Lee Klinger PhD
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suddenoaklife.bsky.social
Lee Klinger PhD
@suddenoaklife.bsky.social
Forest ecologist with DNR Esselen Tribe Big Sur. Author of "Forged by Fire: The Cultural Tending of Trees and Forests in Big Sur and Beyond" (2024) #FireEcology #Mosses #Lichens #Peatlands #GaiaTheory, #FireMimicry #TEK #Ents www.suddenoaklife.org
@bigthink.com Fascinating article by Ethan. My question is if there is a significant amount of information exchanged in the energy of a system, or within the universe, would that flow change the total energy of the system? bigthink.com/starts-with-...
Starts With A Bang
bigthink.com
October 18, 2025 at 10:44 PM
Here is an excellent article explaining why I've been so focused these last 10 years on building a relationship with the local Esselen Tribe and helping steward their lands. My hope is that more of you will start forming a relationship with your local tribes. They have much to teach us! 🌎🍁🌲🔥🌳🧪🌐🪶🌱🦅
The Future of Conservation: Indigenous Ways Meet Western Science
Collaboration and co-stewardship are bringing positive change across the country
www.sierraclub.org
October 15, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Many of you have requested this, so here it is. For the love of trees please share! 🌲❤️🌎🍁🔥🌳🧪🌐🪶🌱🦅
Upcoming Workshop: Tending Oaks with Fire Mimicry
Hey fellow tree-huggers, especially those in SoCal, how would you like to learn about the health and care of our old-growth oak forests and what we can do to mitigate wildfires using the knowledge …
suddenoaklife.org
October 15, 2025 at 1:38 AM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
“To make shared stewardship meaningful, tribes must be allowed to lead within our own homelands. This means entering into long-term agreements that don’t just invite tribal input but are built around tribal vision, tribal priorities, and tribal knowledge…
It also means investing in our people.”
Time for Tribes to Lead on Wildfire and Other Forest Management Priorities
By Cody Desautel
medium.com
September 9, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
“You don’t go and burn all your berries at the same time,” @amycardinal.bsky.social explained. “Indigenous fire management is based on intervals—knowing when patches have been burned, which patches are getting overgrown. It’s not a one-time, one-off approach. It’s ongoing stewardship.”
The Role of Good Fire in Nourishing Boreal Berries — Boreal Conservation
Summer in the Boreal Forest means an abundance of berries—blueberries, strawberries, cloudberries, raspberries, bunchberries, and more. These berries help sustain bears, moose, and other animals. Peop...
www.borealconservation.org
September 15, 2025 at 3:05 AM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
“There’s a school of thought that you can just put a fence around a forest and keep people out, and it will be protected, which is a very old-school view, a very colonial view. It comes from this idea that we came to a land that was ‘empty’ and there for the taking.”
On Controlling Fire, New Lessons from a Deep Indigenous Past
For centuries, the Native people of North America used controlled burns to manage the continent's forests. In an e360 interview, ecologist Lori Daniels talks about the long history of Indigenous burni...
e360.yale.edu
July 26, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
The Signing Oak - Windsor Great Park, Berkshire

Photo: Jeroen Philippona
July 24, 2025 at 7:34 AM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
Farms commonly spread crushed limestone on fields to make the soil less acidic. This practice is typically considered a source of emissions, but it may actually remove carbon from the atmosphere.
Sprinkling limestone on farms may offer an unexpected climate win
Farms commonly spread crushed limestone on fields to make the soil less acidic – and this practice can also help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
www.newscientist.com
July 23, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Save the date! #OakHealth #FireMimicry #TEK 🌎🍁🌲🔥🌳🪶🌱🦅🌰 www.smmfsc.org/oakworkshop
Oak Workshop | My Site
www.smmfsc.org
July 23, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
“hundreds of hours of interviews with fire ecologists, botanists, members of County Fire, policymakers, and more were compiled to make a comprehensive guide of considerations and plans to bring back Chumash cultural fire.” www.independent.com/2025/07/16/i...
Introducing the Chumash Good Fire Project
The new initiative is bringing back cultural burns to indigenous lands.
www.independent.com
July 19, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
I like Abuela Lucinda Vásquez Morales’s list of the purposes of burning: to protect, strengthen, teach, feed, heal. Seems a good motto. Also how she & Maria Meza say “how important it is that Indigenous Women be officially recognized for their role as the leaders in these processes and practices.”
July 15, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
A study of a pyrogenic carbon deposit in the East China Sea finds evidence of a sharp increase in human fire use around 50,000 years ago, likely due to both population increases and the chilly temperatures associated with glacial periods. In PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
July 11, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
This week, there were hundreds if not thousands of brown pelicans, cormorants and osprey feeding on bait fish in the Klamath River estuary and plume. This is another sign the river is healing in response to dam removal.
July 10, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
“The man didn’t have to cut a fireline with a Pulaski or a chainsaw; he didn’t have to work in a bulldozer cutting a dozer line; and he didn’t have to have air support to keep the fire out of the trees. The snow did the work.”
Cultural burning: Wildfires in the Arctic – Wildfire Today
wildfiretoday.com
July 9, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
I was in British Columbia last month to learn about wildfires, which got me thinking about how we see the forests around us, and how it is not necessarily good thinking. 1/x
July 2, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
“Cultural burning in spring after the snowmelt and in fall before the rains stimulates plant growth and opens the land to wildlife.” indiginews.com/features/on-...
In Gitanyow territories, restorative fire heals the land and people: 'I think it’s a beautiful thing' - Indiginews
A controlled burn demonstrates how bringing back ancient Indigenous fire practices helps restore cultural connections and strengthen communities while mitigating risk
indiginews.com
July 5, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
“When founded on the three pillars of respect (respect for self, others, and the environment), teaching fire provides a fantastic catalyst for the development of perseverance, patience, teamwork, nature connection, responsibility, community and survival skills.”
educatedbynature.com/term-program...
The Importance of Teaching Fire - Educated by Nature
Teaching fire provides a fantastic catalyst for the development of perseverance, teamwork, nature connection, responsibility, community and survival skills.
educatedbynature.com
July 6, 2025 at 12:17 AM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
“Cultural burning, a tribal land management practice, was the central focus of the event, with sessions highlighting its use in reducing forest fuels, promoting healthy ecosystems and supporting traditional Indigenous practices like hunting and gathering.”
krcrtv.com/news/local/y...
Yurok Fire Department shows benefits of controlled burns at Blue Lake Rancheria event
The Yurok Fire Department recently led a cultural burn demonstration near the Blue Lake Rancheria’s events center during the third annual Cultural Burn Seminar.
krcrtv.com
July 4, 2025 at 11:21 PM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
(🚨) The first-ever pop song about uranium enrichment has just been released on all streaming platforms and for purchase.

It’s “E” for explicit, too! Hope you’ll you share it if you like it.

(Warning: it’s an earworm.)
Third Time's the Charm - Single by Hounds on Apple Music
Album · 2025 · 1 Song
music.apple.com
June 23, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
Karuk Tribal Youth Forestry Camp participants, led by Cultural Fire Practitioners under an SB 310 agreement, pulled off an unplanned cultural burn without incident this week. So much easier when experienced people can go to where conditions are right to make good things like this happen! :-)
June 21, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Reposted by Lee Klinger PhD
Dave's not wrong. This could change how silvicultural prescriptions are written
Old trees sequester more carbon. This paper clearly refutes the US Forest Service's unscientific insistance about the need to keep cutting old growth trees. They lie about it so they can use your taxdollars to cut your trees on your publiclands.
🧪🧪🧪

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Allometric equations quantify accelerated growth and carbon fixation in trees of northeastern north America
A tree's basal area (BA) and wood volume scale exponentially with tree diameter in species-specific patterns. Recent observed increases in tree growth…
www.sciencedirect.com
June 19, 2025 at 2:37 AM