Canada Indigenous communities advocate traditional techniques to prevent wildfires

As devastating wildfires tear through Canada’s western province of British Columbia, Indigenous communities are advocating traditional techniques to prevent the blazes, which are growing in intensity due to the climate crisis.

For millennia, native people have used controlled fires to reduce the risk of larger fires, renew medicinal resources and food for animals.

Now, prescribed burning is hampered by bureaucratic red tape, but the local Ministry of Forests tells CBC News that it is working with Indigenous groups to “further support the reintroduction of traditional and cultural burning on the land base as part of wildfire prevention.”