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1. Embed this notice
   mekka okereke :verified: (mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 09:14:01 JST mekka okereke :verified:

   Periodic reminder of the Native American approach to minimizing the power of forest fires.

   They say the California forests are not "natural." They were planted by humans, 10,000 to 20,000 years ago.

   They learned that if you don't do controlled burns, that in
   ~100 years, you get fire tornadoes.😬

   https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mby72d2Vz30

   It's difficult for many US people to accept that native Americans planted entire forests. They seem too big.

   But just in the past 20 years, we've seen multiple examples in many countries, of one individual human creating entire forests. In India. Brazil. Indonesia. China. Etc.

   Like this dude:

   https://youtube.com/shorts/APL35AVtWqM?si=Zoqo8tJnKD4ptwuN

   The Karuk tribe says, "Making forests is easy! Just plant a few trees every day for a few years. But some years are drier, hotter, and windier. You can't let fuel build up. If you don't do controlled burns, then 1 year within about 100, you will pay a terrible price. The sky will turn red."

   Indigenous people learned this the hard way when they were starting out planting forests. They said that the biggest fires crossed entire rivers by raining burning embers for miles, and "created their own weather of wind and lightning." Entire villages disappeared.

   Of course we didn't believe them.

   https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q92H5PHsWQY

   I guess what I'm saying is, all those feel good videos of people planting entire forests in Brazil and India and China and Mexico etc, are probably making the same mistake that indigenous people in those same places made *checks notes* 20,000 years ago, before they figured it out.

   Yes, we do some burns. No, we don't do enough. There's still too much fuel.

   And we stopped burns for the better part of the past 100 years. We started limited burns again in large part due to the advocacy of people like Dr. Frank Lake, a Karuk person who also has a PhD in Environmental Sciences.👍🏿

   https://research.fs.usda.gov/about/people/franklake#orgs-tab

   To put it in perspective, in 2023, California treated 700,000 acres. That's a lot! But California has ~33 million acres of forest.🤯

   For much of the past 20,000 years, many parts of that 33 million acres were treated regularly. Then for the most recent 100 years, they were mostly not treated at all.

   https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/01/08/california-forest-management-hotter-drier-climate/

   • Rich Felker and Rocketman repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Insecurity Princess 🌈💖🔥 (saraislet@infosec.exchange)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 09:25:43 JST Insecurity Princess 🌈💖🔥

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke In the Midwest, we do controlled burns of prairie land every year, because that's what we learned from Native American experience and practices.

     It's mind boggling that despite the obvious price of not doing this, Western US states are overall massively underinvested in managing our forests

   • Embed this notice
     cliffle@hachyderm.io's status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 09:31:23 JST cliffle

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke there's also increasing evidence (I don't have the study at hand, but I could probably track it down if you haven't seen it) that regions with high "natural" biodiversity in the Amazon are actually heavily cultivated areas, maintained over thousands and thousands of years by the folks living there.

     (Who, incidentally, have been saying that the whole time.)

     The forests just don't look like European-style row crops, so we don't see them.

     mekka okereke :verified: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     rainynight65 (rainynight65@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 09:33:58 JST rainynight65

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke And lately, the problem with controlled burns is that the window to do them safely in is getting tighter every year (I wonder why (no I don't)). Even if you had the manpower and resources to do all the preventative burn-offs you needed to do, you probably still couldn't do it due to unfavourable weather conditions.

     My wife is involved with these kind of burns in a small area here in Queensland, AU. Even they haven't been able to do as much as they reasonably needed this past year.

     mekka okereke :verified: and Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Canageek (canageek@wandering.shop)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 10:32:30 JST Canageek

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke In BC they put out news articles every season on how we have messed up the forests for the last 100 years by putting EVERY fire out, leading to really bad fuel build up.

   • Embed this notice
     mekka okereke :verified: (mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 11:11:58 JST mekka okereke :verified:

     in reply to

     • Subterfuge

     @Subterfuge

     If someone looks at a corn field and says "That's not natural! A farmer planted that!"

     I could say, "What you say is misleading. That field contained plants before the farmer arrived. Maize predates American farming. You should only say that the farmer shaped the plants that are available now."

     I don't feel like going deep into pedantry or having a back and forth on this, so I'll just say that I agree with this part of your statement:
     "Native Americans reshaped the forests and managed the burns which were already happening."

   • Embed this notice
     Subterfuge (subterfuge@dice.camp)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 11:11:59 JST Subterfuge

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke what you say is misleading.

     California’s forests predate native americans.

     Native Americans reshaped the forests and managed the burns which were already happening.

   • Embed this notice
     Xeon² (izaya@social.shadowkat.net)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 11:13:36 JST Xeon²

     in reply to
     @mekkaokereke Australia has been ignoring the same advice and it shows :akko_badday: we even have types of trees and plants that *depend* on forest fires to propagate.
   • Embed this notice
     Yellow Readis (yellowreadis@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 11:13:44 JST Yellow Readis

     in reply to

     • Don Ray

     @donray @mekkaokereke I am still blown away that anyone would mass plant eucalypts like they have. I'm Aussie, and stuffing around with eucalypts and not doing enough controlled burns is a recipe for disaster. We still don't do enough, but I don't understand doing so little. There are rules in rural areas here on keeping areas clear near homes and building standards on fire-proofing. Eucalypts are a fact of life here, and necessary for wildlife, our very own oil-filled exploding trees. :/

     mekka okereke :verified: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Don Ray (donray@mastodon.online)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 11:13:45 JST Don Ray

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke

     An additional consideration is to use native species that are not planted as a monoculture.

     Eucalyptus from Australia has been planted in many countries, and unfortunately it crowds out native species and burns like a torch.

     Portugal has had some bad experiences with eucalyptus. Chile has recently ceased to plant it in reforestation programs.
     https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/24/eucalyptus-plantations-are-expanding-and-being-blamed-for-devastation-pedrogao-grande-aoe

     mekka okereke :verified: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Andrew Reid (reid@mastodon.cloud)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 11:13:57 JST Andrew Reid

     in reply to

     • cliffle

     @cliffle @mekkaokereke

     I'm pretty sure I've heard of this too, in a slightly different form -- I've seen a claim that there are patches of the Amazon that have anomalously high densities of human-edible plants, which are thought to be a botanical remnant of prior cultivation.

     I've never actually run it down for critical assessment.

     Edit to add, might be this one (Nature paywall, but abstract is readable):

     https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-018-0205-y

   • Embed this notice
     Bai Shen (baishen@mastodon.online)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 11:18:58 JST Bai Shen

     in reply to

     • rainynight65

     @rainynight65 @mekkaokereke I just saw today someone posting about places using goats to help clear things when it's not safe to do a burn. Goat mowers ftw. :⁠-⁠)

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     mekka okereke :verified: (mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 11:21:08 JST mekka okereke :verified:

     in reply to

     • Don Ray
     • Yellow Readis

     @donray @YellowReadis

     Now we need to introduce Koalas to eat the eucalyptus. 🐨

     Look, I don't like it any more than you do! But we can't go backwards now. Only forwards to Koala town!

   • Embed this notice
     Don Ray (donray@mastodon.online)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 11:21:09 JST Don Ray

     in reply to

     • Yellow Readis

     @YellowReadis @mekkaokereke
     '
     Interesting. And, yes, wildlife is another reason to plant native trees. Apparently, outside of Australia, eucalyptus is not good for most wild critters.

     There are eucalyptus plantations in California, but I don't know if they have caused a lot of trouble there.

   • Embed this notice
     Yellow Readis (yellowreadis@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 11:55:57 JST Yellow Readis

     in reply to

     • Don Ray

     @mekkaokereke @donray There are many Indigenous communities here that are also trying to promote traditional fire management practices. Settlers arriving initially described the landscape as park-like, and you could walk dozens of kilometres through Eucalypt forests with short grass. It was fire-stick farming - new grass encouraged kangaroos into the area for hunting. The whole landscape was a garden 40-60 thousand years old. We are only now slowly bringing this back. Many plants here only germinate after fire, and the adult trees are designed to burn at least the outer bark. (Alas on koalas, they are very fussy, and only like certain eucalpts in the right mix - queens of the bush, with similar regal appetites.)

   • Embed this notice
     klausfiend (klausfiend@dcerberus.com)'s status on Friday, 10-Jan-2025 12:35:33 JST klausfiend

     in reply to

     • Bai Shen
     • rainynight65

     @baishen @rainynight65 @mekkaokereke From what I've read, goats are a great fire risk reduction strategy.

   • Embed this notice
     Remi Mercier (remi@ruby.social)'s status on Saturday, 11-Jan-2025 02:06:58 JST Remi Mercier

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke Can't find the source, since it's been a while I read it (might in a Jared Diamond book), but I remember it's well documented through dendrochronoly that for millenias forests burned regularly, effectively removing the undergrowth and preventing *massive* fires.

     When people started building houses near/in forests, they started controlling fires more, and the undergrowth kept growing until it fueled more sporadic but bigger fires.

     mekka okereke :verified: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Mark Sylor (msylor@noc.social)'s status on Saturday, 11-Jan-2025 10:44:05 JST Mark Sylor

     in reply to

     • Remi Mercier

     @remi @mekkaokereke
     There’s a fairly long discussion of how Native Americans used controlled burns in the book 1491, by Charles G. Mann. The Pilgrims were amazed the the forests of the Dawnland were so open, like an English park. All a result of the Natives management of the forests.

     mekka okereke :verified: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Paul_IPv6 (paul_ipv6@infosec.exchange)'s status on Saturday, 11-Jan-2025 10:53:10 JST Paul_IPv6

     in reply to

     • Mark Sylor
     • Remi Mercier

     @msylor @remi @mekkaokereke

     amazing what you can do when you view yourselves as stewards and caretakers of the land and not owners/exploiters of the land...

   • Embed this notice
     Different Than (guyjantic@infosec.exchange)'s status on Saturday, 11-Jan-2025 14:34:01 JST Different Than

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke This is wonderful and interesting information!

     "It's difficult for many US people to accept that native Americans planted entire forests."

     I'm reminded that (IIRC) estimates are that 50% to 90% (!!!) of Native Americans in the Americas were killed, the vast majority by disease, within the first century or two after Europeans arrived. Hernán de Soto documented dozens or hundreds of sophisticated, populous walled cities on his journey across what is now the US south. Archaeology tells us vast civilizations existed in North, Central, and South America hundreds to thousands of years ago.

     According to one author (I'm trying to remember who), the social landscape of Native Americans in North America in the 1600s-1700s was not some long-term state; it was the result of the *majority* of people dying over the previous century or so from disease. Entire civilizations had virtually disappeared, leaving whatever existed when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

     Native American stories about golden periods in their collective past are probably based on reality. There seems little doubt that a huge proportion (possibly the majority) of the jungle forests of central and south America are the result of aggressive human intervention, now grown wild after a near-extinction event for the humans. The evidence certainly seems consistent with the idea that something similar was happening in big parts of North America, as well.

     mekka okereke :verified: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     JohnMashey (johnmashey@mstdn.social)'s status on Saturday, 11-Jan-2025 16:06:05 JST JohnMashey

     in reply to

     • Different Than

     @guyjantic @mekkaokereke
     Bill Ruddiman, “Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum” (2005).
     Then: Koch, et al(2019), 90% die-off 1500-1610, contributing to unique in last 2000 years 7-10PPM drop in CO2, due to reforestration.

     https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379118307261

   • Embed this notice
     Ian Betteridge (ianb@mastodon.well.com)'s status on Saturday, 11-Jan-2025 19:29:30 JST Ian Betteridge

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke When my old boss died, he left pretty-much the whole of his fortune to the charity he founded which had been planting a new forest.

     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10921261/Felix-Dennis-leaves-500-million-fortune-to-his-forest.html

   • Embed this notice
     Artemis (artemis@dice.camp)'s status on Sunday, 12-Jan-2025 01:41:50 JST Artemis

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke
     I am angry every day that the Europeans showed up to this continent and were like "look at this totally untouched, pristine wilderness!" when they were in fact looking at the most beautifully maintained giant garden the world has ever seen.

     mekka okereke :verified: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Paul_IPv6 (paul_ipv6@infosec.exchange)'s status on Sunday, 12-Jan-2025 01:42:20 JST Paul_IPv6

     in reply to

     • Don Ray
     • Yellow Readis

     @YellowReadis @donray @mekkaokereke

     lake tahoe had a problem where they weren't allowing controlled burns because they were more concerned with erosion making the lake muddy. wound up with a massive fire in south lake tahoe from all the overgrown underbrush, etc.

   • Embed this notice
     Kyle Montanio (fantasticaleconomics@geekdom.social)'s status on Sunday, 12-Jan-2025 01:43:40 JST Kyle Montanio

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke

     Fully agree. One issue we need overcome with controlled burns is liability. When groups, including governments, engage in controlled burns, they are often financially responsible for any damages that occur.

     Even though these damages are orders of magnitude less than what we see without action, the personal costs of this liability can be wildly prohibative.

     I think this was discussed in Robin Wall Kimmerer's "Braiding Sweetgrass" but I may be misremembering.

   • Embed this notice
     GhostOnTheHalfShell (ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai)'s status on Sunday, 12-Jan-2025 01:43:45 JST GhostOnTheHalfShell

     in reply to

     • Don Ray
     • Glowing Cat of the Nuclear Wastelands
     • Yellow Readis

     @deathkitten @mekkaokereke @donray @YellowReadis

     For those of us going about our lives that day it was unbelievable. I was driving to my mom‘s, on the Concord side of the hills, from the Bay Area and marveling at the rainfall of ash. I first didn’t understand, then I saw the hills across the bay

   • Embed this notice
     Glowing Cat of the Nuclear Wastelands (deathkitten@firetribe.org)'s status on Sunday, 12-Jan-2025 01:44:05 JST Glowing Cat of the Nuclear Wastelands

     in reply to

     • Don Ray
     • Yellow Readis

     @YellowReadis@mathstodon.xyz @donray@mastodon.online @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io Oh FSM, the eucalyptus was one of the factors that made the Oakland firestorm in '91 so insane. It's considered an invasive species here, but it is everywhere all around the bay.
     
     I was a little kid at the time, but this wasn't long after my parents had bought a house, and we ended up hosting my Aunt, Uncle, cousin, and their pet pot belly pig, as well as a family they were neighbors with. The neighbor family lost their home, my third grade teacher lost her home. The Aunt, Uncle, and cousin who stayed with us were like a block or so down from the fire line. Another Aunt and Uncle were like three houses down from the fire line elsewhere in the hills, and their neighbor across the street had all their windows opened when they evacuated, so the smoke damage ruined the inside of that house. My grandparents were a couple blocks away from the fire line in another part of the hills.
     
     Fuck, it's crazy to think it's been over thirty years since then. I think Oakland Fire still remembers the lesson from that, but it's probably been long enough that home owners in the hills aren't doing the clearing and maintenance they should be. I wonder how many people who live in the Oakland hills now lived there at the time and remember?

     mekka okereke :verified: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     MicronH⚖️😷 (impy@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 12-Jan-2025 02:30:58 JST MicronH⚖️😷

     in reply to

     • Artemis

     @artemis @mekkaokereke The land was well-tended then and ravaged ever since though are some successful movements now to restore that traditional balance #Community

   • Embed this notice
     Colinaut (colinaut@dice.camp)'s status on Sunday, 12-Jan-2025 03:12:18 JST Colinaut

     in reply to

     • Different Than

     @guyjantic @mekkaokereke the book “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity” is excellent for its discussion of the sophistication and variety of early civilizations — Native Americans and others.

   • Embed this notice
     FoolishOwl (foolishowl@social.coop)'s status on Sunday, 12-Jan-2025 04:08:58 JST FoolishOwl

     in reply to

     • Different Than

     @guyjantic @mekkaokereke Years ago I was listening to a Democracy Now interview with a Deep Green environmentalist, who went on about (European) explorers in North America encountering dense populations of wildlife; he kept repeating, "rivers so full of fish that you could walk across them".

     I thought, that doesn't sound like a lost paradise. That sounds like an ecosystem out of balance because of the sudden disappearance of a predator species.

     Humans are part of ecosystems, not alien to them.