What happens when salmon don’t return?
Regional warming in the Arctic is exacerbating the decline of Yukon River Chinook Salmon
By Nicole Pepper and Ellis Goud
To Brooke Woods, fish is everything. Living just outside the Koyukon village of Rampart, Alaska – one of 50 small fishing communities along the Yukon River – her daily childhood routine involved waking up in the log cabin her family built, walking to school every day, and most importantly, going to fish camp right outside of her home.
Fish camp is both a location and a tradition. During the summer, families travel to riverside camps to harvest and process fish for the long winters, as well as connect with community and large extended families. Here on the Yukon River, the camps line the banks of the world’s longest salmon migration. The river and its tributaries pass through countless Alaska Native communities across the region, providing a key location to fish throughout the summer.
“Growing up, salmon, fish camp, and family were such important parts of our livelihoods and kinship,” Woods says. “My mom’s siblings – she was one of eleven – would all come to Rampart from surrounding communities where they lived, including my grandma. And we would all go to fish camp, which is a really important place outside of our homes.”
Today, Woods is the Climate Adaptation Specialist at Woodwell Climate Research Center, where she integrates Indigenous Knowledge to shape equitable and science-backed policy in the Arctic. But now, she can’t fish for salmon in the river she grew up near. And neither can anyone else.
Salmon as subsistence
Last year, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and Fisheries and Oceans Canada signed an agreement suspending the harvest of Chinook salmon for seven years – the length of their life cycle – in response to declining population numbers. A combination of mortality from bycatch and environmental factors from climate change has exacerbated their decline.
Chinook salmon, also known as king salmon, are one of the main salmon species in the Yukon River. They are the largest, most nutritious, and most valued fish in Alaska Native culture. Over the past few years, their numbers across the state have fallen below the long-term average. Historically, 375,000 salmon passed through the Yukon River Drainage every year. Last year, there were only 65,000.
The ban on Chinook harvesting is devastating for Alaska Native communities because salmon, among other fish, make up a large part of their traditional diet. Rich in protein, omega-3 fatty acids, and essential vitamins, salmon has served as a primary food source for thousands of years.
Subsistence provides food security in rural Alaska and is necessary for community health. Due to remoteness, short growing seasons, and high transportation costs of food, fresh produce is scarce. Without access to salmon, Alaska Native communities often have to replace this crucial protein with expensive commercial foods that are lower in quality and nutrition.
Beyond nutritional and economic benefits, salmon is also a vital part of Alaska Native culture. Knowledge of salmon harvesting is passed down through generations, and the sharing and receiving of salmon is critical to preserving traditional ways of life. It is also a way for communities to connect with the land.
“Salmon is such an important part of who we are as Indigenous people,” Woods explains. “I feel like I’m very strong in my culture because of salmon.”
But as salmon populations decline and harvesting halts, Alaska Native communities lose access to one of the most vital fish species in their diet and culture.
“Our foods, they keep us well in so many different ways,” Woods says. “And when that’s taken away from you, it’s hard to find healthy ways to get through.”
The journey across the Yukon River
Every June, Alaska Native communities wait in anticipation for the salmon to arrive.
Yukon River Chinook salmon begin their lives in freshwater spawning grounds and spend up to a year growing into juveniles, also known as smolts. After going through smoltification, they migrate into the ocean and spend anywhere from one to six years maturing and growing into adults. When they are ready to reproduce, salmon migrate from the Bering Sea back to their spawning grounds across the Yukon River basin.
As adult Chinook salmon make the journey upstream to spawn, some migrate as much as 2,000 miles. Starting in the summer, typically from June to September, the salmon pass through the Yukon in different groups called runs.
To George Yaska, the Indigenous Knowledge Liaison for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska, the summer season passes in phases of fish runs. Yaska grew up in Huslia and lived off of fish on the Koyukuk River, a tributary that flows downstream into the Yukon.
“The very first salmon that show up are the fish that we want to start cutting,” Yaska says. “They’re the freshest, the strongest, the biggest, and the fattest.”
Chinook and chum (dog) salmon migrate through the Yukon first, followed by coho (silver) salmon. While many people travel to the riverside to fish, Yaska says Alaska Native fishers only take what they need.
“If we did well early, we would stop [fishing],” Yaska says. “There were lots of people above us. The fish haven’t got to them yet, and we have to let them fish.”
But year after year, less and less salmon are passing through the Yukon. Growing up, Yaska’s family would take 40 to 50 fish to keep them fed through the winter. In the 90s, it was 10 to 20. And this year, it’s zero.
Warming temperatures are killing salmon
Science indicates that warming water temperatures are a major contributor to low salmon returns, NOAA Fisheries says. As climate change advances, rivers in higher latitudes, like the Yukon River, are warming nearly twice as fast as rivers in temperate areas. In recent years, Alaska has recorded multiple record-breaking heatwaves – including this summer. The state released its first heat advisory ever in June.
In outer regions around Fairbanks, temperatures above 75 degrees trigger a heat advisory. In the interior, it’s 85 degrees. In June, temperatures were expected to reach the mid-80s.
While these temperatures may not appear dangerous, they can cause extreme ecological changes in the Arctic, including increased wildfires, permafrost thaw, soil erosion, and most important for salmon, ocean and stream warming.
Increased water temperatures impact salmon health at every stage in their life, especially during their migration period. They become stressed in warmer water, forcing them to burn energy faster and swim slower. Salmon also become more susceptible to disease.
Daily maximum stream temperatures have risen over 10 degrees above the optimal spawning temperature of 5 degrees Celsius this summer. In July, Yukon River Drainage’s pilot station – the first station in the watershed that all salmon must pass through to migrate upstream – exceeded the critical temperature threshold of 64.4 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius) nine days in a row. Once a stream’s temperature passes this temperature limit, fish can lose their ability to function.
In the Salcha Station, located in the middle of the Yukon River Drainage, daily maximum stream temperatures were higher than the maximum optimal spawning temperature of 55 degrees Fahrenheit (12.8 degrees Celsius) throughout the majority of the summer. The Salcha Station is historically one of the most abundant spawning grounds for Chinook salmon.
The management crisis
Issues around commercial harvesting have also played a role in declining salmon runs in Alaska. In the mid-90s, the majority of Chinook salmon in the Yukon were overharvested by commercial fishermen several years in a row. In 1995, the first 10-mile stretch of the Yukon River after the Bering Sea (also known as Y-1) was the site of a large-scale overharvesting event.
“Eight hundred commercial fishermen fished for 9 and a half or 10 and a half inch fish, which is huge,” Yaska says. “In a 24-hour opening, they caught 147,000 kings.”
Because there were so many taken at once, salmon have not been able to rebound to their initial population numbers.
“Ever since then, the run has been demolished,” Yaska says.
Bycatch at sea also poses a threat to salmon populations. Trawlers catching pollock, a common fish in the Bering Sea, are the main source of salmon bycatch. When salmon are unintentionally caught by large industrial trawlers, the fish often die from stress, injury, or suffocation.
In 2011, the NPFMC implemented a Chinook salmon bycatch limit in response to unusually high bycatch numbers – including a peak of 122,000 caught in 2007. Amendment 91 designed a system to manage Chinook salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery by setting two caps on the number of salmon that could be incidentally caught, with a high limit of 60,000 and a low limit of 47,591 depending on the overall size of the salmon runs that year.
Amendment 110, also called the Three-River Index, was developed shortly after Amendment 91 to further monitor and protect Chinook salmon populations. If the number of salmon returning to the Kuskokwim, Unalakleet, and Upper Yukon River systems is less than 250,000 fish, the cap is reduced to a high limit of 45,000 and a low limit of 33,318.
To measure bycatch, every pollock vessel in the Bering Sea must carry at least one certified observer to monitor, identify, and count salmon. Additionally, every vessel has an Electronic Monitoring system and cameras to record the vessel’s catch.
But even with current management actions, salmon populations are still struggling. As stream temperatures increase, salmon are under possibly lethal conditions during the summer months of migration. Decreasing bycatch numbers in the Bering Sea before salmon migrate through the Yukon River gives the population the best chance of dealing with today’s climate stressors.
“All the other issues that are now in play – temperatures, ocean conditions, ecosystem problems due to trawling out in the Bering Sea – all of those things are now having an impact when they didn’t before,” Yaska says.
Taking community action
When fewer salmon return to the Yukon River, tribes, communities, and families suffer. As climate warming and bycatch decimate salmon populations, Alaska Native communities believe the best course of action towards salmon success is Indigenous-informed management practices, not banning subsistence.
“Shutting down subsistence in rivers – shutting down tribes – is not the solution,” Woods says. “Tribes are not the reason we are seeing the salmon collapse. We have traditional values of only taking what you need.”
Woods has spent almost 10 years in the advocacy sphere, where she and Alaska Native community members have worked to uplift tribal sovereignty in governance and management. Although the work is exhausting, Woods has seen progress and solidarity across the region.
“Tribes and Alaska Native organizations are exhausting all avenues to ensure that our salmon survive and that traditional practices, or subsistence, is provided,” Woods says.
When Alaska Native community members are represented in government bodies like the Alaska Board of Fisheries, management practices can focus on encouraging representative and equitable decision making while protecting both salmon and subsistence.
Yaska, who works with tribes on both the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, ensures the integration of Alaska Native knowledge into conservation efforts. By giving community members a seat at the table, their knowledge and way of life can be preserved. And as Alaska Native culture and tradition is protected, so are the salmon that communities rely on.
“Because salmon have no voice, we have to try to speak for them,” Yaska says.
What keeps Woodwell Climate Director of Government Relations, Laura Uttley going day to day?
Uttley leads the Center’s domestic policy advocacy, and it’s been a hard year for domestic policy. In the past, her work has involved building relationships with members of Congress, tracking climate-relevant legislation, and planning Hill visits and briefings with Center scientists. This year, it’s been all that plus an exhausting gauntlet of crisis response, as climate science falls under attack from an antagonistic presidential administration. It is a federal policy landscape that makes advancing climate research, mitigation policy, and adaptation efforts harder than perhaps at any point in U.S. history.
But waiting for easier times is not an option.
Since the start of the new presidential administration in January, federal funding and support infrastructure for science has been slashed, and many laws, court rulings, and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations that form the foundation of the U.S.’s climate and environmental policy have been targeted or overturned to make way for an agenda that prioritizes fossil fuels. Protecting as much environmental policy as possible has become an urgent priority for Uttley and the rest of the Government Relations team at Woodwell, but despite the chaos and uncertainty, they aren’t flagging.
“What gets me going on a day to day basis, is that I have a job to do,” says Uttley.
Holding back the floodwaters
At the beginning of the year, Uttley and the Government Relations team were bracing themselves for the new administration to “flood the zone.” The tactic, which involves mounting as many attempts as possible to repeal legislation, cut funding, and stymie regular governmental proceedings in a short timespan, is designed to overwhelm potential opposition and the media.
“It is done very intentionally,” says Uttley. “To distract. To exhaust. To cloud your judgment on things, and get you too focused on one area, so that you’re unaware or unable or too limited in terms of resources to work in a different space.”
And that’s exactly what newly appointed officials did—from pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, to proposing the sale of public lands, to firing staff from key agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to changing regulation around how the EPA implements signature environmental legislation.
The instinct, Uttley says, for individuals and organizations that care about diversity, the environment, or public funding for science, is to react to everything because every attack feels like a devastating loss. But that is exactly what drains motivation and resources the fastest.
“I don’t have the luxury of outrage right now,” says Uttley.
So she and others have had to stay focused on the most significant policy battles, concentrating resources on the areas most aligned with Woodwell Climate’s mission and expertise.
“You could make the argument that we should be in any number of fights and policy debates,” says Uttley. “But if we go too far afield, the impact of our voice changes in those dialogues that are so core to our mission. Staying focused can be really hard to do when everything feels so deeply important.”
Top Priority: The Endangerment Finding
Among the fights the Center’s Government Relations team has engaged in, protecting the infrastructure of American climate policy has been a chief priority. In July, the administration announced its intent to revoke the Endangerment Finding, which underpins the majority of U.S. climate action. This finding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) affirms that the emission of six greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere— including carbon dioxide and methane— represents a threat to human health and wellbeing, giving the agency authority to regulate them. The decision was based on rigorous science, and was re-affirmed in a 2018 study, led by then-president of Woodwell Climate, Dr. Phil Duffy, who wrote that in the intervening years evidence in support of the finding had only accumulated.
The current administration has attempted to call into question the scientific basis of the finding by releasing a report from the Department of Energy (DOE) that challenges consensus on the damaging impacts of carbon emissions. The suggestion that regulating emissions has caused more harm than the effects of climate change, according to Dave McGlinchey, who served as Woodwell Climate’s Chief of Government Relations between 2016 and 2025, is a blatant dismissal of scientific fact.
“We built an operation here at Woodwell that is very non-partisan, but the idea that the Executive Branch of the U.S. federal government just doesn’t engage with evidence, or moves forward despite clearly contravening evidence, is a real challenge,” says McGlinchey.
It also dismisses the fact that the EPA’s ability to regulate things like tailpipe and power plant emissions has improved air quality for millions of Americans. The finding has made our skies clearer, lungs healthier, and contributed meaningfully to reducing the U.S.’s emissions.
Legal challenges to the proposed repeal began to roll in almost immediately after its announcement, and the opportunity for public comment on the rule was extended to September 22. The Woodwell Climate team developed an organizational comment in support of the Finding to throw more scientific weight behind the efforts to keep it in place.
Climate risk spans political divides
While the political landscape around climate mitigation remains contentious, opportunities to advance resilience projects on the local scale remain. Communities across the political spectrum are feeling the acute impacts of climate change and need information to protect themselves.
“Risk is a bipartisan issue,” says McGlinchey. “Unfortunately, in this country, we have repeated, catastrophic reminders of what climate change impacts look like, so people are attuned to that. They want to understand risk and they want to understand how to become more resilient.“
Andrew Condia, External Affairs Manager, leads the Center’s primary climate adaptation project, Just Access. The initiative connects climate scientists with communities both in the U.S. and around the world to provide assessments of current and future climate risks at no cost to the communities. With a better understanding of how variables like flooding, drought, heatwaves, and fires will impact their communities in the coming years, leaders in municipal governments have been able to have climate-informed conversations about planning, infrastructure, and public health. Even in overwhelmingly conservative areas.
“We work with some Democratic mayors, some Republican mayors, and they are lined up and equally as engaged in the process,” says Condia. “They understand the importance of this information and know that it’s a critical tool to help them as their communities grow and change in the future.”
The sweeping nature of cutbacks on the federal level has meant that municipalities are now one of the only places these conversations are able to move forward.
“I think local governments recognize that in the absence of federal leadership, it’s up to them to step up to make progress on these issues. It’s the only climate action in the country that is really making meaningful progress right now,” says Condia.
Bigger picture, longer term
At higher levels of government, McGlinchey says the current top priority is to maintain relationships with policymakers and lay the groundwork for long-term changes while momentum in the short term has been halted.
“We can’t look at how bleak the landscape appears to be and throw our hands up and give up. Because political winds shift frequently in this country, and fairly dramatically, and when they shift again, we don’t want to start at zero,” says McGlinchey.
For the past three years the Government Relations team has organized “fly-ins”, which bring Woodwell Climate scientists to Washington D.C. for meetings with Members of Congress and their staff. The fly-ins are key to how the Center stewards relationships on Capitol Hill and raises issues like permafrost thaw or flood insurance risk to the attention of legislators. Despite this year’s political changes, Uttley was still able to bring 12 scientists, board members, and staff for meetings with 15 congressional offices this September.
Woodwell has also remained active in coalition groups, which combine the power of many organizations to push for common goals.
“We’re engaged in the Adaptation Working Group, Friends of NOAA, the Coalition for National Science Funding, and more,” says Uttley. “From a policy perspective we have really seen the advocacy community rally together this year.”
And while the U.S. regresses on climate action, the rest of the world continues forward. Woodwell Climate is helping to propel important climate policy on the international stage, forming a delegation to the annual UN Conference of Parties (COP) in Belém, Brazil in November. Given its location, tropical forests will feature heavily on the agenda this year, and the Center will be showcasing emerging work on tropical regenerative agriculture, sustainable development in the DRC, and financing for forest protection. The Center is also collaborating with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to provide technical support for countries submitting biennial transparency reports on their progress towards climate goals.
Momentum on climate means telling climate stories
Still, facing down the urgency and magnitude of climate change, these incremental wins and slowly unfolding plans often don’t feel like enough compared to swift federal actions. Especially for individuals who don’t have their hands on the levers of power. But Uttley says the local level is where most change has always started, and individuals can make a difference.
“While I’m working to make systemic change on the federal level, one of the most powerful things each of us can do to keep up momentum on climate is to tell stories about local impacts,” says Uttley. Whether it’s about soccer practices canceled for heat or commuting lanes flooded, stories that connect climate change to our daily lives help change minds and motivate action.
Working on climate policy in times like these is a careful balance of hope and disappointment, Uttley says, but in order to move forward hope always has to win out. Not wishful thinking, but the kind of hope that springs from facing down the obstacles and getting to work.
“I’ve been in public policy and advocacy for 15 years,” says Uttley. “If I didn’t have a strong sense of optimism and hope, I would not be able to do this job.”
Soil carbon: Crucial ally or potential threat to net-zero commitments?
The daily destruction of nature’s carbon stores is happening right before our eyes, as forests are ravaged by catastrophic wildfires and vast tracts of wildlands are cleared for agriculture. But even greater stores of carbon lie hidden beneath our feet, and they too are under threat.
The world’s soils are a gigantic carbon sink that has so far played a vital, outsized role in mitigating humanity’s excessive carbon emissions. But climate change, industrialized agriculture and other human activities threaten to degrade global soil carbon storage — maybe dangerously so.
Preserving the ecosystem services of this subterranean environment is crucial to meeting global net zero commitments.
We now know just how much climate change supercharged Hurricane Katrina
Two decades after the devastating storm, scientists can more easily determine how much global warming is intensifying tropical cyclones.
Two decades ago, Hurricane Katrina spun up like a massive atmospheric engine, using warm ocean water as fuel. Making landfall as a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph, it devastated New Orleans — surging seawater over levees, killing nearly 1,400 people, and causing more than $150 billion in damage. Even though engineers have since significantly bolstered those levees, their ability to withstand climate-supercharged cyclones remains uncertain.
Summers in the Arctic-boreal region are becoming increasingly defined by fire. In 2023, Canada endured its worst wildfire season in history, with nearly 200,000 Canadians displaced. Fast forward to summer 2025, and the country faces its second-worst wildfire season on record, with 470 outbreaks deemed “out of control” by August. Siberia and Alaska are also confronting active fire seasons.
For Arctic communities, the physical impacts of smoke exposure, the toll of evacuations and destruction, and the threats to cultural traditions compound the danger of extreme fires. But Indigenous science and cultural traditions offer a path towards justice and resilience.
Climate change and colonial histories fuel the fire
Climate change has created hotter and drier conditions in the north, increasing the frequency and intensity of Arctic-boreal wildfires. These wildfires amplify global warming, creating a feedback loop by burning deep into permafrost, a carbon-rich soil, and releasing stored carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. A recent study led by Permafrost Pathways researchers found that wildfire has contributed to the Arctic’s shift from a net absorber to a net emitter of carbon. That increase in emissions in turn fuels even more fires. Between 2003 and 2023, the Arctic-boreal region saw a sevenfold increase in extreme wildfires.
“Things have really changed in our traditional territories,” said Woodwell Climate’s Adaptation Specialist, Brooke Woods. Woods is a Tribal member from Rampart, Alaska, and she currently lives in Fairbanks, Alaska. “We had two fires close to Rampart this summer. We’ve had back-to-back fires over the past three summers. Growing up, I don’t ever recall back-to-back wildfires surrounding our communities.”
The increase is also due, in part, to increased lightning strikes, which are occurring more frequently as warming temperatures further destabilize atmospheric conditions, leading to more storms that produce lightning.
“Our summers are drier and we’re having more severe heat events as well as more intense lightning and thunderstorms now, too,” said Woods. “When we had the fire in Rampart, in the midst of this wildfire, one of the storms actually produced 1600 lightning strikes across Alaska.”
The history of colonialism in North America has also played a role in today’s extreme wildfire regimes. For millennia, Indigenous Peoples across the Arctic practiced cultural burning—using small, controlled fires to manage the land, reduce dry fuel buildup, and prevent large, catastrophic wildfires. These practices not only protected ecosystems but also supported biodiversity and were deeply rooted in cultural knowledge and tradition. However, colonization disrupted these systems as Indigenous communities were forcibly removed from their lands, and cultural burning was often banned and criminalized altogether.
“Elders risked jail time for burning,” Dr. Amy Cardinal Christianson told Chatelaine Magazine. Christianson is a Metis wildfire expert and Policy Advisor for the Indigenous Leadership Initiative who co-hosts the podcast Good Fire and serves on the board of the International Association of Wildland Fire. “That’s how badly they knew that the land needed to burn.”
This erasure, combined with colonial fire suppression tactics, has led to the accumulation of flammable undergrowth that makes the land more vulnerable to intense and widespread fires.
Smoke, displacement, and cultural survival
Increasingly active Arctic-boreal wildfires are not just environmental disasters, they’re also cultural and human crises.
Wildfire smoke—which can contain soot and high levels of mercury— threatens the health of Arctic communities and can put vulnerable groups, like elders, young children, and those with pre-existing health conditions, at prolonged risk well after the fires have gone out.
“In my baby’s first year of life in 2023, we had such bad air quality [in Fairbanks]. It impacted his respiratory system, and it was just so hard for him to be able to nurse,” said Woods. “I was even considering driving 300 miles to the next urban area to get him to clean, healthy air because there was also a fire in Rampart. It impacted our safety in both of the places that we call home.”
The mental toll of wildfires can also be just as devastating as the physical impacts, as communities must navigate evacuation logistics, loss, and displacement with very little governmental support.
“Communities are thinking about how the wildfire crisis is real—it’s driven them from their home and maybe destroyed their home—they’re thinking ‘what else am I going to lose’?” said Edward Alexander, Senior Arctic Lead at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, Chair of Gwich’in Council International, and Co-Chair of the Arctic Council’s Expert Group on Wildland Fire. “Then, becoming unhoused… people lose their jobs, their businesses, or their investments. They lose forward momentum in their life.”
In addition, evacuation is far more complicated in the Arctic. Many remote communities and villages in Alaska and Canada either have only one main road or aren’t connected to road systems at all, making them accessible only by plane or boat, which presents a logistical and financial challenge for mass evacuation. The combined impacts of smoke, heat, and economic insecurity can also present impossible choices.
“If you look at not only the health disparities but your income, what can you afford to keep yourself healthy?” said Woods. “Can you afford air filters for your home? Can you afford and have access to air conditioners with filters? Because not only are you battling the smoke, but you’re also battling this heat. So just navigating those at different income levels can be very complex.”
Fire doesn’t just destroy infrastructure and threaten health and well-being, it also disrupts Indigenous ways of life, cultural connections to land, intergenerational knowledge sharing, language revitalization, and cultural history tied to specific places like hunting trails, fish camps, and seasonal migration.
“When we were still able to subsistence fish in Alaska, and had wildfires at the same time, there were community members in Rampart that were not able to meet all of their subsistence needs due to wildfires,” Woods said.
Traditional solutions for modern problems: A return to cultural burning
In Good Fire, Christianson discusses ways to restore the modern world’s broken relationship with fire and the need to integrate systems that not only respond appropriately but are also proactive and predicated on Indigenous Knowledge and expertise. This is where cultural burning offers a way forward—a way to view fire not as a threat, but as a critical tool for keeping land healthy and communities safe.
The First Nations Emergency Services Society (FNESS) and the Indigenous Leadership Initiative (ILI) recently released the “Create a Cultural Burn Pathway” workbook to support Indigenous communities in creating cultural burn programs to reduce wildfire risk and maintain healthy connections to the land.
“Fire doesn’t have to be scary,” said Christianson in a video produced by the Indigenous Leadership Initiative. “It doesn’t have to be something we live in fear of every summer. We can have a better relationship with fire that can have really important benefits.”
Traditional burning is a culturally grounded, community-empowered, and ecologically practical approach to managing and mitigating wildfire risk in the North, born from generations of Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Unlike conventional fire suppression, which often seeks to eliminate fire altogether, cultural burning is a proactive, place-based practice rooted in Indigenous governance, values, and ecological understanding. These approaches aren’t about fighting fire—they’re about embracing it to foster sovereignty, revitalize knowledge, and deepen connection to the land.
Beyond the health of the land and forests, cultural fire also contributes to cultural resilience and maintains Indigenous connections to land and community. Cultural burns ensure practices are guided by traditional protocols and adapted to local ecosystems. Community members, including youth, are involved—passing knowledge between generations and restoring cultural roles that were disrupted by colonization.
Which is why, according to Alexander, placing the emphasis on the health of the forest, ecosystems, and community overall, rather than on controlling fire, should be the real goal.
“We should be thinking a little differently,” Alexander said. “Cultural fire is a tool, but fire is not the emphasis. It’s the health of the forest, it’s the health of the land, it’s the health of the animals and birds, it’s the health of our peoples and communities. That’s the emphasis.”
From ‘wildfire to mildfire,’ Indigenous fire stewardship as a path forward
Cultural burning is just one part of the solution, which will involve moving away from colonial fire suppression methods altogether and supporting Indigenous-led fire stewardship models with meaningful changes in policy and funding. Woods says she’d like to see Indigenous-led fire programs represented as part of a broader recognition of Indigenous sovereignty in the North.
“I’d like to see more local people leading the work rather than just renting out their equipment or hiring them as boat captains,” Woods said. There are more opportunities for Indigenous People to help their own communities. I feel there’s always time to course correct and really acknowledge and honor the 229 Tribes of Alaska and their practices that have maintained very healthy land and ecosystems for so long.”
In Alaska, Indigenous-led wildfire initiatives—like the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Emergency Firefighter (EFF) program—create opportunities for local members of Alaska Native communities to join crews and integrate their traditional knowledge and expertise of the land to help keep their communities safe. In Canada, Fire Guardian programs—which Dr. Christianson has long been advocating for—aim to get good fire back on the land through Indigenous stewardship and traditional practices.
Alexander says he hopes recognizing cultural burning and other forms of Indigenous Knowledge as legitimate science will help prioritize them in land management.
“It’s critically important science that we need to help us manage the wildland fire crisis in the circumpolar north,” said Alexander.
Alexander imagines a future where wildfire becomes mildfire. Where communities in the north are adequately resourced and wildfire management becomes proactive and rooted in Indigenous Knowledge and expertise, while prioritizing and supporting sovereignty.
“Indigenous fire management looks like a vibrant landscape where you don’t have severe wildland fire, but you have increased biodiversity, where the vegetation is more nutritious for the plants and animals, and that permafrost and other hugely important resources are protected,” Alexander said. “I also think that it’s an integral part of respecting the sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples, of respecting the self-determination of Indigenous Peoples to manage our territories how we see fit, and I think that it’s a really critical approach that we need to all be listening to. Our collective future really depends on it.”
An unusual sight over Canada’s Arctic: Wildfire smoke
Once rare, wildfire smoke is becoming more prevalent in Arctic communities as Canada faces harsh wildfire seasons.
Elizabeth Mikkungwak thought the nearby garbage dump must be on fire. Acrid smoke clouded the skies over Baker Lake, a tiny Arctic hamlet and the only inland community in Nunavut, the largest in area of the three northern territories in Canada.
A safety alert issued by the authorities in the hamlet in May gave the real reason for the smoke: wildfires on the Prairies.
Read more on The New York Times.
