Evaluating the Purpose, Extent, and Ecological Restoration Applications of Indigenous Burning Practices in Southwestern Washington

摘要

Understanding the historic fire regime is essential before restoring fire to an ecosystem. Hisr.oriail ecology provides a means to use both quantitative and qualitative data from different disciplines to address questions about how the traditional ecological management (TbM) practices of indigenous peoples influenced prairie and savanna ecosystems in the past. In this article, we evaluated paleoecolog-ical, archaeological, ethnographic, and etlv nohotanical information about the Upper Chehiilis River basin prairies of southwestern Washington to better understand the extent to which TEM influenced prairie distribution, composition, and availability of wild plant food resources. We also surveyed areas that had been burned at differing frequencies to test whether frequent fires increase camas (CVOTUISSKI cjuamash) productivity. Preliminary results support the hypothesis that camas productivity increases with fire-return, intervals of one to two years.