Prescribed Burn Program Best Practices For Southern Michigan: From Indigenous Partnerships to Communication & Burn Plans

• Main Authors: Baird, Allegra, McAtee, Anna, Salgado, Vincent, Woodruff, Foster
• Other Authors: Schueller, Shelia
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: fire science; land stewardship; prescribed burns; traditional knowledge; communication and outreach; anishina*
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/176163; https://doi.org/10.7302/7102

Prescribed burning is an important tool for managing diverse landscapes to meet site goals. For a land stewardship organization to establish or update a comprehensive burn program, they must respectfully acknowledge and incorporate the long and complex Indigenous history associated with fire, build successful partnerships and community engagement, and employ best available fire science in planning prescribed burns. Gathering and applying all of the relevant information, processes, and protocols can be a major challenge, especially for organizations with limited resources and capacity. Working together with the Southeast Michigan Land Conservancy (SMLC), we address these needs for a broader audience of southern Michigan land stewards. Specifically, we synthesized a variety of sources and perspectives to provide: 1) A deep understanding not just of fire history in Southern Michigan, but also of the culture, rights, knowledges, and histories of the Anishinaabeg in order to build respectful and informed fire reintroduction partnerships. 2) Guidance and recommendations to engage, communicate, and build trust with a variety of stakeholders, partners, and rights holders. 3) Materials and recommendations to develop an effective and informed Burn Plan, best available information on invasive species, and approaches to increase pyrodiversity. Together, these resources can increase the capacity of any entity to improve or develop their burn program. UNDERSTANDING ANISHINAABE CULTURES AND THEIR HISTORICAL AND CONTINUED FIRE PRACTICES To better educate local practitioners on fire ecology and Tribal entities, we reviewed three main fields: 1) the history of fire use within Southern Michigan, 2) Tribal societal structure and dynamics, and 3) the history of Tribes during European settlement. These three areas of focus provide a framework for establishing partnerships with neighboring Indigenous Tribes that is grounded in a deep understanding of cultural fire, Tribal diversity, Traditional knowledge and Tribal sovereignty. By ...