What Native-held lands in California can teach about resilience and the future of wildfire

Indigenous forest management practices can help control wildfires’ frequency and severity, while also restoring people’s connections to the land.

By: Nina Fontana, University of California, Davis and Beth Rose Middleton Manning, University of California, Davis, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: January 10, 2026

Words: 1,711

Last Updated: 16 hours, 32 minutes ago

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By Nina Fontana, University of California, Davis and Beth Rose Middleton Manning, University of California, Davis

It took decades, stacks of legal paperwork and countless phone calls, but, in the spring of 2025, a California Chuckchansi Native American woman and her daughter walked onto a 5-acre parcel of land, shaded by oaks and pines, for the first time.

This land near the foothills of the Sierra National Forest is part of an unusual category of …

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