In today’s stories, the State takes steps to honor our tribal nations. How ancestral knowledge is changing our approach to forest fires. And the state wants feedback from farmers about protecting our groundwater.
Transcript
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HOST: You're listening to North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, a daily newscast about what it means to live in Minnesota.
ANCHOR: In today’s stories, the State takes steps to honor our tribal nations Then, how ancestral knowledge is changing our approach to forest fires. And, the state wants feedback from farmers about protecting our groundwater.
I’m Chantel SinGs.
The State is honoring our tribal nations with a new Tribal Flag Plaza. The plaza, which crews are currently building on the Capitol Mall, will feature 11 flags representing each of Minnesota’s 11 sovereign nations. It’s part of a project designed to create a more welcoming and diverse space at the Capitol. The state will hold an unveiling ceremony later this summer once crews complete their work.
Coming up, despite an active early-wildfire season, Minnesota is actually in a fire deficit. Maija Hecht explains how we live with fire, and what can be done to help restore health to Minnesota’s northern forests.
Maija Hecht: As wildfire season heats up in Minnesota, experts say an increase in fire severity has been caused by a lack of burning over time, climate change and industry prioritizing timber production at the expense of forest diversity are also at play.
Clare Boerigter: Scientific studies can affirm and discuss to the fact that we are experiencing a fire deficit. So we've been experiencing an absence of historical rates of fire for over a century.
Maija Hecht: Clare Boerigter is a former US Forest Service wildland firefighter turned science writer and wilderness fire researcher.
Clare Boerigter: We can also think about fire as one of the best tools that we have to mitigate really severe fires. I left my three fire seasons with an understanding of fire as a force for good.
Maija Hecht: While working at the Cloquet forestry center, Calre met Vern Northrup, or Waaseyanakwad, a Fond du Lac Band elder.
Vern Northrup: To me, good fire is one that's going to clean up the forest. You know, just a low, slow burning, low intensity, just clean it up. That's a good fire.
Maija Hecht: During his 24 years as a wildland fire operations specialist, Vern helped administer intentional burns to lower the risk of catastrophic wildfires.
Vern Northrup: Minnesota is such a choked, overgrown state now that anytime we dry out, it's really, really susceptible to large fires. Now, for thousands of years, Indigenous people around the world have been using fire to shape their environment.
Maija Hecht: Those cultural burns do more than just clear debris. They promote the growth of fire-adapted plants used for medicines, materials and food, such as blueberries.
Vern Northrup: And that's the stewardship and reciprocity that I was talking about. It's feeding you. It's keeping you healthy. Fire was really common up until about the late 1800s that's when fire became all bad.
Maija Hecht: In the turn of the 20th century, state and federal fire prevention policy halted cultural burning practices.
Vern Northrup: And remember, kids, only you can prevent wildfires. Only you can prevent you know, they thought they could control it.
Clare Boerigter: So we're seeing these big ecosystem-type conversions because we've taken fire away.
Maija Hecht: Wildfire researcher Clare Boerigter said that fire that does come in is burning in a way that historically it never would have.
Clare Boerigter: I've seen the ways in which fire can really negatively affect homes and people's livelihoods, but I think in learning to live with fire, we have to support our role in restoring fire to landscapes.
Maija Hecht: On living with fire, Vern Northrop said that to be Anishinaabe--
Vern Northrup: --everything around is as a spirit, and we treat the spirit of the fire same as we treat like me treating you. We respect it and honor it and humble ourselves before it, and you know it's gonna help you.
Maija Hecht: I'm Maija Hecht for North Star Stories.
ANCHOR: You are listening to North Star Stories.
Livestock owners have a chance to weigh in on state feedlot rules for the first time in 25 years. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, or P-C-A, has reopened its Feedlot Rules for public comment. The PCA wants feedback from ranchers about improving manure management and protecting the state’s water. In 2023, state inspectors found increased nitrate levels in groundwater likely from feedlots. The P-C-A is accepting comments through late July.
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HOST: North Star Stories is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, with support from the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota. Online at ampers dot org.