every year, I hope people do not forget. One day most of the Cape will be under water, very sad, but foretold by knowledge.
I love this I’m so glad this is coming forward it’s time to reclaim ALL peoples histories🙌🏼♥️♥️♥️✊🏼
Ember is adorable.
Love this dude. More of these vids, please. PS: thanks for plugging Democracy Now!, they're badasses.
I've worked with an learned so much from Australian Aboriginals. We have a program call hotspots for proper ecological fire management. I've been a fireman for 25 yrs and been the equivalent to a US Smoke Jumper for 20 of those years of service. Listen and learn
I grew up near the Yurok and Hupa! The Hupa recently bought back (it bothers me that they had to buy it) ten thousand acres so they could demolish two dams! And the Klamath dam is coming down!
I had no idea about the reality behind Smokey. Hearing the explanation of TEK, that sounds like a MUCH smarter way to go about things.
Thanks for showing this y'all! Jake Kosek has a chapter about this phenomenon in his book "Understories" titled "Smokey the Bear is a Racist Pig."
However, having Dr. Adams to discuss indigenous techniques with TEK was a great and an extremely necessary expansion from what that book did not and could not discuss. Keep up the amazing work!!
I kinda like Smoky as a character, he just needs to learn and adapt just as the people who find forest management do. I like Ember the fox too, but I don’t think smoky needs to go.
Don't change Smokey
Mescalero apache reservation is still in the Lincoln wilderness. Beautiful area, but the fentanyl problem is crazy.
Thanks for a well researched and presented episode.
I learned a lot from it.
At first, it was "prevent forest fires", and somehow it got revised to "wildfires".... ? When? Why?
As to when, not sure. As to why, probably because old grazed lands full of invasive grasses and scrub brush lands are just as prone to fires, thus not limiting wildfires just to forests.
There are fire-prone ecosystems that aren't forests.
Good stuff to know. And at the end you warm your hands on light.
Thank you! Well presented and informative!
The policy of fire suppression in Western society arises from the myth that nature can be controlled. Ironically, trying to control nature through fire suppression has led to greater unpredictability.
The indigenous worldview emphasizes the dual nature, creative and destructive, of all forces. Fire can be a force for good as it warms homes and stimulates grasses, but it can also be immensely destructive. The role of humans is not to control nature, but to maintain a balance between these opposing forces.
For example, fire was used to create prairies to attract elk, deer, and other game. In contrast, fire was used by the colonists to create uniformity - pastures, cropland, plantations.
Indigenous people skillfully modified the fire regime to create to create a range of forest openings in many different stages of postfire succession, enhancing diversity and yield of game, berries, root crops, edible seeds, and medicinal plants.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Frank Kawaha Lake. “The Role of Indigenous Burning in Land Management”
This is an exceptionally good video. I've got nothing to add, just want to increase engagement metrics because the video deserves it.
And I had 1 stuffed animal as a toddler, we were poor, Native American Sharecropper Family, but Smokey the Bear was that stuffed animal. Ironic I know
That is fascinating, I had no idea about any of that. Yeah I agree that it would be great to have people who know about the land and how to take care of it taking care of it.
I’ve read so many articles of how dead fall and underbrush have piled up in California from decades of neglect and ridiculous regulations, which have been major contributors to the strength of the wildfires on the West Coast. Even some places like the military bases here in the south (Fort Benning and Fort Stewart), they do controlled burns every year or so. It does affect quality, but it helps with the regulating of wildfires.
What a wonderful video.
As a Mainer, fire = wild blueberries. I'm all about it
Dawning of a NewAge - the OldWayz are returning when our World need All of Us to Be Are Best !🇨🇦
Ironically even Europe is facing the same issues with ignoring traditional forrest management
Thank you for sharing.
I'm curious how this would work on a large scale? If we practiced prescribed burning on a scale necessary to avoid impacts on human settlement, would the increase in greenhouse gasses be worth it?
I would think prescribed burns would result in fewer total acres burned, especially with some of the massive fires we’ve had the last few years. It would probably reduce the number of homes burned, too, which produces more dangerous chemicals than brush and trees.
learned something today. many thanks
Thank you for this. I recommend reading The Big Burn. It gives some insight into US federal policy as well.
I would also add that all native peoples living in non equatorial forest areas used control burns as a way to create pasture, land and cropland. Pasture land because when you have just forests and no pastures, there's Very little game compared to when you have large, open pasture areas where rumornance can come and gather in large flocks or herds.
Great video! Thank you for teaching us
Wow..powerful history!
It's almost as if you listen to the land, it'll guide you what to do.
People wonder how great knowledge is lost to time...
I'm glad the original knowledge of the land is finally fighting back against the propaganda
Not even done and put a tear to my eye
Great episode.
The problem is people going out into the woods and carelessly causing fires. That’s what Smokey was designed to fight against. The practice of prescribed burning vs full suppression has nothing to do with the mascot.
I’m sure indigenous peoples were responsible with fire outside of prescribed burns. You don’t go out on a super windy day after a month of hot, dry conditions, and try a prescribed burn.
Even today, if a fire is burning in a remote area and not threatening structures, the focus of firefighting response is containment, rather than suppression.
Except fire suppression (and expanding wildlands-urban interfaces) create the fuel conditions in which accidental ignitions become more hazardous and costly…
Anybody notice, at least in oregon, the smokey bear message is now only you can prevent human caused wild fires, instead of blanket forest fires. Specifying, careless acts and separating them from prescribed burns and natural wildfires.
When I first learned about prescribed fires, I mistakenly believed it was a novel and perhaps dangerous approach to forest management. Like, this is someone's crazy idea that should go away. We need more research before we even begin this insane idea of lighting fires, intentionally!
Yeah, I was raised on Smokey The Bear ads telling us forest fires are never, ever good.
Such a good video ❤
In Paradise (which was devastated by the Camp Fire in in 2018), they have Wildfire Ready Raccoon. He's kind of scary but at least he's pro putting good fire on the ground. Although I think making a wildfire Ready Raccon rap set to the theme of Gangsta's Paradise was a little too soon...
Thanks for sharing
Thinking back to how I grew to prefer the self checkout, I have to suspect now that all the stupidity we were constantly dealing with when using the Walmart manned cashier lanes was probably intentional - to push us to the U-scans. Having to deal with double-scanned item overcharges every single time a cashier scanned my stuff only to tell me, “You’ll have to go to the customer services desk and have them fix it”, then having to go wait in yet another line after checking out to make some other employee correct the mistakes of their cashiers got to be infuriating. So when U-scans multiplied I was glad to finally have a competent person scanning my groceries. In hindsight maybe that was their goal - to make the self checkout more attractive.
Thanks so much for this video, power to the people ✊🏾
Thank You, great video
Thank you for preserving Indigenous cultures and passing it on.
Very much the Australian experience also. The whole "Terra Nullis" rubbish has a lot to answer for.
I first learned about the benefits (in-depth) of prescribed burns back when I was going to UCF; there, they tried doing as many prescribed burns in their Arboretum as they could.
A question for you to share, ponder, and perhaps work with. Is it possible for the Yurok to petition Gov. Newsom to task the CCC (California Conservation Corp) to both fund and assist the Yurok with re-establishing their TEK?
Some of this was talked about in the book Paradise by Lizzie Johnson. She talks aboit the Konkow people, their legends and their fire management.
This video's use of smoking the bear is clickbait. The fact of the matter is the original catchphrase was smokey, says care will prevent nine out of ten forest fires, and then in nineteen forty seven, it's shifted to remember only you can prevent forest fires. Nothing about wildfires Until 2001, Which was mainly as a response to the increased number of wildfires on grasslands and forests and mixed use areas due to encroachment by humans and increasing interactions that involve fire potential, but also as a response to increase droughts and firepron.Ecological situations because of climate change and global heating