Native American fuelwood collection in the Sierra Nevada, a model for modern fuels management

Keywords: anthropogenic burning, biomass collection, fuelwood, Sierra Nevada range, surface fuels
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Monday
Session Start / End Time: 2/28/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/28/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 16

Abstract

Government agencies adopted a prescribed burning policy based in part on paleo-environmental evidence of pre-Columbian Native American burning regimes. However, biomass collection by Native Americans in the pre-Columbian era left little direct or indirect evidence of its magnitude or influence on fire regimes, which may have created a blind spot in fuel management policy. In many developing countries, local peoples use non-timber forest products and harvest biomass for shelter, tool production, cooking, and heating, and often manage forests communally. These practices can be similar in many ways to practices used for millennia by Native Americans. The objective was to use modern proxy biomass collection estimates analogous to pre-Columbian era practices in the western US to estimate the potential impacts of regionwide firewood collection on fuel loads in the Sierra Nevada range of California. The estimated amount of fuelwood consumed by Native Americans per year ranged from 59% to 168% of 100 hr (2.54-7.62 cm diameter) surface fuel accumulation each year in the Sierra Nevada range in the pre-Columbian era. The collection and removal of the fuels from the surface fuel loads may have contributed to reduced fire severities over that era. Including the effects of cultural practices on fuel loads may improve reconstructions of past fuel and fire regimes, and may benefit modern management strategies.