Jared Dahl Aldern

Mired in tactics, need more adaptive strategy

With reforms in place, California’s Karuk Tribe works to reestablish cultural burning as 'common practice' For millennia, Indigenous peoples have intentionally set fires to care for the land. Colonization and fire exclusion largely put an end to those practices, though the tradition endured. Now, Californi...

Great article by @murphywoodhouse.bsky.social of @boisestatepublicradio.org! www.boisestatepublicradio.org! www.boisestatepublicradio.org/environment/...

“The individual details will need to be worked out with the agencies and the employees.”

It should be clear USDA leadership is doing what it wants, not what Congress wants.

Threatening to close offices pushes workers into lateral reassignments, demotions, or leaving.

Similar outcome as a RIF.

Agency, Resistance, Persistence This month, the California History-Social Science Project invited Brianna Tafolla Rivière to write a guest post about bringing indigenous history into your classroom. Brianna is a historian and PhD ca...

This is good
@britafollariviere.bsky.social

Senate Committee Advances Bipartisan Shadow Wolves Improvement Act to Boost Tribal Border Security and Law Enforcement Careers On Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously advanced the Shadow Wolves Improvement Act, a bipartisan bill introduced by U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego . The legi...

Sounds better than a wall. “The Shadow Wolves are a specialized unit composed of members of the Tohono O’odham Nation… They are highly skilled in tracking smugglers who attempt to move illegal goods through tribal lands, drawing on deep cultural and geographic knowledge.”

Burning with purpose: Restoring grasslands the traditional way — TANKA FUND Prescribed fire has long been used by Indigenous communities to renew grasslands and support the animals and people who depend on them. At Tanka Fund, Range Ecologist Janét Moore works with ranchers...

#BuffaloRestoration burns can get intense: “Combating woody encroachment means hotter burns. That requires wider firebreaks, more suppression equipment, and good coordination.”

www.tankafund.org/our-stories/...

Thank you!

Congratulations, Jared (and contributors)!
We're looking forward to bringing this work to publication in Spring 2026.‼️Keep your eyes peeled for more news on the book this fall! 👀👀

It's a great volume and I can't wait to launch it into the world! Books available in the spring, up for pre-order later this fall.

Outcry as US agriculture department to cut salaries and relocate staff Experts warn ‘half-baked’ restructuring will further erode support for US farmers and hamper wildfire response

“the consolidation of USFS research stations could be problematic because each does fire research and has a focus specific to the landscapes where the station is housed.

“‘This is another example of decisions being made by people who haven’t bothered to learn or understand the work.’”

Been working on it for a few years now, and I’m excited to see an anthology I’m co-editing move into production with Oregon State University Press. The topic is Indigenous fire and ecological partnerships. Fourteen chapters with a total of nearly fifty contributors. Pre-orders to start this fall!

Johnson Ranch Open Space Cultural Burn yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini (ytt) Northern Chumash Tribe brings back tinɨtʸu, "Good Fire" to ancestral homelands in a collaborative effort

Great story-map here. storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/a58f...

Great, thanks, I downloaded it from research gate. 👍

I’d love to read it! Is there a pdf available somewhere?

On Controlling Fire, New Lessons from a Deep Indigenous Past For centuries, the Native people of North America used controlled burns to manage the continent's forests. In an e360 interview, ecologist Lori Daniels talks about the long history of Indigenous burni...

“There’s a school of thought that you can just put a fence around a forest and keep people out, and it will be protected, which is a very old-school view, a very colonial view. It comes from this idea that we came to a land that was ‘empty’ and there for the taking.”

California has the second highest amount of Forest Service land (after Alaska) and the highest number of National Forests in the U.S. and comprises almost the entire Pacific Southwest Region (along with Hawaii).

Now the closest regional office/"hub" will be Salt Lake City, UT.
🙃

Forest Service to Abandon Nine Regional Offices - Mountain Journal As Washington continues slash-and-burn policies for federal agencies, USDA announces consolidation of offices responsible for 193 million acres of public land

“The Forest Service will phase out the nine Regional Offices over the next year.” mountainjournal.org/forest-servi...

Introducing the Chumash Good Fire Project The new initiative is bringing back cultural burns to indigenous lands.

“hundreds of hours of interviews with fire ecologists, botanists, members of County Fire, policymakers, and more were compiled to make a comprehensive guide of considerations and plans to bring back Chumash cultural fire.” www.independent.com/2025/07/16/i...

Rebirth Through Fire - Webinar — Tongva.Land

Rebirth through Fire — webinar www.tongva.land/rebirth-thro...

Sierra National Forest : Press Release - Max Fire Update for July 17, 2025 Fire crews are actively building and strengthening direct containment lines around the fire.

#MaxFire update www.fs.usda.gov/r05/sierra/n...

Cultural and cool burn workshop to benefit koala habitat in Port Stephens 'It's tapping into generations of wisdom, and it helps us get the best possible results for our local...

Partnership in coastal New South Wales, Australia: “The project is part of a number of on-ground burns in collaboration with Worimi Local Aboriginal Land Council, Bindelong Aboriginal Corporation Cool Burn Fire and Ecology, Hunter Local Land Services, and local members of the Rural Fire Service.”

iPhone weather app showing a current temperature of 91 degrees Fahrenheit, an expected high of 97, and a low of 66.

When you live in Fresno it can be a little difficult to explain to people from out of the area what a relief a 97° day can be in July.

“GOP senators also raised qualms during a hearing about how eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would impact rural communities and emergency alert systems.”

So… they’ve decided to continue funding research and they’re shelving the idea of creating a new wildfire agency.

Miccosukee Tribe Joins Lawsuit Against State of Florida & Federal Government Over "Alligator Alcatraz" Breaking News. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida is filing suit as an intervening plaintiff in the case brought by Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Earthju...

“Contrary to claims that Big Cypress is an uninhabited wilderness of alligators and pythons, it is, in fact, traditional Tribal homeland—home to fifteen active Miccosukee and Seminole villages…This landscape has provided safety and sustenance for generations of Miccosukee and Seminole people.”

A tribe in Florida joins the fight against the "Alligator Alcatraz" immigrant detention center The Miccosuki tribe alleges that both state and federal agents failed to conduct an environmental review of what the camp would to the Everglades.

“According to Osecola, since the facility’s operation began, tribal members have been restricted from gathering plants and roots for uses such as medicine. ‘Obviously, that’s not an option for us right now,” he said. ‘At the moment, it’s the first time we’ve ever seen gates like that there…’”

I like Abuela Lucinda Vásquez Morales’s list of the purposes of burning: to protect, strengthen, teach, feed, heal. Seems a good motto. Also how she & Maria Meza say “how important it is that Indigenous Women be officially recognized for their role as the leaders in these processes and practices.”

Watch Duty - Wildfire Maps & Alerts Real-time information about wildfire and firefighting efforts nearby

Wildfire near Haslett Basin, where SSBC burned piles across ~50 acres last year. share.watchduty.org/i/55637?ts=1...

Good read, you can’t just take thousands of years of cultural practice from a place without impacts. We must bring fire back to the people. We must perpetuate the practices that currently declining species have come to depend. We must revitalize our indigenous knowledge, practice, and belief systems

The Wildland Cultural Interface (WCI — pronounced “wiki,” maybe?) is as economically significant and as deserving of protection as the WUI.