Our first speaker for indigenous lands is Dr. Kaitlin Reed, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Native American Studies at Humboldt State University.

Our first talk in the series will examine Indigenous relationships to land and ecological management systems, rooted in responsibility & reciprocity, specifically highlighting the use of fire management in southern Oregon and California. Indigenous land management practices will then be juxtaposed against settler colonial orientations to land and the ways in which the settler colonial project erases and delegitimizes Indigenous knowledge systems, specifically highlighting fire suppression policies as employed by the state. Finally, this talk will conclude with a reflection on the ways in which settler colonialism continues to frame contemporary understandings of land and environmentalism.

Dr. Reed's research is focused on tribal land and water rights, extractive capitalism, and settler colonial political economies. She is currently working on her book entitled From Gold Rush to Green Rush: The Ecology of Settler Colonialism in Northwestern California. Kaitlin obtained her B.A. degree in Geography at Vassar College and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis. In 2018, she was awarded the Charles Eastman Fellowship of Native American Studies at Dartmouth College. Dr. Reed is an enrolled member of the Yurok Tribe in Northwestern California. 

Our second speaker is Brenna Bell, Policy Coordinator and Staff Attorney at BARK 
www.bark-out.org

Do you ever wonder how 50% of Oregon came to be managed by the federal government? Or wonder why logging can happen in National Forests, but not National Parks? Do you know if clearcutting is legal, and whether threatened Spotted owls are really protected? Have you heard of the O&C Act without really understanding what it was? Brenna Bell will answer these questions, and more, as she shares how the history of colonization and land theft resulted in half of Oregon in the federal government's hands and the other factors drive federal (mis)management of public lands. 

Bell brings to her work a lifetime of passion for the land, water and peoples of the Pacific Northwest, twenty+ years of organizing experience, and an extensive background in environmental law and education. Her involvement with direct action forest defense led her to Lewis & Clark Law School, after which she worked as staff attorney for Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Willamette Riverkeeper and, for the past 10 years, Bark - Defenders of Mt. Hood National Forest.

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