View this event recording on the Berkeley Center for New Media YouTube channel. 

With California wildfires becoming a seasonal inevitability, we turn our Indigenous Technologies series to the question of fire ecologies. Join us for a conversation on indigenous fire management and land practices with two indigenous ecologists. We’ll hear from Margo Robbins, co-founder and president of the Cultural Fire Management Council and Valentin Lopez, Chair of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and the President of the Amah Mutsun Land Trust. 

Presented by the Berkeley Center for New Media and the History and Theory of New Media Lecture Series.

Robbins is the co-founder and president of the Cultural Fire Management Council (CFMC). She is one of the key planners and organizers of the Cultural Burn Training Exchange(TREX) that takes place on the Yurok Reservation twice a year. She is also a co-lead and advisor for the Indigenous People’s Burn Network.Margo comes from the traditional Yurok village of Morek, and is an enrolled member of the Yurok Tribe. She gathers and prepares traditional food and medicine, is a basket weaver and regalia maker. She is the Indian Education Director for the Klamath-Trinity Joint Unified School district, a mom, and a grandma.

Lopez has served as Chair of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band since 2003, and the President of the Amah Mutsun Land Trust since its inception. Valentin is a Native American Advisor to the University of California, Office of the President on issues related to repatriation. He is also a Native American Advisor to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Valentin is actively involved in efforts to restore tribal indigenous knowledge and ensure our history is accurately told.