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Fire has been removed as a dominant disturbance agent from many of the world’s natural ecosystems. There is, however, a growing realization that the absence of fire undermines ecosystem integrity. One impact is the accumulation of dead organic matter that can serve as a fuel source. In these circumstances, ignition under hot and dry conditions can generate severe fires, with loss of surface organic layers and exposed mineral soil, leading to impaired regenerative capacity and productivity (Deal et al., 2010). Eliminating low-intensity fires can also result in overstocked stands with poor understory development, a predominance of uniformly older age classes, and reduced compositional diversity (Keane et al., 2002; Hessburg et al., 2019).

Paleoecological and oral evidence shows that for millennia, Indigenous societies used fire to manage landscapes (Kimmerer and Lake, 2001; Archibald et al., 2012; Huffman, 2013; Klimaszewski-Patterson et al., 2018). Anthropogenic fire is critical to many fire-dependent ecosystems (Marsden-Smedley and Kirkpatrick, 2000; Yibarbuk et al., 2001; Pellatt and Gedalof, 2014). Controlled burning, such as that produced through Indigenous fire management (IFM), serves to reduce fuel loading in forests and grasslands, though there are often significant legal, political and attitudinal barriers to this practice (Huffman, 2013; Lake and Christianson, 2019; Nikolakis and Roberts, 2020, 2021).

Record-breaking fires around the world have facilitated calls for more decentralized and proactive fire management—beyond the standard practice of fire suppression (Nikolakis and Roberts, 2021). It is generally recognized that fire management regimes often do not reflect the underlying ecological fire regime or take full account of available knowledge sources (Moura et al., 2019; Welch and Coimbra, 2019). IFM is increasingly seen as a way to bring fire back to landscapes, particularly on Indigenous tenured lands (Lake and Christianson, 2019; Moura et al., 2019; and mitigating destructive wildfire by bringing the right fire, to the right place at the right time. Nikolakis and Roberts (2020, p. 1) described IFM “[as] the proactive use of fire to achieve multiple and complex landscape-level objectives,” which can include cleaning the landscape, mitigating wildfire, ceremony, promoting food security (Mistry et al., 2016; Lake and Christianson, 2019), guided by Indigenous knowledge,³ practices, lore and customs. In addition to sustainable livelihoods, Indigenous fire management is increasingly being applied within the context of GHG emissions abatement (Russell-Smith et al., 2013; Moura et al., 2019).

In Canada, colonization and the expansion of the industrial logging model led to a decline in IFM practices, and with it, much of the knowledge around this practice (Nikolakis et al., 2020). A government-led report by Abbott and Chapman (2018) in British Columbia (BC), Canada, after the devastating 2017 wildfire season that impacted the Chilcotin, called for the prioritization of proactive fire prevention, prescribed burning, and better fire management coordination with First Nations (Indigenous peoples) (Nikolakis and Roberts, 2021).⁴ Intentionally introducing fire back into Canada’s landscape has its challenges: in addition to the risk of unintended consequences (escapement and air quality, for example), the knowledge to implement proactive fire management strategies needs to be re-learned (in modified landscapes with more people, property and tenure), and sufficient resources are required to do this. The well-established program in the savanna region of northern Australia could serve as a template for IFM within the Canadian context.

Savanna ecosystems are mixed woodland-grassland ecosystems that cover vast areas of northern Australia (Figure 1). They have two distinct seasons, dry and wet, the former typically occurring from May to October, and the latter occurring from December to March. Temperatures are relatively stable throughout the year, with monthly maximums averaging 32.5°C during the dry season, and 35°C during the wet season. In contrast, precipitation during the dry season averages only 65 mm, but averages 930 mm during the wet season (1985–2021 data from Darwin Airport, Tindal RAAF and Elliott weather stations; Australian Bureau of Meteorolog [ABOM], 2022). Forests tend to be primarily open canopied, with a ground layer consisting of herbaceous plants, primarily grasses. These ecosystems are the world’s most fire prone landscapes and their flora and fauna show features adapted to, and dependent on, the dry season fire regime. Without fire, savanna communities exhibit profound changes in composition (Andersen et al., 2012) as they transition to a predominance of tree cover with attendant losses in understory structural and compositional diversity (Lipsett-Moore et al., 2018; though see Veenendaal et al., 2018).

In northern Australia, landscape fire management played an integral role in traditional Aboriginal society (Nicholson, 1981; Bowman, 1998; Yibarbuk, 1998). Indigenous peoples typically burned savannas during the EDS, with small, less intense fires, thereby reducing litter and mitigating LDS fire occurrence, intensity, and extent.⁵ European settlement of northern Australia in the nineteenth century disrupted and largely prevented traditional fire practices. The resulting buildup of fuels led to an increase in the frequency, severity, and extent of higher-intensity fires occurring late in the dry season.

In 2000, the 28,000 km² West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement (WALFA) project in northern Australia was implemented, incorporating Indigenous knowledge into savanna burning (Russell-Smith, 2016). Compared to the pre-project 10-year emissions baseline, WALFA activities reduced wildfire-related GHG emissions by 37.7% over 7 years (Russell-Smith et al., 2013). The WALFA transitioned to a voluntary carbon offset project in 2006, with the credits purchased by ConocoPhillips per a 17-year off-take agreement to abate 100,000 t CO₂e year^–1 (Russell-Smith et al., 2015; Morley et al., 2016). A savanna burning emissions abatement methodology based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change rules was formally approved in 2012, under the country’s agricultural carbon offsets program, the Carbon Farming Initiative (Russell-Smith et al., 2013).

The Australian Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011 broadened the scope of activities and enabled crediting of GHG abatement by reducing or avoiding emissions, or removing CO₂ from the atmosphere by sequestration in soil or trees. In 2014, the Act was amended by the Carbon Farming Initiative Amendment Act 2014, to establish an Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF). The ERF has three elements: Crediting; Purchasing; and Safeguarding emissions reductions. The Clean Energy Regulator is the Australian independent statutory authority responsible for developing the technical rules (methods) associated with emission reductions, administering the ERF, and making emissions reduction purchases on behalf of the Federal Government. To participate in the ERF, a project must be registered with the Clean Energy Regulator. When properly verified and registered under an approved methodology, these offsets are referred to as Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs). A government-approved savanna burning program provides the vehicle for Indigenous savanna landowners to sell the carbon credits produced through EDS fire management to the ERF.

In the case of savanna burning, the government mandates use of the Carbon Farming Initiative—Emissions Abatement through Savanna Fire Management Methodology Determination 2018. By January 2018, a total of 75 projects were registered under the ERF and 52 of these projects secured contracts with the Australian Government to abate 13.8 Mt CO₂e over an average of 8.5 years (Lipsett-Moore et al., 2018). This includes the WALFA project, which transitioned into the ERF program in 2015. In 2019, the ERF program was extended with an additional $2 billion (Australian dollar) funding injection and rebranded as the Climate Solutions Fund. An Indigenous-based project verification process is utilized with individuals, preferably Aboriginal Rangers and farmers, who have completed nationally accredited training. Projects require maps of vegetation fuel-types and fire scars for each fire season of each year in the baseline and reporting years (see Table 1 for the eight key elements of these programs). Typically, these are derived from satellite data in conjunction with ground-truthing. The vegetation and fire scar maps are overlaid to derive the potential area burnt in each fire season of each year. This also allows for calculations of ‘‘years since last burnt’’ (YSLB).⁶ YSLB maps determine fine fuel loads in each map pixel. The potential emissions of CH₄ and N₂O for each fire season, given the vegetation fuel type and YSLB, can then be estimated from fuel loads and parameters defining combustion efficiency. Emissions in the reporting year must also account for any fossil fuels consumed to establish and maintain the project activity.

One of the elements that must be satisfied under any carbon credit program and project approval process is additionality. A GHG emission reductions project is considered “additional” if its emission reductions exceed what would have happened had the project had not been carried out (a continuation of business-as-usual practices). Only carbon credits from projects that are additional represent a net environmental benefit. The number of credits generated is the difference in emission reductions as compared to a business-as-usual baseline. In a burning program, then, net emissions from pre-emptive combustion (the project activity) must be less than emissions from uncontrolled fire in its absence (the baseline). Table 1 outlines how additionality is achieved within the Australian Indigenous-led savanna burning programs.

The other enabling factors were:

The Chilcotin, a fire-prone area of BC, Canada, is the traditional territory of the Tsilhqot’in Nation, who, in 2014, had Aboriginal title declared on almost 1,700 km²—they have constitutional rights to exclusive possession and control of their title lands (Nikolakis et al., 2016; Nikolakis, 2019), including jurisdiction to create fire laws for this area. Parts of the Chilcotin experienced intense wildfires in 2017 and 2018, with over 800,000 hectares burned and tens of thousands evacuated (British Columbia Wildfire Service, 2022). It is here that the fire-suppression approach, extinguishing fires as they arise, is being disrupted (Abbott and Chapman, 2018; Verhaegue et al., 2019). This study provides insight into two member First Nations of the Tsilhqot’in, Yunesit’in and Xeni Gwet’in, both of whom are looking to restore their traditional fire practices and the feasibility of carbon credit revenues to support this activity.

The Chilcotin plateau ranges 1,000 m above sea level, and lies west of the Fraser River and east of the Coast Mountain ranges (Figure 2). The plateau is cool and dry, with annual temperatures averaging 0–2°C, but only 250–350 mm of precipitation (1961–1990; Dawson et al., 2008). Summers are warm, with average maximum temperatures ranging from 22 to 28°C (June-August, 1981–2010; PCICS, 2014). The Chilcotin region encompasses a broad range of pyrophytic ecosystems, but is predominantly comprised of savanna-like grasslands, woodlands, and dry forests within the Bunchgrass (BG), Interior Douglas Fir (IDF), Sub-Boreal Pine—Spruce (SBPS), and Montane Spruce (MS) biogeoclimatic zones (Meidinger and Pojar, 1991). Historical fire regimes were variable across these biogeoclimatic zones, with frequent low- and moderate-severity surface fires dominating in the BG and IDF zones (Gayton, 2013; Harvey et al., 2017; Copes-Gerbitz et al., 2022), and a less frequent mix of low- to moderate-severity surface fires and high-severity crown fires dominating in the remaining zones (Cochrane, 2007; Marcoux et al., 2015). Many of these fire regimes were influenced by Indigenous fires (Turner, 1999; Harvey et al., 2017), which amplified fire frequencies and reduced severities relative to the background lightning-ignited wildfires (Copes-Gerbitz et al., 2022). The dominant plant species in this region are adapted to these historical fire regimes. Grasses such as bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata), spreading needlegrass (Achnatherum richardsonii), Rocky Mountain fescue (Festuca saximontana), prairie junegrass (Koeleria macrantha), and pinegrass (Calamagrostis rubescens) are passively pyrophytic to low-intensity surface fires; their aboveground tissues are consumed, but new shoots quickly resprout from below-ground tissues that survive the fires (Abrahamson, 2022). Douglas-fir [Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirbel) Franco var. glauca (Beissn.) Franco] has thick, fire-resistant bark and self-prunes its lower branches to lift crowns above the ground. It is adapted to survive low-intensity surface fires (Hermann and Lavender, 1990). Conversely, Lodgepole Pine (Pinus contorta Douglas Ex Louden) is highly susceptible to crown fires and fire-driven mortality. It reproduces by seed released from serotinous cones that open when heated (Logan and Powell, 2001). Organized fire suppression began around the 1940s, altering the structure and composition of forests and grasslands, and resulting in fuel buildup (Blackstock and McAllister, 2004), woody species encroachment into grasslands, and densification of woodlands and open forests (Bai et al., 2004).

As in other parts of BC’s dry interior, the Tsilhqot’in people used fire to encourage ungulate browsing, thin understory vegetation, and prevent conifer and sagebrush encroachment into grasslands (Turner, 1999; Blackstock and McAllister, 2004). Hence, IFM shaped the region’s historical fire regimes, creating a fire-adapted landscape (Kay et al., 1999). However, colonial fire exclusion through the forced relocation of Indigenous peoples onto reserves, and the prohibition of Indigenous burning, fundamentally altered the historical fire regimes and forests (Greene, 2021; Copes-Gerbitz et al., 2022). Several fire history reconstructions in central BC have documented the absence of low- to moderate-severity fires following colonization in the mid- to late-1800s, which altered forest structure and composition, leaving the landscape vulnerable to high severity fires (Harvey et al., 2017; Brookes et al., 2021; Copes-Gerbitz et al., 2022). Hence, revitalizing Indigenous fire practices offers an important landscape stewardship tool missing for almost a century (Nikolakis et al., 2020).

To address the increasing wildfire risk, the Yunesit’in and Xeni Gwet’in, two of six members of the Tsilhqot’in National Government, have taken over fire management on their lands from the British Columbia government (Nikolakis et al., 2020; Nikolakis and Roberts, 2021). Both First Nations are revitalizing their fire practices through a pilot program that commenced in April 2019, with support by the Gathering Voices Society, an organization that facilitates Indigenous environmental stewardship programs.⁹ This program aims to strengthen landscape stewardship, and to train local people in Indigenous fire practices that are rooted in Indigenous knowledge. Communities determine where and when to burn, and establish the rationale for burning specific areas. There are two burning periods each year, early spring (April and early May), and late fall (October), and each specific site is burned once a year. The program has now been expanded, and employs and trains dozens of community members in fire stewardship, from a combined population of around 500 people, and over a total area of more than 1,700 square kilometers held under Aboriginal title and reserve lands (Nikolakis and Roberts, 2021; Nikolakis and Myers-Ross, 2022). In April 2022, some 250 hectares of forest and grassland was burned.

Fire is used in this program for a variety of goals, including removing fuels to mitigate wildfire risk, to regenerate vegetation such as grasses and berries for people and animals, to clean the landscape and maintain forest health (Nikolakis et al., 2020). Yunesit’in and Xeni Gwet’in took active steps to learn from the Australian savanna experience, engaging with Indigenous fire practitioner, Victor Steffensen, in 2018 and 2019,¹⁰ and formed a working group to investigate the feasibility of carbon credits to support their program. This working group included leading carbon and fire scientists and Indigenous fire practitioners, many from Australia. Under their guidance, field work is currently being implemented to develop rules and guidelines for generating carbon credits from the fire programs. Revenues from the sale of carbon credits could strengthen land stewardship and ecological outcomes, and provide jobs and income to community members.

It is important to account for the differences in landscapes and fire regime between the Chilcotin and Australia’s northern savannas, as well as in the economic, political, and legal systems that influence how fire can be applied. “There is definitely… information and links and indicators that are going to help put the pieces back for [Indigenous knowledge and practice in] any fire prone country in the world…” A lot of them are going to have a lot of differences. But it goes back to that old saying, “Same but different” (Victor Steffensen, 2018; see text footnote 8). Hence the architecture of the Australian savanna programs can be used to guide the development of a fire-carbon program in BC. Table 2 details the elements and characteristics of a project in the BC context.

In contrast to Australia, no specific methodology or legal framework is currently available to underpin an Indigenous fire management program in British Columbia. Several grassland methodologies have been published with management practices that include biomass burning, but their applicability conditions are not suitable. Suitability refers to the accepted project activities. The most common example of an inappropriate activity within the context of this paper are projects that generate credits through cessation of active burning. It is important to note that Grassland burning projects in British Columbia, like those grasslands in the Chilcotin, are likely to be of only modest size, generating perhaps several thousand t CO₂e per annum. This is also the case for the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) REDD methodology, VM0029 (Methodology for Avoided Forest Degradation through Fire Management). Though it applies to projects that implement preventative early burning activities to minimize late season burning emissions, it is only approved for application to the miombo woodlands in the Eastern Miombo ecoregion of Africa. Furthermore, the Australian and VM0029 approaches reference a baseline burning schedule that occurs predictably over one or several years. In BC, the baseline would be a probabilistic analysis of the risk of a catastrophic wildfire occurring over a time interval of decades, though with the possibility of smaller fires occurring more frequently. The empirical data used in Australia and in VM0029 to establish the baseline will therefore not be suitable for a project in BC, simply because the frequency, severity, and extent of fires are so different. Canada is in the early stages of developing a national compliance-driven cap-and-trade program. This includes development of methodologies for large emitters to offset a portion of their emissions deficit. Currently, BC is in the late stages of developing its Forest Carbon Offset Protocol (FCOP v2) as an equivalent in-province methodology, and to replace a version withdrawn in 2015. Early indications are that it may be able to accommodate cultural burning.

The BC government manages a portfolio of Carbon Offset Units¹¹ on behalf of all provincial public sector organizations in support of commitments to carbon neutrality. Organizations that have regulated operations under the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act or a desire to meet emissions reduction or net-zero targets can also purchase these units. Assessing the suitability and integrity of a project to generate Carbon Offset Units is a multi-stage process and involves an evaluation of the project attributes and a clear demonstration of carbon sequestration, whether from enhanced removals or emission reductions.¹² As an activity that reduces emissions through the protection, transformation, or restoration/enhancement of land or water features, the burning program may be well suited as a mechanism to enhance carbon sequestration.

A second attribute is that a BC project must realize one or more of eight desirable outcomes:

The bolded items listed above are those of particular relevance to the proposed IFM program, which would thus have many desirable outcomes within the BC offset program.

Once a final version is released, the BC FCOPv2 methodology may have applicability to the communities’ fire management project. FCOPv2 includes the three main GHG emissions (CO₂, N₂O, and CH₄) and has considerable flexibility in terms of permitted (and desired) activities. The largest obstacle to overcome in this approach will be the derivation and application of the additionality principle, which requires a comparative analysis of emissions under both the baseline and project scenarios. Additional challenges include an updated and accurate vegetation map, methods to quantify emissions, and the timing for prescribed burning. In Australia, emission reductions are achieved by shifting annual burning from the LDS (the baseline) to the EDS. This differs from circumstances in BC, where fires are not currently set deliberately (the baseline). In this case, fire will be re-introduced intentionally as a means of reducing fuel loads, thereby mitigating the risk of larger, more intense wildfires. This analysis relies on a probabilistic assessment of the change in fire risk, as determined using an appropriate computer model calibrated for the region. Another consideration is that savanna fires in northern Australia occur with sufficient frequency, intentionally and naturally, that an accurate retrospective record of emissions can be documented as per baseline requirements, as well as any immediate and actual emission reductions resulting from project activities (EDS burning, in particular). Natural fire return intervals in BC are much more protracted, in the order of decades, or longer. This is, in part, due to the natural fire cycle but is also a statistical consequence of fire suppression. Documenting historical baseline emissions on the project area with any reasonable accuracy will thus be a challenge, as will quantifying the impact of project activities on emission reductions. These are distinct and important differences that characterize the Canadian context, and will require a more complex approach than is utilized in Australia.

How the baseline and project activities are established, and whether these will achieve a degree of rigor sufficient to be verifiable, remains an open question. A key first step will be to develop the procedures for establishing the baseline and project activities, and then engage in a pre-validation audit (PVA). Under a PVA, the approach and associated calculations are subject to independent review and opinion of compliance to a given standard and its associated methodology. PVA can provide confidence that a fully developed project will achieve the rigor necessary to acquire certified carbon credits.

There is also the potential to broaden the management activities within the project, beyond just fire management. For instance, Yunesit’in and Xeni Gwet’in could integrate forest management and harvesting into the project areas. These “mixed” project types are more complicated to administer, but offer flexibility around land use and economic development on Indigenous lands over longer time frames, which has been identified as important to First Nations governments (Nikolakis et al., 2016).

All methodologies include a provision for unequivocal documentation of credit ownership. This determination can arise either from uncontested land title or from a right assignment granted to the project proponent. Ownership needs to be established and documented at the beginning of the project and throughout the crediting period (CP). One approach used in British Columbia is an Atmospheric Benefit Sharing Agreement (ABSA), a government-to-government arrangement which sets out ownership of carbon and revenue sharing.¹³

In the savanna burning program, all sequestration projects are subject to permanence obligations, which maintain carbon stores for which ACCUs have been issued. The Australian methodology requires proponents of sequestration projects to choose a permanence period of either 25 or 100 years. The minimum CP associated with an International voluntary standard is 20 years (VCS) and the minimum project length must be 30 years (i.e., carbon stocks must be maintained for 10 additional years beyond the minimum CP). The American Carbon Registry allows for a minimum 30-year CP, but carbon stocks must be preserved for 100 years after the final year for which credits were issued; the same requirement is expected under the BC Forest Carbon Offset Protocol. The 100-year time limit may be an issue for some First Nations governments, being viewed as too constraining for land use among future generations (Nikolakis et al., 2016).

Carbon credit buyers often prefer projects that are of a particular scale and deliver a suite of environmental, cultural, and social co-benefits. These will be a predominant feature of the Chilcotin project, and includes improved health and wellbeing among participants, enhanced connection to country and cultural knowledge transmission, and increases in biodiversity. These outcomes will create a “charismatic” carbon project that may command premium prices from individuals and organizations purchasing carbon credits, for whom Indigenous wellbeing and development are priorities. Hence, an effective marketing program is essential in order to reach prospective buyers and tell a story consistent with their corporate and/or social responsibility objectives. A strong marketing program targeting BC businesses, as well as government, could drive demand and should be a priority for the Chilcotin project.

The concept of generating carbon credits through planned burning needs to be codified, with clear goals and objectives, and further government engagement with a view to potentially developing an ABSA or whether, in the context of Aboriginal title, an ABSA is necessary.

Important advice, from fire scientist Jeremy Russell-Smith, who has established these programs in Australia are that it must:

Russell-Smith noted there will always be “bureaucratic hurdles,” but he was “surprised continuously about how the hurdles have just broken down, basically cause it’s such a good news story” (Jeremy Russell-Smith, 2019; see text footnote 14). He also stated that:

Getting governance arrangements right is critical for supporting the development of fire-carbon projects, and may involve an integration of Indigenous-led governance and more western style governance structures to bring this to reality.