LOOK: Donovan Peoples-Jones makes incredible catch in NFL preseason

LOOK: Donovan Peoples-Jones makes incredible catch in NFL preseason

Yes, we know it’s preseason, and it means very little. But former Michigan football standout receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones has been making noise this offseason as one of the nation’s biggest potential breakout players. He’s had an excellent training camp, so when he gets a chance to highlight his emergence in the pro ranks, it’s certainly notable.

That’s precisely what he did Saturday evening, when the Cleveland Browns took on Urban Meyer’s Jacksonville Jaguars. Peoples-Jones sees a ball thrown somewhat behind him, but he came back and made an impressive one-armed catch. It was enough for the official NFL Twitter account to share the athletic feat.

Certainly DPJ’s best football is ahead of him, and if the word of his offseason is ascension is true, we could be seeing that sooner than later.

America’s First Peoples Have Things to Teach Us About Taming Wildfires

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This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as a part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The Bootleg fire stampeded through southern Oregon so fiercely that it spit up thunderclouds. But when the flames approached the Sycan Marsh Preserve, a 30,000-acre wetland thick with ponderosa pines, something incredible happened. The flames weakened and the fire slowed down, allowing firefighters to move in and steer the blaze away from a critical research station.

That land belongs to the Nature Conservancy, an environmental nonprofit that has worked with the local Klamath Tribes to bring back pre-colonial forest management techniques such as prescribed fire—small, controlled burns that clear out fire-fueling vegetation, renew the soil and prevent bigger, runaway blazes.

Pete Caligiuri, the group’s forest program director, credits those efforts with saving the research center, suggesting that the ancient forest management tools can have a dramatic impact.

“That’s exactly what we had hypothesized and hoped would happen,” said Caligiuri. “The research station is completely unimpacted, unharmed by the fire—the fire moved all the way around it.”

A similar phenomenon occurred in the Black Hills Ecosystem Restoration Project, another area where the Klamath Tribes had worked with the US Forest Service to thin young trees and apply prescribed burning. When the Bootleg fire finally swept through, the forest was far less damaged than other areas that were not treated, the forest service said, noting that deer were even seen grazing on a “green island” preserved by the treatment.

After years resisting fighting fire with fire, state and federal agencies are increasingly embracing the strategy.

The weeks-long battle against the Bootleg fire, one of the largest burning in the US, has offered new evidence that Indigenous land management techniques and prescribed burns can change how megafires behave. Tribal experts and ecologists told the Guardian that, with enough investment, the application of “good fire” throughout the US west could make a big difference in defending ourselves against increasingly fierce and destructive fire seasons.

Hundreds of tribes across the west used prescribed burns for thousands of years until European settlers outlawed the practice. After years of resisting the idea of fighting fire with fire, state and federal agencies have begun increasingly embracing the strategy, said Don Hankins, a pyrogeographer and Plains Miwok fire expert at California State University, Chico.

“These hopeful stories from the Bootleg fire—there are lots of stories like that,” Hankins added. Last year, when the explosive Creek Fire hit the town of Shaver Lake, where the landscape had been treated with prescribed fire over the past two decades, the inferno calmed. Two decades ago, when the Cone Fire approached the Blacks Mountain experimental forest in north-eastern California, foresters reported that the flames fell to the ground and in some cases fizzled out when they reached areas that had been thinned and treated with fire.

Still, despite decades of scientific evidence and centuries of cultural understanding that prescribed fire is crucial to averting catastrophe in California’s wildlands, the current levels of funding and institutional support for the practice are insufficient, said Hankins.

This week, the US Forest Service chief, Randy Moore, said that with thousands of firefighters struggling to contain blazes across the US west, the agency would cease its use of good fire. “We are in a ‘triage mode’ where our primary focus must be on fires that threaten communities and infrastructure,” Moore said in a letter announcing the new policy. “When western fire activity abates, we will resume using all the tools in our toolbox.” Dozens of scientists sent a letter asking the agency to reconsider, as did retired fire managers for the Forest Service.

“The amount of land that’s treated with fire can’t be a postage stamp. We need to really scale it up.”

As severe drought and increasingly frequent heatwaves exacerbated by the climate crisis fuel more dangerous fires, investment and support for cultural burns are needed now more than ever, Hankins said. Prescribed burning “doesn’t necessarily stop fires per se, but it changes the fire’s behavior”, he said. “To really make a difference, the amount of land that’s treated with fire can’t be a postage stamp. We need to really scale it up.”

For example, the North Complex fire, 2020’s deadliest wildfire, initially simmered slowly around the Plumas national forest—which foresters said was to be expected, because the area had been treated with fire. But fanned by fierce winds, the fire zipped through untreated land to the south, destroying the small town of Berry Creek. Experts have suggested that using more “good fire” to clear out the shrubs and dried vegetation in the areas surrounding the town could have saved it.

A look back in time offers further evidence that regular burns—natural and prescribed—can temper the most damaging blazes. During a severe drought in 1918, 200,000 acres burned in the same region the Bootleg fire is torching now—but back then, “almost all the forest canopy survived”, said Keala Hagmann, a research ecologist at the University of Washington who published a 2019 study of tree rings that chronicled the history of fires in the area. Centuries-old trees survived droughts and fires back then, before the US government began aggressively suppressing wildfires and shunned prescribed burns.

As the Bootleg fire raged through southern Oregon, it burned through 25 percent of the Klamath Tribes’ federally recognized territory, said Don Gentry, the Klamath Tribes chairman. “But that means 75 percent is still at risk for catastrophic fires.”

Before European settlers arrived, “we lived with fire. It was as common as a summer thunder shower.”

That is why the tribe has sought to work with nonprofits like the Nature Conservancy and state and federal agencies, to steward and restore their historical landscape, Gentry said. Before European settlers arrived, “we lived with fire. It was as common as a summer thunder shower,” he said. Now, as the region enters an era of megafires incited by global heating, Indigenous fire practitioners, scientists and local governments need to help the public embrace the idea that “fire is a treatment for fire.”

“Looking around, I can already see that the Klamath Tribes have lost massive areas of hunting grounds, valuable cultural plants and probably some archaeological sites,” said Steve Rondeau, the natural resources director for the Klamath Tribes, who has been driving through some of the areas the Bootleg fire seared. “But, at the same time, I feel we’ve gained a lot as well.” The fire, he said, has helped validate the decades of work Indigenous practitioners of prescribed fire have put into the land.

“The tribes have a saying: ‘Heal the land, heal the people,’” Rondeau said. “And our lands around here need a lot of work, and a lot of hands coming together to heal them.”

End inequalities, recognize abuses, UN chief says on International Day of Indigenous Peoples

In his message marking the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, the UN chief called for ending the “grievous inequalities” affecting these communities.

Indigenous people worldwide continue to face overwhelming marginalization, discrimination and exclusion.

Respect for the rights of indigenous peoples means ensuring equal and meaningful participation, full inclusion and empowerment.#IndigenousDay — António Guterres (@antonioguterres) August 9, 2021

‘Profound disparities’

“Indigenous peoples around the world continue to face overwhelming marginalization, discrimination and exclusion,” he said.

“Rooted in colonialism and patriarchy, these profound disparities are sustained by a deeply held resistance to recognizing and respecting the rights, dignity, and freedoms of indigenous peoples.”

There are more than 476 million indigenous living in some 90 countries worldwide, representing just over six per cent of the global population.

They have a special relationship with their lands and reflect a vast diversity of unique cultures, traditions, languages and knowledge systems.

Bitter history

The Secretary-General recalled that throughout modern history, indigenous people have been robbed of their lands and territories, and much more. In some cases, they have been robbed of their own children.

Some have also been stripped of political and economic autonomy, while their cultures and languages have been “denigrated and extinguished”.

Mr. Guterres noted that in recent months, the world has again learned about some of the horrors indigenous communities faced at the hands of colonizers.

“Some nations have begun to address this heinous legacy through apologies, truth and reconciliation efforts, and legislative and constitutional reforms. But much more needs to be done,” he said.

Restoring rights

“We need a new social contract – one that restores and honours the rights, dignity and freedoms of those who have been deprived of so much for so long. Central to this must be genuine dialogue, interaction and willingness to listen.”

The Secretary-General pointed to the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the outcome document of the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples held seven years later, as the “tools” to bring about the new social contract.

“There is no excuse for denying the world’s 476 million indigenous peoples self-determination and meaningful participation in all decision-making,” he said. “Free, prior and informed consent is central for indigenous peoples to exercise their own vision of development.”

Celebrate indigenous wisdom

Additionally, even though recognition of the importance of indigenous knowledge grows, particularly in relation to solving global challenges such as the climate crisis and preventing emergence of contagious diseases, the UN chief stressed that this knowledge must be owned and shared by indigenous communities themselves.

“On this International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, let us show true solidarity by working to end the grievous inequalities of indigenous peoples worldwide, to fully recognize the abuse they have endured, and to celebrate their knowledge and wisdom,” he said.

WFP/Morelia Eróstegui A World Food Programme (WFP) representative in Bolivia talks to Uru-Murato indigenous women about COVID-19 awareness and healthy nutrition practices.

Inclusive pandemic recovery

Relatedly, while the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated inequalities affecting people worldwide, a UN independent expert warned that even recovery efforts are having some negative impacts on indigenous communities.

Special Rapporteur José Francisco Cali Tzay said economic recovery measures have prioritized and supported the expansion of business operations at the expense of indigenous peoples, their lands and the environment.

“To avoid making the situation even worse, I urge States to involve representatives, leaders and traditional authorities of indigenous peoples, including those living in urban areas, in the design and implementation of recovery policies,” he said.

Mr. Cali Tzay further urged governments to support solutions which put indigenous peoples’ rights to self-determination and land at the core of post-pandemic recovery efforts, in line with 2007 UN Declaration.

Special Rapporteurs and independent experts are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. They operate in their individual capacity and are neither UN staff, nor do they receive a salary from the Organization.