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Comment by sakopov | Hacker News Reader

Controlled burns is a very old practice. So old, in fact, that Native American tribes have used it for centuries to prevent catastrophic wild fires in North America.

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Though they did it for deer and preferred plant habitat I think.

Supposedly. In my readings the evidence is thin on this oft-repeated claim.

The (US) National Park Service disagrees with you, so much so that in some places they hire native elders to help them with controlled burns. They call the practices "cultural burning". They were done for many purposes, over millenia.

See https://www.nps.gov/subjects/fire/indigenous-fire-practices-...

> The (US) National Park Service disagrees with you, so much so that in some places they hire native elders to help them with controlled burns. They call the practices "cultural burning".

But that can only be justified by a raw appeal to public relations. No native elder has any relevant experience today.

The small tribes of the northwest might have used fire for clearing land in their immediate area but there is no evidence that they were managing hundreds of thousands of acres of forests in order to reduce large wildfires.

According to the research done by Charles Mann in 1491, the indigenous population used fire to drive prey into hunting zones. I believe he even presents the theory that is what created the grassland plains across the central US. He presents quite a bit of evidence from primary sources.

I’m not a historical scholar and so maybe his evidence is “bunk”, but his work seems to be very well received in academic circles (unlike say Graham Hitchcock who is seen as more of a Malcolm Gladwell type).

I’m surprised a study from before the Colombian exchange is still relevant in ecology.

Most of the area in between the Mississippi and the west coast doesn’t get enough precipitation to support trees. I don’t think that was generally understood until Powell’s survey a couple hundred years later.

Graham Hancock, I think you mean.

Most old growth trees are gone. He gave proof they used controlled burns. Where is the evidence for the claim it's only ""small"" tribes?

There were lots of tribes though, so it probably added up to a humongous area.

Yeah it’s one of those things that kind of sits uncomfortably in the “native Americans were wise nature wizards and we have to unlearn our toxic western industrial capitalist beliefs in order to rediscover their hidden mystical wisdom to save the planet” territory

Like it’s a good story, and it’s true to some degree, but the pageantry around the language people use when treating it is… I dunno it just still sounds like gross Cowboys-and-Indians prose.

Native Americans were wise natural wizards.... but it was the Native American Beavers[1,2] doing the work, not the people.

[1] https://kingcounty.gov/en/legacy/services/environment/animal...

[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-beavers-shape...

Very interesting, could you point us to some further reading?

Stephen Pyne has written a few books about this [1] and given talks (this one is very good [2]

[1] https://www.stephenpyne.com/works.htm [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zP7MD2y7T8

Your video [2] does not support the claim that the early Americans did not use prescribed fire. Discussion starts around 50:00.

Well, "had used it for centuries..."

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