Planning: FIRE-PLAN: Exploring fire as medicine to revitalize cultural burning in the Upper Midwest

这一规划项目-“以火为药”-旨在为土著土地管理从业人员开展培训和知识发展，以促进健康的生态系统和社区。几个世纪以来，原住民不仅使用火来确保食物和纤维材料等重要资源的充足供应，而且还与土地建立联系。欧洲的殖民统治改变了原住民与火之间的紧密联系。今天，许多土地管理机构使用规定的火来实现几个目标，但这些努力往往对部落社区的文化价值有限。该项目首先试图了解土著土地上燃烧的文化背景，以及土著人民在生态和文化目标方面的目标。在开展这项研究的过程中，该项目提供了知识，培训和资源，以进行安全有效的具有文化意义的烧伤。与高草草原和橡树草原火灾科学联盟和美国农业部农业研究服务的紧密联系确保了该地区大型利益相关者社区的广泛传播和使用。许多土著社区认为，重新控制其景观中的火灾将有助于治愈代代相传的损害。这个项目发展能力，为代表性不足的社区在上中西部理解和实施文化燃烧自己。具体而言，与土著社区的长老和土地管理人员的倾听会议旨在告知目前已知和实践的关于上中西部的文化燃烧，并确定目前限制文化燃烧的障碍，知识差距和欠发达的机会。在听取意见会议之后，向区域土著利益攸关方重点小组介绍了共同主题，以确定“火为药”项目后续阶段要解决的教育和培训优先事项。该小组根据加拿大上中西部和邻近地区的草原和林地的传统生态知识，促进了火制度的土著模式的发展。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This planning project-- Fire as Medicine-- aims to develop training and knowledge development for Indigenous land management practitioners to promote healthy ecosystems and communities. Indigenous people used fire for centuries to not only ensure ample supplies of important resources, such as food and fiber materials, but also to connect with the land. European colonization changed the close connections between Indigenous people and fire. Today, many land management agencies use prescribed fire to achieve several goals, but these efforts often have limited cultural value for Tribal communities. This project first seeks to understand the cultural context of burning in Indigenous lands and what Indigenous peoples aim to achieve in terms of both ecological and cultural objectives. In developing this research the project provides knowledge, training, and resources to conduct culturally-meaningful burns that are safe and effective. Strong connections with the Tallgrass Prairie and Oak Savanna Fire Science Consortium and the USDA Agricultural Research Service ensure broad dissemination and use by a large stakeholder community in the region.Many Indigenous communities believe regaining control of fire in their landscapes will help heal damage passed down from generation to generation. This project develops capacity for underrepresented communities in the Upper Midwest to understand and implement cultural burning themselves. Specifically, listening sessions with elders and land managers in Indigenous communities aim to inform what is currently known and practiced with respect to cultural burning across the upper Midwest, and identify barriers, knowledge gaps, and under-developed opportunities that currently limit cultural burning. Following the listening sessions, common themes are presented to a focus group of regional Indigenous stakeholders to identify priorities for education and training to be addressed in subsequent phases of the Fire as Medicine project. The team facilitates the development of an Indigenous model of fire regimes based on Traditional Ecological Knowledge for the prairies and woodlands of the Upper Midwest and adjacent regions in Canada. The project includes under-represented groups in all stages of the project development, implementation, and dissemination.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.