Climate Resilience through Ecocultural Stewardship: The 2024 Fires and California Indigenous Peoples

American Indian Airwaves

As of September 10th, 2024 (Tuesdays), estimates are that the 2024 fires have burned 2,247,356 acres with seventy-one (71) large active fires presently active across Turtle Island (the United States) such as in the politically defined borders of California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming. In California alone, there are approximately more than twenty (20) active fires and thousands of people are currently under mandatory evacuation orders in numerous counties such as Lake County, Orange County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, and within the foothills of the Los Angeles National Forest. Today on American Indian Airwaves our guest discusses the 2024 fires impact on California Indigenous peoples, nations, and their homelands; how the historical and contemporary legacies of settler colonial violence contributes to the present form of the climate crises, how Indigenous relations and cultural sustainability for future generations face insurmountable and compounded risks provided the perpetrators and collaborators of the climate crises maintain their violent behaviors and operations, and how traditional forms of Indigenous fire-management practices are not only different compared to common United States fire management practices, but also with Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), Indigenous Stewardship (IS), along with climate resilience through ecocultural stewardship, new possibilities for reindigenizing Mother Earth, centering and balancing the trajectory for cultural sustainability, and healing are tenable. In fact, many Native American nations, organizations, and communities within the state of California are already performing the hard work of Indigenous Stewardship while facing settler colonial obstacles, yet they provide direction for the future. All this and more is covered on today’s episode of American Indian Airwaves. Guests: o Don Hankins (Miwok Nation), Professor of Geography and Planning at California State University, Chico State, co-founder of the Indigenous Stewardship Network (https://www.indigenousstewardship.org), and author and contributing author of numerous publications such as “Climate Resilience through Ecocultural Stewardship” (2024), and “Realignment of Federal Environmental Policies to Recognize Fire’s Role” (2024). Archived AIA programs are on Soundcloud at: https://soundcloud.com/burntswamp American Indian Airwaves streams on over ten podcasting platforms such as Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, Audible, Backtracks.fm, Gaana, Google Podcast, Fyyd, iHeart Media, Mixcloud, Player.fm, Podbay.fm, Podcast Republic, SoundCloud, Spotify, Tunein, YouTube, and more