LIGHTENING THE LAND: Restoring Balance and the Case for Indigenous Fire Management – Woodward & Co.
October 21, 2024
Canada faces an escalating wildfire crisis. Year after year, uncontrolled flames consume vast landscapes and jeopardize the livelihoods of countless people and their communities. In 2023, 2.84 million hectares of forest and land burned in British Columbia alone—the worst in the province’s recorded history.[1] This growing threat stands in stark contrast to the period before colonial disruption, when Indigenous peoples expertly managed the land through cultural burning. These deliberate, small-scale fires effectively cleared underbrush, nurtured biodiversity and ultimately fortified ecosystems against larger, more destructive wildfires.
In this context, fire was not an enemy to be feared but an effective stewardship tool. Indeed, the Tsilhqot’in word for fire translates to “lightening the load off the land.” Yet, as colonialism tightened its grip over the Nation, cultural burning was not only disrupted but systematically dismantled, severing a relationship with fire that had successfully sustained the ecosystem for thousands of years. Worse still, studies predict a dramatic increase in forest fires for First Nation communities by the end of the 21st century, with major consequences such as structural and cultural losses, land alterations, and inherent social disruption.[2]
