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  • From: Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>
  • To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Indigenous land use (was: imitating fire)
  • Date: Mon, 06 May 2002 11:07:54 -0700

Since there is some skepticism on this list about the extent to which
indigenous people have modified the face of the earth, I'm going to provide
some (lengthy!) documentation. My previous posts on this topic aren't the
wild musings of a deranged mind (not this time, at least) but are drawn from
current ecological thinking and research. Each fact below (or series of
facts) is followed by the reference from whence it came. These are just from
the articles and books that I have on hand; a library search would be even
more convincing. References are listed at the bottom.

The supreme example of a human-shaped continent is Australia, but since I've
never been there (and lots of you live there) I'll limit my Oz data to two
sources. Pollen and charcoal records show that sclerophyllous forests
increased many-fold in area when humans arrived. Eucalypts were a minor
forest component until humans showed up (1). At the same time, charcoal
levels in soil increased 10-20 times over pre-human amounts, showing that
the increase in fire was from humans (2).

The floristic composition of what is now the African Veldt changed when
humans arrived. Previously, fire-adapted species covered only about 5% of
their post-human range, suggesting human influence (3).

I'll move closer to my home. The evidence is overwhelming that virtually the
entire continental United States was not the wilderness that my enviro
friends want to "restore," but a highly managed garden tended by about 18-25
million people (4), plenty enough to change the face of a continent. Here's
a survey:

Indigenous burning altered the vegetation of much of Washington, Oregon,
Idaho, California's Sierra Nevada and Central Valley, and western Montana,
replacing dense conifers with grasslands and open hardwoods. The change
corresponds with the entry of humans into these regions, including
unglaciated areas. Fire frequency must be 4-10x more than that of lightning
or these lands will revert to dense conifer or mixed forest (as shown in
regions abandoned in pre-Columbian times), yet these hardwoods and
grasslands predominated for millennia (5).

Conifer forests in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado were maintained
by indigenous burning at far lower tree densities and canopy cover than
occurs from lightning-set fires alone. Early whites describe pines hundreds
of feet apart with only grass between. These parks covered thousands of
square miles. Remaining forests are much denser today. The increase in tree
density predates the active fire-suppression policy of the late 19th
century; it corresponds to the removal of native people and their fires that
began in the 17th century (6).

Early sailors describe native-set fires burning on the east coast from
Florida to Maine. The first settlers in Virginia and Maryland report huge
areas with no undergrowth and trees spaced wide apart. The same was true in
Florida, the Carolinas, and New Jersey. In southern New England, reports
describe "open plains many miles across" with no trees. Most of
Massachusetts was burned every spring, sometimes twice a year. In 1607, a
sea captain described the coast of Maine as "oak and walnut growing a great
space asunder from each other, as in our parks in England." Another account
describes much of New York as grasslands and open oak forests, burned
annually (7). (Those who know these areas know that open parks are not the
"native" state. Tangled thickets form within a few years after you stop
clearing. This suggests that forests over the entire east coast were kept
open by native people.)

It's the same story in the midwest. Research suggests that lightning is not
enough to maintain the prairies; fire frequency must be greater (8). Meadows
covered large areas of Kentucky and Tennessee, maintained by annual burning;
this is now forest, with lightning-set fires in any given patch only once a
century or so. Much of Illinois and Wisconsin was not prairie, as was once
thought, but savanna, maintained by careful native burning. Forests in Ohio
and Indiana were of much lower density before whites arrived, with little
understory (9).

I've left out a few states, but I think the point is clear. The evidence is
overwhelming that early humans reshaped North America, and other continents.
In northern areas, where humans entered as the glaciers receded, as Marshall
points out, the lands were already open, but human influence was probably a
factor in keeping them that way, since as soon as burning stops they close
up with dense forest. Following previous glaciations, even the now-dry parts
of the West became moist forests, but not after humans arrived (not proof of
human influence, of course, but a suggestion). Further south, where glaciers
had never reached, pollen and tree records show an abrupt shift when people
arrived, with grasses becoming much more dominant, and tree cover lessening
greatly (6).

My point is not that humans are evil land-destroyers. It's that shaping
ecosystems is part of our heritage. Efforts to "let things return to nature"
are often misguided; humans are an integral part of the landscape. Today we
are no different from pre-modern humans in our ability and desire to shape
this planet, so let's recognize that and not feel guilty about it.
Acknowledging Mollison's injunction to "stay out of the bush," let's also
remember that this planet is our garden--and learn how to tend it well.

Toby

References (books, unless distinguished by a journal name):
1. JMB Smith," A History of Australasian Vegetation," p 102.
2. Steven Pyne, "Burning Bush."
3. Booyen and Tainten, "Ecological Effects of Fire in South African
Ecosystems."
4. Henry Dobyns,"Their Number Become Thinned."
5. SW Barrett, "Indian Fires as an Ecological Influence in the Northern
Rockies." J. Forestry, 80:647-651, 1982
6. Steven Pyne, "Fire in America," and citations therein.
7. GM Day, "The Indian as An Ecological Factor in the Northeastern Forest."
Ecology, 34:329-346
8. OC Stewart, "Burning and Natural Vegetation in the US." Geog. Rev,
41:317-320.
9. William K. Stevens, "Miracle Under the Oaks."







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