There is a conceptual thread connecting Australia and Arizona — the places about which University of Kansas researcher Melinda Adams wrote in two recent scholarly journal articles — and her new work with the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, based in White Cloud, to reintroduce a beneficial “fire regime” to their lands.

It’s Indigenous fire sovereignty.

“That has been the ‘aha’ moment for both sets of research,” said Adams, who is KU’s Langston Hughes Assistant Professor in Indigenous Studies and Geography & Atmospheric Science.

Adams was one of seven scholars who collaborated with lead author Christopher Roos, a professor from Southern Methodist University, on the new paper “Tree rings reveal persistent Western Apache (Ndee) fire stewardship and niche construction in the American Southwest,” published in PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

These dendrochronologists examined nearly 650 sets of tree rings, comparing those from inside the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona to those outside it. The trees on the reservation continued to benefit from what are called “cultural burns,” while those outside did not benefit from cultural burns after the establishment of reservations.

“The climactic influence of Apache fire stewardship was the revelation of the paper,” Adams said. “I believe it’s seminal work because it challenges the assumptions that dendrochronological records were produced by naturally occurring wildfire, when, in fact, reexamining the ring patterns and from questions that our research team asked, it signals and affirms that it was Indigenous peoples purposely placing fire to those landscapes.”

Adams praised both Roos and the lead author of another recent paper on which she collaborated, retired U.S. Forest Service ecologist Jonathan Long, for involving relevant Native scholars in the work. Adams and one of the other co-authors on the Tree Ring paper, Nicholas Laluk, a professor from University of California-Berkeley, are enrolled members of Western Apache tribes. Their involvement in the research provided key cultural details, she said.

The article Long organized, “Indigenous Fire Stewardship to Revitalize Disrupted Ecosystems,” is commentary invited by the editors of the journal Global Change Biology.

The authors analyzed a paper published recently in the same journal by Elle Bowd of the Australian National University in Canberra titled “Plant Responses to a Re-emergence of Cultural Burning in Long-Unburnt, Threatened Temperate Woodlands.”

Adams said Bowd’s article on the ecological benefits and pitfalls of regrowth in “fire-deficient” places resembles her own work as she consults on and helps conduct ongoing reintroduction of regular cultural burning to Iowa Tribal land in northeast Kansas.

“Bowd’s cultural fire work in Australia is great, but, importantly, the paper is also an example of studies that are co-developed and co-produced with tribes,” Adams said. “As with the Roos paper, having myself and Dr. Laluk as key researchers demonstrates scholarship that is co-produced with Indigenous peoples.”

The paper also included permission from the Apache tribe to reexamine those dendrochronology records. Adam said both of these approaches point toward responsible research conducted with Indigenous peoples.

“In our review of Bowd’s work, the ecological biodiversity that results from Indigenous fire stewardship is exciting. But research that is ethically done and led by Indigenous peoples was an exciting part of the review, as well.

“This work affirms Indigenous fire sovereignty, revitalizing fire stewardship not only as an ancient land-tending practice but as a current endeavor reintroducing responsible fire into landscapes long deprived of its presence.”

Adams will present “Wildfire Resilience: Indigenous Fire Research, Policy and Data in the U.S.” at the November Research Luncheon, hosted by KU’s Institute for Policy & Social Research. The luncheon will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 7 at Watson Library, 3 West Reading Room. Details and registration are available online.