The following description comes from the event organizer.

Climate change, land use shifts related to EuroAmerican settlement and the related elimination of Indigenous cultural stewardship practices are increasing the size and severity of wildfires throughout North America. Dr. Eisenberg will discuss how returning Indigenous stewardship to Pacific Northwest forests, including cultural burning, can increase these forests’ climate resiliency. Dr. Cristina Eisenberg is the Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence and Director of Tribal Initiatives at Oregon State University in the College of Forestry (CoF) and Professor of Practice. In the CoF she directs the Traditional Ecological Knowledge Lab and the Indigenous Natural Resource Office. As a Native American and Latinx ecologist, she leads several long-term ecological restoration projects, including the BLM /OSU/Fort Belknap Grassland Restoration Project in Montana and the Pacific Northwest Tribal Conservation Corps Pilot Project for Seeds of Success, which involves working with five of the Tribal Nations in Oregon.