Fire ecology and Indigenous wisdom in Yosemite National Park - Vol 6 Sneak Peek
How the US National Park Service is using Indigenous wisdom to prevent wildfires in Yosemite.
Article by: Eveline White
Photography by: Paul Basel
Last summer, on a road trip around California, I spent three days hiking in Yosemite National Park. Alongside a newfound appreciation for the American great outdoors (and for Target trail mix), I discovered how the National Park Service is drawing on Indigenous wisdom to prevent wildfires.
Visited by over 3.5 million people a year, Yosemite is a world class destination for hikers, climbers and nature lovers. About five hours east of San Francisco in California, Yosemite is a popular weekend excursion for Silicon Valley tech-bros looking to escape the city, and an essential stop on any Californian road trip.
Famous for the imposing-yet-scalable rock face that is El Capitan, and for the convex inspiration behind the North Face logo (Half Dome), Yosemite is dominated by immense granite cliffs. Waterfalls cascade down into the Merced River, which meanders lazily through the meadows in the valley below, as lakes mirror the scenery around them. Sculpted by ancient glaciers, the landscape is both striking and beautiful.
Black bears, deer, coyotes, and mountain lions make the forests and meadows of Yosemite their home - the park's diverse range of habitats support over 400 species of vertebrate, as well as many invertebrates, including the charismatic monarch butterfly.
The park is also home to three groves of giant sequoias. Standing at over 91 metres tall and six metres wide, these ancient trees can live for over 3,000 years, making them the third-longest living tree species in the world (after the Great Basin bristlecone pine and the Patagonian cypress). The oldest sequoias germinated only a few hundred years after the extinction of the last mammoth population.
Every corner of Yosemite National Park offers a different and breathtaking view into the wild. Visiting the park, it is easy to see how generations of nature lovers and artists have been captivated by it, and why conserving it is so important.
Fire in Yosemite
Entering the park in our Chevy Malibu (not quite a Mustang but All-American enough to feature in a Lana Del Rey song) we drove through the cliffside and emerged at Tunnel View - an iconic viewpoint looking down over the valley.
We pulled over and stood by the side of the road for a while, taking in the sheer scale of the rock faces carving out the sides of the valley. We had seen photos online and in guidebooks, but nothing prepares you for how powerful the park is in real life. Drawn in by its magnetism, we continued down to the valley floor, where we got sight of a new and unexpected view.
Smoke curling from between blackened tree trunks, cordons marked the hiking trail through this part of the forest as closed for prescribed burning.
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