Wildfire Management, Native Nations, and the Ethics of Consultation and Collaboration

A Panel Discussion with Patricia Sekaquaptewa, Chief Justice, Hopi Appellate Court, and Chair of the Board, The Nakwatsvewat Institute; Ethan Elkind, Director, Climate Program, Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment, UC Berkeley School of Law, and Executive Director, The Nakwatsvewat Institute; Justin B. Richland, Professor and Chair of Anthropology, Professor of Law, UC-Irvine, and Associate Justice, Hopi Appellate Court.

Native nations are too often ignored in wildfire management discussions, despite regulatory regimes that mandate state and federal agencies seek their input. Panelists will discuss the ethics that inform the need for such consultation and collaboration in this timely and urgent context. What are the enduring challenges to the successful execution of tribal consultation and collaboration, and the promised partnerships that are intended to result from them? What constraints and affordances face scientists, policy makers, tribal leaders, and knowledge keepers as they seek to work together on solving complex challenges of wildfire research and management? In order to explore the particular challenges that face tribal, state and federal collaboration and consultation around wildfire research and risk management, panelists will discuss a new project involving tribes and agencies in the Payahuunadü/Owens Valley region of Eastern California, UC Irvine faculty, UCSB Reserve System faculty, and the Capps Center.

This event is co-sponsored by UCSB’s American Indian and Indigenous Studies Collective, Legal Humanities Initiative, Department of Environmental Studies, and the UC Disaster Resilience Network.

Free and open to the public

Presented by The Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life