Abstract
Through a process of participatory mapping, this research assessed the impacts of the 1984 change in Alaska fire policy from one of exclusion to one of management on Native land use in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Findings suggest that while the change in policy has had little measurable effect on community land use the continued suppression of fire on Native owned lands is having a direct impact on the current availability of wildlife resources to the point of necessitating territorial expansion among Native resource users. However, given the complexity of human nature, the impacts associated with the 1984 policy change should not be reduced to a simplistic cause-and-effect relationship. Rather this analysis demonstrates the interaction as well as the contradiction that occur between policy, culture, and ecology as these factors together have come to influence Native land use.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Allen, H. T. (1887). Reports of an Expedition to the Copper, Tanana and Koyukuk Rivers in the Territory of Alaska in dy1885. United States Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.
Andreasen, A. (1995). Marketing Social Change: Changing Behavior to Promote Health, Social Development and the Environment. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
Bennet, J. W. (1996). Human Ecology as Human Behavior: Essays in Environmental and Development Anthropology, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick.
Bertram, M. (1992). United States Fish and Wildlife Service Moose Trend Survey, Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, Fairbanks, AK.
Bertram, M., and Vivion, M. T. (2002). Black bear monitoring in eastern interior Alaska. URSUS 13: 1–12.
Bowe, M. (1994). Processes for the involvement of indigenous peoples in the community use of natural resources, Unpublished Report, World Wildlife Fund, Washington, DC.
Caulfield, R. A. (1983). Subsistence land use in Upper Yukon—Porcupine communities, Alaska, Technical Paper No. 16, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Subsistence, Fairbanks.
Chapin, T., and Whiteman, G. (1998). Sustainable development of the boreal forest: Interaction of ecological, social, and business feedbacks. Conservation Ecology 2(2): 12–21.
Feit, H. (1969). Mistassini Hunters of the Boreal Forest: Ecosystem Dynamics and Multiple Subsistence Patterns, Masters Thesis, Department of Anthropology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Gotholt, M.-L. (1998). The human dimension of changes to the boreal forest: Fire as a disturbance regime, A Working Paper Prepared for the Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Grissom, P. (1995). Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge Fire Management Plan (Draft), USFWS, Fairbanks, AK.
Huntington, H. P. (1998). Observations on the utility of the semi-directed interview for documenting traditional ecological knowledge. Arctic 51(3): 237–242.
Jackson, B., Nurse, M., Singh, H. B. (1994). From the Field: Participatory Mapping for Community Forestry, Russell Press, Nottingham, England.
Johnson, R. D., (1981). Upper Tanana Athabaskan fire ecology, Paper presented at the Eighth Annual Conference of the Alaska Anthropological Association. Fairbanks, Alaska, March 24–27.
Lewis, H. T. (1988). Yards, corridors and mosaics: How to burn the boreal forest. Human Ecology 16(1): 57–75.
Lutz, H. J. (1956). Ecological Effects of Forest Fires in the Interior of Alaska, United States Department of Agriculture (1133), Washington, DC.
Martell, D. L. (1982). Fire impact management in the boreal forest region of Canada. In Wein, Ross W., R. Riewe, and Ian. R. Methven (eds.), Conference Proceedings of Resources and Dynamics of the Boreal Zone, Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies, Thunder Bay, Ontario August, 1982.
McKennan, R. (1959). The Upper Tanana Indians, Yale University Publications in Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, CT.
Momberg, F., and Van Noord, H. (1998).Maps, people, and protected areas:Mapping as a tool for community participation in protected area management, Report to the World Wide Fund for Nature and Biodiversity Support Program, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Natcher, D. (2001, Fall). Risk and alienation. Changing patterns in aboriginal resource use. International Journal of Canadian Studies, Special Issue, Territory(ies) 24: 59–76.
Nelson, R. (1973). Hunters of the Northern Forest, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Nelson, R. (1983). Make Prayers to the Raven: A Koyukon View of the Northern Forest, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Paragi, T. (1992). Wildfire and furbearers in interior Alaska. Alaska Trapper Jan: 8–11.
Pyne, S. J. (1982). Fire In America. A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Reice, S. R. (2001). The Silver Lining: The Benefits of Natural Disasters, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Riches, D. (1982). Northern Nomadic Hunter-Gatherers: A Humanistic Approach, University of St. Andrews, Academic Press, London, UK.
Schneider, W. (1976). Beaver, Alaska: The Story of a Multi-Ethnic Community, PhD Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr PA.
Shimkin,D. B. (1951). Fort Yukon, Alaska: An Essay inHuman Ecology,Alaska Development Board, Juneau.
Slobodin, R. (1981). Kutchin. In Handbook of North American Indians: Subarctic, Vol. 6, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC, pp. 514–532.
Steegman, T. (ed.) (1983). Boreal Forest Adaptations: The Northern Algonkians, State University of New York at Buffalo Press, Buffalo.
United States Census. (2000). American Indian and Alaska Native Areas. General Population Characteristics, United States Department of Commerce Economics and Statistical Administration, Washington, DC.
USDI. (1984). Alaska Consolidated Interagency Fire Management Plan, Operational Draft, United States Bureau of Land Management, Fairbanks, AK.
USDI. (1993). Alaska Consolidated Interagency Fire Management Plan, Operational Draft, United States Bureau of Land Management, Fairbanks, AK.
United States Department of Interior. (USDI). (1996). Major Fire Distribution in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, United States Bureau of Land Management, Fairbanks, AK.
Whelan, R. J. (1995). The Ecology of Fire, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, NY.
Winterhalder, B., and Smith E. A. (eds.). (1978). Hunter-Gatherer Foraging Strategies: Ethnographic and Archeological Analysis, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Wolf, J. (1979). Moose Habitat and Forest Succession on the Tanana River Floodplain and the Yukon-Tanana Upland, USDA, Forest Service Institute of Northern Forestry, Fairbanks, AK.
Wolfe, R. J., and Ellanna, L. J. (1987). Resource use and socioeconomic systems: A case study of fishing and hunting in Alaska communities, Technical Paper No. 61, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Subsistence, Juneau.
Yukon Flats National Wildlife Statistical Brochure. (YFNWRSB). (n.d.). United States Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Fairbanks, AK.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Natcher, D.C. Implications of Fire Policy on Native Land Use in the Yukon Flats, Alaska. Human Ecology 32, 421–441 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:HUEC.0000043514.19598.23
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:HUEC.0000043514.19598.23