Episode 08: Indigenous Water and Fire Expertise in California
“Indigenous practitioners appreciate the opportunity to be a part of the development of questions and guiding the process…there is a lot of knowledge but also hesitation to share traditional knowledge if it doesn’t allow for people to be reconnected to the landscape through stewardship”
don hankins
A conversation with California State University-Chico Professor Don Hankins about his work integrating ecohydrology with Indigenous water and fire management practices and policy.
guests on the show
Dr. Don Hankins
Professor Don Hankins is an expert in pyrogeography, ecohydrology, landscape ecology, intervention ecology, conservation, environmental policy and Indigenous stewardship. He has been involved in various aspects of environmental planning, stewardship, conservation, and regulation for a variety of organizations and agencies including federal and tribal governments. Drawing from his academic and cultural knowledge, he is particularly interested in Indigenous traditional knowledge and policy and their application as a keystone process to aid in conservation and stewardship. Learn more here and follow him on Twitter @Pyrogeographer.
TRANSCRIPT
Mallika Nocco
Welcome to Water Talk from the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. I'm Dr. Mallika Nocco, a cooperative extension specialist in soil plant water relations and irrigation management.
Sam Sandoval
Hi, I'm Sam Sandoval. I'm a faculty and extension specialist in water resources.
Faith Kearns
And I'm Faith Kearns, the academic coordinator for the California Institute for Water Resources.
Mallika Nocco
Welcome to Water Talk. In today's episode, we are talking about Indigenous perspectives on water and wildfire with our guest, Dr. Don Hankins. Dr. Hankins is a professor of geography and planning at California State University, Chico and a traditional Miwkoʔ (Plains Miwok) cultural practitioner. His expertise lies at the intersections of pyrogeography, ecohydrology, conservation, environmental policy, and Indigenous stewardship. Don has been involved in environmental planning, stewardship, and regulatory efforts with a variety of organizations and agencies, including federal government and tribal government. Thank you so much for joining us, Don.
Don Hankins
Thanks for having me.
Faith Kearns
Don, thank you so much for joining us today. I wanted to just ask you a little bit more about your work on water and fire in California and see if you can give us an example or two of the kinds of work that you've been engaged in your career.
Don Hankins
Well, career spanning, I have done a lot of work around riparian stewardship and floodplain stewardship. And that's really where I get my stronghold into the water world, is thinking about the stewardship of the habitats. I teach a course in water resources and I always begin the semester by telling the students how I teach the class from the fish’s perspective. So, that idea of floodplain stewardship and habitat stewardship is really kind of where my work is at. I did my dissertation research in looking at fire in riparian ecosystems here in the Central Valley. And so I've continued that work around riparian stewardship, floodplain management, and also working into meadow restoration and stewardship in primarily lower elevation meadows. I've done a lot of applied work in that area. But then also I do work, we'll probably talk about later, around ecocultural policy awareness and tribal water rights. And so I from the habitat stewardship perspective, I'm engaged in that and then on the policy side, I have been working in that side as well.
Mallika Nocco
I want to talk about a little bit about this idea of different knowledges and ways of knowing. I think it might be a new idea to some of our listeners, it's not that widely discussed in hydrology or in water policy, or even as much in science communication. I kind of came to it in thinking about ways of knowing and different knowledges because I work with farmers, and farmers have their own ways of knowing. You have, in your direct experience, navigated several ways of knowing in your work. And I was curious if you could just tell us a little bit more about that?
Don Hankins
I think about the different ways of knowing and the world that that I live in as a cultural practitioner, that’s one world. I have the world as academic. But I think about that experience and understanding as a cultural practitioner that really shaped my understanding, my worldview of how stewardship and issues that we deal with are shaped. And so I can think back to even going back into my undergrad years. Taking courses in wildlife conservation and hearing about the plight of different species and always in the back of my mind was the cultural significance of some of the species that I was learning about and the examples of what their specific needs were and why they were rare, or going extinct. And thinking about, well, how could that cultural knowledge that. As a scientist, I've always seen that connection between the Indigenous knowledge and the stewardship and conservation issues. When I see an issue, I often cross reference that issue to stories or knowledge from the cultural side, and how that might shed light on different issues. A
Faith Kearns
Just to get a little bit more specific in terms of thinking about different ways of knowing and water in particular, I’m just curious about some of the work you've done to compare traditional scientific approaches with Indigenous approaches to looking at water and wondering if you can tell us a little bit about what you've learned?
Don Hankins
I think when we when we think about the water stewardship, it comes in a variety of forms in terms of direct and indirect approaches to that stewardship. And there's some really amazing work that I think is starting to emerge around Indigenous water stewardship that, I guess really wasn't often too familiar to people. As I'm mentioning this I think about specific examples, like from the Owens Valley and some research that I'm not involved in, but folks from Berkeley and other places, including the Owens Valley Paiute tribes have been involved in looking at the distribution canals and in their areas and how they stewarded the Owens Valley. You know, that's something I think is really amazing to think about how canals were built to actually recharge the aquifer as a really intentional part of the landscape, and I think about that as being something that's really fundamental that we're starting to learn about, but I also think about, you know, the rock and brush structures that are often used by many Indigenous groups to slow water down and allow for infiltration to occur and actually create microhabitats or locations for water to be within the landscape that are so integral to many places, but often are overlooked in their existence.
When I think about specific approaches where I'm using those sorts of things on the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve, where I'm field director, we do a lot of work around trying to steward the landscape using traditional knowledge, which is really the backbone for it, Indigenous knowledge and thinking about the approaches to getting water to be kept within the landscape from upland management. You know, creating brush structures or rock structures to slow water down in very steep terrain and to spread that water out and to allow for the retention and infiltration to occur. I've done some research around that in one particular spot on the on the Big Chico Creek Reserve in a place it's called Twin Spring Meadows. And I've been doing work there since about 2012. And this is one of those places where the idea of fire and its relationship with water comes into play. And in particular, Twin Springs Meadow is a place that in 2012 was entirely covered in yellow star thistle and it's a meadow that's about two and a half acres in size just to give a an idea and for those who are unfamiliar with the foothills of the southern Cascades, it's in the area just upstream from Bidwell Park, which is a one of the largest parks in in the United States. But this area's entirely invaded in 2012 with yellow star thistle and it's an area that's blue oak woodlands surrounding it and mixed oak forest kind of working your way up into the upper reaches of that watershed.
Twin Springs Meadow was fed by two different springs that come in from the Tuscan formation up on the ridge top and then filtered through the substrates into Twin Springs Meadows before it enters into Big Chico Creek. And in 2012, I saw this opportunity to do work where we could look at that interplay between fire and water and try to shift that system back to a native dominated wet meadow system. And so in 2012, we went out, we set plots, we looked at the vegetation, and as I pointed out it was dominated by yellow star thistle and then in the fall we came in and set fire and just let the fire work within the landscape under its own terms, no handlines or anything. It's just basically letting the fire burn to the adjacent ecotone shifts, and monitored following season. And this has been a process have been going on now since, and we've applied fire now three times to that ecosystem with monitoring in between, but as of this last month, going out and looking at that system, there's still yellow star thistle that's there, but I guess the beauty of it is that we have a tremendous number of native grasses and forbs that have come back into that place, and a lot of them particularly in the lower reaches of the meadow, which in 2012 would have dried out by this time of the year, now are actually still green and holding water.
I've been connecting this not only to look at the vegetation shifts, but also using piezometers that are paired, looking at upland and within the drainage swale, in this wet meadow system or the meadow system and trying to look at how the hydrology, the duration of the hydrology shift, and this is one of those things where that cultural knowledge really comes into play and thinking about the timing of the burn and thinking about the stewardship of this meadow ecosystem.
Faith Kearns
Thank you so much, Don. I guess I'm gonna just go ahead and ask a follow on question to that, which is a little bit more around the fire side. I am lucky enough to have been in the field with you a time or two and just really see the difference between how you approach a landscape, a post fire landscape, than might happen in a more traditional either firefighting or from a science perspective. And I guess I'm just wondering in your work, either in Big Chico or otherwise, how you think these days about fire management and how Indigenous knowledges and perspectives can be integrated into that fire management piece?
Don Hankins
That's a really important thing to be thinking about, because a lot of times when we think about fire, the dominant, I guess I would say the dominant society's view, is that fire is always the same type of thing. And, we think about the opportunities that are there, say, around prescribed burning versus what I'll call cultural burning or traditional burning. There are very different approaches. And I look at the landscape quite differently. Everywhere I go, I think about how both fire and water are interacting within that landscape. So I think about the seasonal availability of water within the plants, and how that seasonal availability of water would create a moisture differential that would buffer a fire to be able to move to that system under certain conditions. And so I'm thinking about fire behavior. And I'm thinking about what the responses would be to a place based on when a fire happened, how hot it was, the seasonal timing of it. I guess in terms of the actual opportunities for stewardship, this again, is one of those places where the Indigenous stewardship is something that's often overlooked around fire.
I think if we understand California's landscape, and think about the evolution of the landscape, at least since the Last Glacial Maximum, the entirety of that timeframe has been under Indigenous stewardship. And so the process of fire is really a cultural process of fire. That's not to say that wildfires didn't or don't happen, but they occur in a way that they're mitigated by Indigenous fire. And so under drought conditions we would expect to see bigger fires or more fires happening potentially, because of the dryness of vegetation. That's on both sides, it's on the wildfire side and the Indigenous fire side that we see the scaling up potentially of the fires in those conditions. But I think that as we look to the opportunities, there's still an opportunity to bring that cultural approach to understanding back in. And that's actually stuff that I'm working on right now with other partners across the state is to think about how we can better steward our watersheds with fire and using that cultural approach to doing that.
Mallika Nocco
I know many of us have been thinking a lot about how we can dismantle the structures of science that have led to the framework in which science gets done, who does science and, I don't know, we've been calling it like a traditional science, and I actually think that's a little generous. Until now, I had made a note to say colonial science approaches and I think I want to make sure I say that because I think that's a way of thinking about what's been done in terms of the knowledge erasure in a way. But I actually want to turn our topic a little bit to water law and policy.
We did a recent episode focusing and talking about California water law 101 and I was curious how traditional Miwkoʔ water law differs from California water law and where or how are they in harmony and when are these laws in conflict? And just even the concept of water law, I think just based on reading some of your work, is kind of different because I feel like the concept of water law, as we discussed it in relation to California water law is all about these enforcement concepts, and I didn't really read that when I was reading your work. So I was curious if you could provide some information kind of comparing and contrasting these two water law systems.
Don Hankins
In thinking about where, you know, that connection is with the laws that we have today in the United States and where they might be in harmony or out of sync with the traditional laws, there's a couple of examples that come to mind. So I think about the Public Trust Doctrine. You know, it was one example where, we think about the access to resources and the equal rights of people to all have access to the water, and under Miwkoʔ law, that same principle is there, we're looking at clean, quality water.
I think the difference in that under the Public Trust Doctrine, it's really focused more so on the human aspect of it, where under Miwkoʔ law, it's recognizing that it's not only human but it's also every other organism that has a need for that water too, and I think that when we look at a lot of our environmental laws, really across the board within the United States, a lot of them are ultimately in conflict with our traditional laws. For instance, if we think about the current revamp of the Waters of the US and the Clean Water Act, it's a really great example. Under our law, under Miwkoʔ law, that establishes a fundamental responsibility to water that's really rooted in a recognition of the hydraulic cycle. And, that's even built into our cultural fabric in the sense that, you know, as we're traditionally born into this world, we follow a moiety system or clan system that puts us either into responsibilities and relationships to water or land. These are things that are just part of our identity. And when we think about that law, our law linking it to the hydraulic cycle.
I’ll give you an example. So we have story places that talk about where water emerges from springs, from hillsides, and flows through creeks to feed into vernal pools and enters rivers and flows out to the ocean. And at no point does our law question whether or not the water is to be protected or not, it's all recognized as being important and there's no distinguishing between surface water or groundwater. It's all connected. I think about that, and in particular our landscape for story and I've written about this, to some extent, in relationship to our Delta homelands, is that a lot of the infrastructure for California's water delivery on both the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project are actually situated within that very landscape. That is our law. In this example that I'm telling you of this water coming from a spring and going through a vernal pool, like the federal and state water projects actually sit in that landscape. And there's no recognition of what the impacts of that are. And it's in direct conflict with the conservation of the species that are tied to that landscape, and so forth. And it really makes it challenging to think about what are the ways of being able to correct that and restore that balance back into the world and make it whole again?
Faith Kearns
Thank you for that, Don. What would you like listeners to know about what you do that maybe we haven't already asked? And how really can all of us support your work?
Don Hankins
Well, I think, I guess if listeners are, who are not familiar with me and the work that I do, what really motivates me is the traditional responsibility to leave the world in a better condition for future generations. And so we often within Indigenous cultures have this understanding of thinking of three to seven generations down the road, which, from an environmental planning perspective is a lot longer than what we typically think about. So, in terms of forest management, I think about, you know, what's the 200 year plan? You know, what actually we do today, say, for wildfire recovery and water stewardship, I'm thinking 200 years out, but I don't think a lot of other people are necessarily thinking about it in that way. I think that's something that's really important to think about is the way that we do that. And I do that through teaching, I do it through research, and I do it through activities on the land.
The other side of that is the personal choices that we each make. So, it's often overwhelming for anybody to consider the problems we face as a society. But if we all focus on the actions that we as individuals can take, then we're doing our part to be able to make the changes necessary. So in terms of people being able to support the work is them doing, you know, individuals can take their opportunities to do the things that they can do to be engaged, build relationships with their environment. And I would say even learn the laws of the land from an Indigenous perspective for the place that you live and work with, the local practitioners as best possible to learn to support that, and educate policymakers if you have the ability to and I guess on the other side, I know some people are often interested in supporting financially and there's opportunities to support conservation initiatives that help to bridge that connection between, say, Indigenous culture and stewardship, and some of the places where we’re doing that include the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve where I'm working as field director, and also other things like the ecocultural endowment up on the Klamath River, for instance, it's all connected to that fire and water interface. And those are really great opportunities to be able to support the research and actions on the ground.
Sam Sandoval
And I do have some questions related to the communication of knowledge or the sharing of knowledge. So, I mean, you're saying that you're thinking or looking three to five generations ahead for doing some of the planning on the landscape, but I assume that you have 358 generations before you that have been passing you this story. And as you're passing this story, I mean, I'm thinking in terms of strategies for adapting to climate change, strategies to adapting to droughts, strategies to adapting to floods.
I don't know I think there is a reach archive of knowledge of the native communities of the Indigenous communities that have that that they already are trying to pass this information and bringing, bringing it forward. Have you have you shared a Have you thought about now in this perspective, more kind of Western air on adaptation to go Change, considering Indigenous practices,
Don Hankins
You know, the situations that we are dealing with today, in terms of recognition of climate change, Indigenous stewardship has happened through climate change on the fire and water side of it. If I say go back to the Last Glacial Maximum, what was happening even before then, but all along, we know that there have been long droughts, and then, these big wet events that come in and create real havoc, and then it's dry again. And I think there's always been this Indigenous stewardship that's there. And so these things do inform where, obviously, what the impacts to the past have been, for instance, like knowing where to build at right? Where do you situate your villages when you live in a tidal floodplain? You know, that's our landscape, we’re a tidal floodplain people, but if you know where the high ground is at, that’s where you're going to build at, and you're going to stay out of those areas. And then in thinking about the future, within the state we've just, what last year, completed the fourth Climate Assessment Report. And that Climate Assessment Report included a chapter on Indigenous knowledge around climate change, and I was a coauthor in that.
So, we're looking at the integration of that knowledge system into thinking about how to address the problems that we see in the future. And it's holistic, it's beyond holistic, really, in terms of the way that it's approaching and thinking about, as you point out, you know, it's the past generation is looking to the future, and the types of changes that we've seen happening within the landscape and indicators that we look for, are all linked to that place. And, you know, a lot of times is very related to looking at certain species. So we look at indicators, and what are those indicators telling us. I think about certain species that are there to, you know, early flowering species that I've noticed over the last 10 to 15 years, have really been out of sync with when traditionally we know they're supposed to be flowering. But then like, this year, I look at them and they're right on time with when we traditionally know that they're supposed to be flowering. So, you know, these are the kinds of things that I pay attention to around this.
Mallika Nocco
Don, for different governments or scientists or organizations who want to partner with tribes for water and fire management projects, I was curious if you could talk a little bit about what successful integration looks like? And also kind of similarly what does failure look like? One of the things that I read, you use a very powerful word to describe failure in this particular context, and that word is subjugation, and in this context, that's what failure looks like. And I think for this audience, these are the same people who would potentially be interested in collaborating. So this is a good opportunity to talk about what that collaboration should look like and when it turns into that subjugation.
Don Hankins
Right, well, you know, a lot of my research tends to be focused, particularly when I when I'm involving community, it's in a participatory research framework. I think a lot of Indigenous practitioners really appreciate the opportunity to be part of the development of questions and guiding the process. And a lot of times, unfortunately, the models that exist in agencies and even within academia are often more based on a consultation based approach. So, you know, it's hey, we've developed this project and this is what we're going to do, tell us what you think the impacts are going to be, and we'll write it down and record that thought, but we're still going to do what we want to do. I think that's really not the best way of moving things forward.
When I think about even current water policy development and practice within California, we have certain policies like AB 52, Assembly Bill 52, which allows for recognition of certain tribes to be consulted on for different project areas and whatnot. But I think that if we're just using those tools to engage, we're often really missing the real opportunities to create a better direction for inclusion of this thought process into it. So as I think about this, how do you get there is really by building a relationship with people, not to think about it from consultation perspective, but actually think about it as an opportunity or partnership. And there's lots of different pieces that are really important in that one, I think that a lot of people don't necessarily understand is that a lot of traditional cultural practitioners have the knowledge that people are wanting to be able to engage with. And a lot of these people are maybe not from federally recognized tribes or not from tribes that have funding to support the work that they're doing. So they're often volunteering their time to come in and work on something.
I think that one if there's an opportunity to reach out to people in advance and say this is what we're thinking about doing. How could we support you to engage with us in that? Can we write you into a grant, can we help to get funding to support that? That's one thing I think is really important to be able to think about. And then the other side of that is just simply having the opportunity to build trust and reciprocal relationships with communities and individuals is really important. And within agencies, there's often a lot of turnover that takes place. So somebody comes in, they work in a job for a while, you build the rapport, and then they move out to a different position and somebody else comes in. And it’s really hard to maintain the continuity of work that might be taking place, you get a management shift, for instance, and you as Indigenous people, you've invested a huge amount of time and effort, thinking we're finally going to do something that's really powerful. And then you get a new manager that comes in and says we’re not going to continue with this. And it's a real letdown.
So, I think those are things to be really aware of, also being aware of how information is going to be used. I think there's always a hesitancy to be involved in projects where it's extractive, so I sit down and share this bunch of information, and somebody else is going to use it for their benefit. So, I think about that in relationship to the fire and water side of it. You know, there's a lot of knowledge, it's there. But there's a lot of hesitancy to share traditional knowledge if it doesn't involve actually then allowing for people to be reconnected to the landscape stewarding and the very specific outcomes that should come from a tribal perspective. So there's lots of different levels of knowing that I also think are really important to think about, who to engage with and under like AB 52, they're really focused on the tribal government officials. But within tribes, there's also the members, there's practitioners within tribes, and then there's the spiritual leaders, and each of those, they all play a different role. And I think depending on where you're looking to engage, you have to be aware of who you should be engaging with. Because otherwise the direction that you end up going may not be meeting the objectives that you're trying to get to. So I think those are some things that I would pay attention to.
Mallika Nocco
Well, this is always the hard part of Water Talk. You know, we really, really appreciate you Don, and taking the time to come and talk to us today. And I am definitely jealous of Faith for having gotten to spend some time with you out in the field and I think your students are very, very lucky to have you as well.
Thanks for listening and join us next time on Water Talk.