First Nations Freaks

Saving water in the West could come with a hidden wildfire risk

Retiring farmland in the western U.S. saves water but may increase wildfire risk by removing natural firebreaks that help stop advancing flames.

Letting a thirsty field go dry in a drought looks like a clean trade: less water pumped, more left in the river. The field doesn’t stay empty, though. Across most of the West where farmland has gone out of production, grass and brush grew back in its place, and both burn more readily than a crop does.

Farmland, meanwhile, often acts as a barrier to advancing wildfires. Retiring farmland therefore involves another trade-off: water saved at the potential cost of a natural firebreak.


O_O White people are so stupid. If you just quit cropping a field, you get weeds and brush -- the bandage plants, because it's their job to cover bare ground as fast as possible -- and some grasses. You're not supposed to do that.

You need to restore the ecosystem. Put back at least some native plant species. Return native herbivores -- especially keystone species like prairie dogs and buffalo. These will help recreate a grassland ecosystem that is resilient to locally appropriate amounts of water and fire.

If you want firebreaks, restore wetlands. In much of Northern America you can recruit beavers to do this for free.

Check your reservation territory. If you are retiring cropland, make sure that it cycles safely into a different use with appropriate mitakuye oyasin to fill the roles in its ecosystem.  Understand your tribe's traditions regarding fire management customs.

Here are some tribal events coming up...

Upcoming Events -- Destination Native America

Pow Wow Calendar – Upcoming Native American Pow Wows

Female bonobos are challenging what we know about hunting and evolution

A decade of observations shows female bonobos lead many hunts, challenging assumptions about hunting and our early ancestors.


ROFL yes, many tribes have had and still do have female hunters. Mostly it's young women, because hunting gets harder while pregnant or nursing. But some older women still hunt. A particularly adept huntress may simply have a baby, recover from the birth, then hand said baby to her sister or cousin or best friend to nurse while she goes back to hunting. Conversely a woman who likes kids can take care of them as her contribution, even if she doesn't have her own. It works as long as you've got a kinship group sharing childcare and the concept of division of labor.

Bison roughly doubled native plant diversity on a Kansas prairie over 29 years, study finds

In bison pastures, native plant species richness was 103 percent higher than in ungrazed areas when measured in small plots of about 108 square feet (10 square meters). At the scale of whole watersheds, the increase was 86 percent.

The main reason lies in what bison eat. They feed mostly on dominant grasses such as big bluestem and little bluestem, which tend to crowd out other plants when left unchecked.


Anywhere you're missing a keystone species, restoring that species will restore other aspects of that ecosystem. If your tribe holds North American grassland, it's probably former buffalo territory, so if you don't already have buffalo that is an excellent way to improve your land.

These are some upcoming events:

Fall Powwows 2026: Schedule, Dates and Locations in Canada & USA

UPCOMING POW WOWS

Indigenous Australia was far more populous before British colonization than records showed

How many Indigenous people were living in Australia when the British First Fleet arrived? For nearly a century, the standard answer has been about 250,000. That count was pieced together from reports made long after smallpox and frontier violence had devastated the communities being counted.

A new analysis estimates the real number was around 2.22 million – up to seven times that figure. It also estimates that 93% of those people were gone within less than 80 years after colonization began in 1788. The collapse, in other words, was far bigger than colonial records could show. The estimate spans roughly 1 million to 4 million people, and even its low end is nearly four times the old count.


>_< Same story, different continent.

Sean McCann Vows to Oppose Enbridge Line 5 if Elected to Congress

SAUGATUCK, Mich. — The only Native American running for Congress in Michigan in this fall’s midterm election, State Sen. Sean McCann, the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s 4th Congressional District, says he has opposed Enbridge Line 5 since day one.

“In my role in Congress, I think [my position] is going to be much less favorable to Enbridge and its operations than you might see from the president of the United States or his allies in Congress,” McCann said during a press gaggle on Tuesday immediately following a town hall at the Women’s Club in Saugatuck, Mich.


Well, somebody has to stand up to them.

Do-Good Doggies Fight Invasive Mussels on Team ‘Conservation Canines’

Invasive species of Asian mussels have met their match in Alberta’s riverine sniffer dogs. These K9 conservationists have been employed by the provincial government for over a decade to help catch zebra and golden mussels from colonizing the rivers and lakes of Alberta.

Hilo, Jane, and Winnie, 2 black labs and a black-lab cross, are part of the paws-on-the-ground response at boat inspection stations across the province. It’s now Alberta law that any watercraft must stop at an inspection station whether they are coming or going, and these patrol pooches are trained to smell the odor of developing mussel larvae which can be so small as to be detectable only by the faint feeling like sandpaper on the sides of boats or docks.


Dogs of various breeds (and landraces) have been trained to detect a range of different invasive species depending on locale. Most work by scent but some sighthounds have been used for plants that require keen vision. Dogs with strong digging instincts have been recruited to excavate plants with large or deep root systems. Some other animals have been deployed including goats -- hence the nickname "brush goats" -- pigs, and rats.

This is a great approach if your tribal land has a problem with invasive species, especially if your culture has a history of keeping dogs. Any dog-lover with patience and maybe a training manual can teach a dog to find things, which can then be removed in a species-appropriate manner.

American Indian Schools Achieve Highest Graduation Rates in the Nation’s History

High schools funded and/or managed by the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) have achieved the highest average graduation rates yet recorded in its history.

8 high schools saw every senior in the 2025/26 class graduate, while another 13 high schools achieved graduation rates of 90% or higher.


Aho!

“IMPOSSIBLE!” No Work Food Gardens Based on Wild Edible Ecosystems

About 20 years ago, after I first started studying Permaculture, I went to work for a very sustainable Permaculture-oriented CSA farm. One day, after working all morning painfully tending, pruning, and weeding a patch of cane berries, I went for a bike ride along my favorite trail. Black raspberries were in season, so I went home, grabbed 3 3 gallon buckets and filled them up with raspberries.

That was when it hit me. NOBODY was working tending these, except for perhaps the deer and birds fertilizing them. Meanwhile, my own hands were covered with scratches from my morning work.


This is an example of humanity's earliest agriculture: encouraging plants we find useful in places where we go, and occasionally ripping out ones we don't want there. It is likely a remnant of a tribal food forest, although I can tell you hikers have been contributing fruit seeds for decades -- I did it when I was little. Wild plants can mostly take care of themselves. You don't have to fuss over them like delicate domestic fruits and vegetables.

My approach to laissez-faire permaculture is similar. I plant new things that seem promising. I try to help them establish. They live or die. The ones that live, I expect to take care of themselves. Some of what I grow is really good at that. \o/