Partners

Muskrats and Fire

An outreach program that describes how indigenous communities use fire to manage wetland ecosystems
Organization:
Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation
Years:
2019
Location:
Cumberland House, Saskatchewan River Delta
Ecosystem Based Management:
Partners: Neighbours
Stakeholder Engagement
Partners: Role of Regulators
This project aims to influence regulators
Process: Operational Tools
There is much to be learned from Indigenous Peoples' use of fire
Image from the cover of "Muskrats and Fire"
Muskrats and Fire cover image credit: Michela Carrière

Overview

Taking action on EBM is about the big and little things. Indigenous communities have been using fire for millennia to manage landscapes so that the ecosystem provides important goods and services. River deltas, an important source of fur bearing mammals, are more productive if they are burned seasonally. This is an oral history project that restores this practice, the culture and the ecosystems that serve it.

Research shows that Indigenous people shaped the landscape of North America with fire. Indigenous oral histories and western researchers tells how the Indigenous peoples’ practice of setting fires affected wildlife...
A page from the Muskrats and Fire book

Image credit: Michela Carrière

This is a story about the outcomes of my research...
A muskrat

Photo credit: Mathias Elle, Unsplash.com

Innovation

This was a community-based, educational research project that resulted in an illustrated book with school children as an audience. So often the outcome of forestry research is a dry report that speaks to other foresters and perhaps government policy makers. But Renée Carrière knew a different, important group. Understanding that the connection between Indigenous practices and fire were getting lost, she designed her outreach to renew that connection, using a simple story that would reach a critical audience: the Indigenous youth who live in western Canada’s river deltas.

If you would like to purchase a copy of Renée Carrière’s book, please visit the McDowell Foundation’s website.

Muskrats and Fire
EBM Wheel

Where in the wheel?

This is EBM at its most fundamental. Learning how disturbances shape ecosystems and the human role in managing these disturbances as well as the role of regulations that can intentionally or inadvertently stop beneficial practices is key EBM practice. Spring fires that maintain wetland vegetation communities is a key ecosystem disturbance. Spring prescribed burning to manage this disturbance is its EBM surrogate. Educating local communities and governments as to the benefits of this practice is also EBM. At its very roots.

Ecosystem Based Management:
Partners: Neighbours
Stakeholder Engagement
Partners: Role of Regulators
This project aims to influence regulators
Process: Operational Tools
There is much to be learned from Indigenous Peoples' use of fire
...Loading EBM Wheel...