Abstract: The inability to distinguish between human-caused and lightning ignitions in fire-history studies has led to three major problems: 1) a basic assumption that all pre–Euro-American settlement fire regimes are ‘‘natural’’ unless findings are aberrant, i.e., outside the range of ‘‘natural’’ lightning fire regimes; 2) a lack of studies that explicitly or quantitatively determine ignition sources; and 3) use of regional anthropological overviews rather than site-specific ethnographic and archaeological data. A cross-disciplinary dendrochronological fire history and archaeological study conducted in Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park, California, shows that fire return intervals in areas with no historical lightning ignitions and a large Native American population were similar to those in locations with a high number of lightning ignitions. Native American fire regimes in Yosemite Valley consisted of spatially small, low-intensity surface fires in all areas regardless of differences in distance from a village site, identified land uses, or village size. Fire patterns appear to be independent of climatic fluctuations and dependent on human disturbance patterns. Archaeological and ethnographic data show no major difference between the population size, land-use patterns, or material culture of the Ahwah’-nee, the prehistoric occupants of Yosemite Valley, and other native groups in the Sierra Nevada or Great Basin. The cultural data and initial findings from this study suggest that lightning and Native American influences on fire regimes cannot be differentiated based only on fire return intervals and fire regimes;additional cross-disciplinary studies are needed to gain better understanding of human–fire interactions.
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Abstract: Indigenous groups offer alternative knowledge and perspectives based on their own   locally developed practices of resource use. We surveyed theinternational literature to focus on the role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in monitoring, responding to, and managing ecosystem processes and functions, with special attention to ecological resilience. Case studies revealed that there exists a diversity of local or traditional practices for ecosystem management. These include multiple species management, resource rotation, succession management, landscape patchiness management, and other ways of responding to and managing pulses and ecological surprises. Social mechanisms behind these traditional practices include a number of adaptations for the generation, accumulation, and transmission of knowledge; the use of local institutions to provide leaders/stewards and rules for social regulation; mechanisms for cultural internalization of traditional practices; and the development of appropriate world views and cultural values. Some traditional knowledge and management systems were characterized by the use of local ecological knowledge to interpret and respond to feed-backs from the environment to guide the direction of resource management. These traditional systems had certain similarities   to adaptive management with its emphasis on feedback learning, and its  treatment of uncertainty and unpredictability intrinsic to all ecosystems.                           
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