Abstract
The United States is experiencing a multitude of environmental issues across the country, including increasingly frequent and disastrous wildfires. Simultaneously, Indigenous persons are demanding their right to self-sovereignty and working to preserve intergenerational Indigenous Knowledge including cultural burning practices. Cultural burning is a practice of many Indigenous tribes that help environments and the species that comprise them, foster and grow. To further help tribes with their mission in keeping Indigenous Knowledge alive and to reduce the frequency and severity of destructive wildfires, this article argues the federal government should amend federal acts to provide Indigenous tribes with a greater opportunity to employ their traditional practices in subject matters the tribes have pertinent experience with. As a starting point, this article will address how the Tribal Forest Protection Act (TFPA) can be amended to enhance the opportunity for tribes to practice cultural burning. Additionally, I will discuss the impacts of both historic and current federal government wildfire mitigation practices, particularly fire suppression, in the United States. Then, I will address how the federal government can amend the TFPA to increase the frequency and extent of Indigenous cultural burning practices on federal lands by expanding the definition of lands covered by the Act, providing programs for tribes, and specifically defining cultural burning terms to help ensure maximum use of cultural burning practices that could help mitigate worsening wildfire conditions.
Recommended Citation
Lauren Palmer, TFPA, Wildfire Mitigation, and the Dissemination of Indigenous Knowledge, 42 Pace Env’t L. Rev 337 (2025).
Included in
Energy and Utilities Law Commons, Environmental Law Commons, Natural Resources Law Commons
