s2e8 – Dillon Williams, Hybrid Indigenous Stewardship, Anna Farporte, EPA Dir. of Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians
Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra
Season 2 Episode 8
May 23, 2026
Dillon Williams, founder of Hybrid Indigenous Stewardship, discusses H.I.S. Services, which combines traditional indigenous knowledge with modern tools and scientific methods. His work focuses on restoring traditional food, fibers, and medicines, addressing fire management, invasive species and climate change. Williams emphasizes the importance of cultural preservation and the need to adapt traditional practices to the current ecosystem. Anna Farporte, EPA Director of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians also joins the conversation with Martha Cinader and Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra
More About the Conversation:
- Hybrid Indigenous Stewardship: Dillon’s work focuses on stewarding the land for resources like food, fibers, and medicine, which is a crucial part of his culture.
- Benefits of Stewardship: This approach to land management not only preserves cultural resources but also enhances biodiversity and environmental resilience.
- Wildfire Impact: The increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires in California highlight the importance of their work in land stewardship.
- Firefighting Experience: Dillon has extensive experience in firefighting, including working as a wildland firefighter and providing logistical support for firefighting efforts.
- Witnessing Increasing Fire Devastation: The speaker describes witnessing the increasing size and impact of wildfires in California, culminating in the Dixie Fire, which highlighted the need for restoration efforts.
- Family Background and Influence: The speaker’s parents were engineers and architects who transitioned into more active roles in fire management. The speaker’s grandmother, Christina Hamilton, was a prominent cultural leader and bass weaver.
- Cultural Background: Dillon grew up immersed in their culture, learning from elders and participating in traditional activities.
- Hybrid Approach to Land Management: Combining traditional cultural knowledge with modern tools and scientific methods for effective land stewardship.
- Challenges and Adaptations: Acknowledging the changes in the environment and the need to adapt traditional practices to address modern challenges like invasive species and droughts.
- Cultural Resource Management: Increase cultural resources for cultural practitioners to live as cultural people.
- Ecosystem Restoration: Steward the land by restoring ecosystems, bringing back salmon, getting rid of invasive species, and bringing back pollinators.
- Land Management with Fire: Use fire to manage the land, thin out the forest, and keep the vegetation relatively thin.
- Hybrid Approach to Land Management: Combining modern methods like chainsaws with traditional practices for efficient land management.
- Importance of Cultural Resources: Highlighting the significance of cultural resources, such as specific plants used in basket making, for preserving indigenous culture and traditions.
- Stewardship for Cultural Preservation: Emphasizing the importance of stewarding and cultivating these resources to ensure their availability for future generations and to support cultural practices.
- Restoration Services: Offers comprehensive restoration services, from design and planning to implementation, covering various landscapes and ecosystems.
- Restoration Goals: Aims to restore land by removing invasives, replanting native species, enhancing habitats for wildlife, and reintroducing keystone species like beavers.
- Collaboration and Objectives: Works with various stakeholders, aligning cultural objectives with landowner and agency goals to achieve successful restoration outcomes.
- Land Restoration Approaches: Discussion about different approaches people are taking to restore the land, including permaculture and land back movements.
- Concerns about Land Back Movement: Concerns about some land back organizations lacking the capacity to manage land effectively, potentially leading to pushback from those who are not allies.
- Personal Connection to Land: Expressing a deep personal connection to the land and the desire to steward it, hunt, fish, and gather cultural resources.
- Land Stewardship as a Path to Land Back: Demonstrating knowledge of the land, its resources, and how to steward them is crucial for Indigenous people to reclaim their land.
- Importance of Knowing the Land: Knowing the land’s resources, such as food, medicine, and animal habitats, is essential for Indigenous people to effectively manage and steward it.
- Countering Misconceptions: Showing a deep connection to the land and a commitment to its stewardship can counteract misconceptions that Indigenous people only want land for profit.
- Land Stewardship: Maintaining the abundance of the land for everyone, including animals and fish, through stewardship and tending.
- Conversation Topic: Discussing the perceptions of Spanish colonizers when they arrived, particularly in relation to the Aztecs.
- Aztec Social Structure: The Aztecs did not have an emperor like Montezuma, but rather a public servant responsible for ensuring the well-being of the community.
- Resource Distribution: The Aztecs had a system of communal support where resources were shared to ensure everyone had enough to eat.
- Spanish Misunderstanding: The Spanish misinterpreted the Aztecs’ daily food offerings as tribute to an emperor, failing to understand their communal values.
- Indigenous Values: Emphasis on providing for family and community, with those unable to do so considered less respected than infants.
- Land Rights and Capitalism: Discussion on the need to explain fundamental concepts like land rights to a capitalist system that is detrimental to indigenous communities.
- Community Responsibility: In traditional societies, individuals were responsible for taking care of their community members, including the young, elderly, and sick.
- Cultural Appropriation of Land Stewardship: There is a trend in the United States, particularly California, of appropriating Native American cultural practices related to land management, such as prescribed fires.
- Exploitation of Tribal Knowledge: An example of cultural appropriation is the creation of the Tribal Eco-Restoration Alliance (TERRA), a non-tribal organization founded by yt people to extract and sell tribal cultural knowledge to the U.S. Forest Service.
- Agency’s Approach to Tribal Engagement: Agencies often seek to utilize tribal knowledge for their own programs without fully embracing tribal objectives.
- Ideal Agency-Tribal Relationship: Agencies should prioritize supporting tribal objectives and then explore how tribal resources can align with agency goals.
- Land Management Comparison: The speaker highlights the contrast between current land management practices and the more sustainable approaches of indigenous peoples.
- Land Management by Tribes: Discussion on whether tribes could manage land better than current practices, considering their cultural connection to the land.
- Impact of Gaming Tribes: Observation that some tribes with significant wealth from gaming have lost touch with their culture.
- Obstacles to Land Restoration: The challenge of returning land to tribes due to resistance from those currently in power and the potential misuse of land by some tribes.
- Blacklisting and Contract Denial: Individuals or organizations opposing certain practices are blackballed from contracts and land use in specific areas.
- Land Allocation to Native People: Native communities often receive land that is undesirable or contaminated, presenting challenges for management and development.
- Land Back Agreement: The Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians reclaimed Blues Beach from Caltrans with the condition of installing facilities and monitoring the area within five years.
- Caltrans’ Conditions: Caltrans imposed conditions on the land return, requiring the tribe to install bathrooms, monitor the beach, and manage waste disposal.
- Authenticity in Art and Shamanism: Discussion about the authenticity of artists and shamans, particularly those who may not have genuine cultural connections or understanding of traditions.
- Importance of Conscience and Integrity: Emphasis on the importance of honesty and integrity in one’s work, especially when dealing with culturally significant practices.
- Personal Journey and Cultural Connection: Sharing of a personal story about discovering and embracing indigenous roots later in life, highlighting the profound impact it had on understanding music and personal purpose.
- Cultural Displacement and Resistance: Discussion about the impact of cultural displacement, using examples like the Irish and the experience of witnessing cultural erasure in open pit coal mines in the Amazon.
- Shared Experience of Loss: The speaker reflects on a shared human experience of having things taken away, connecting it to the feeling of cultural loss.
- Societal Tensions and Change: The speaker observes a growing sentiment in society, with people expressing dissatisfaction with the current culture and philosophy.
- New American Culture: People desire a new society and culture that is not extractive and acknowledges past traumas.
- Native American Resilience: Native Americans have demonstrated resilience despite historical hardships, using past experiences as motivation for positive change.
- Restoring Food Sovereignty: Efforts are being made to reclaim traditional food systems and reduce dependence on external systems.
- Tribal Land Restoration Efforts: Tribes across the nation are implementing projects to restore land, fish, and wildlife, often using scientific methods to monitor and measure success.
- Importance of Data-Driven Results: While stories and qualitative observations are valuable, universities and agencies prioritize quantitative data to demonstrate the effectiveness of environmental restoration work.
- Pollinator Restoration Initiatives: There is a growing focus on pollinator restoration due to the decline of pollinators like butterflies and native bees, with efforts often involving the restoration of wildflower habitats.
- Guest Introduction: Dillon Williams of Hybrid Indigenous Stewardship and Anna Farporte of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians.
- Podcast Information: The podcast is “Beyond Borders” hosted by Martha Cinader and Hernan Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra.
- Desired Collaboration: Dillon Williams expresses interest in working together and sharing knowledge about plants and culturally significant species.
- Contact Information: his-services.org is the website and admin at his-services.org is the email address for contacting the organization.
- Organization’s Goal: The organization aims to restore the land and inspire the next generation to continue this work.
- Importance of Biodiversity: The health of an ecosystem is indicated by what is missing from it, not just what is present.
- Anna’s Role and Organization: Anna is the environmental director of Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians, working on land stewardship.
- Land Stewardship Project: The organization is doing a native planting project along a creek in Willits, California, replacing invasive species with native pollinator plants.
- Plant Selection Criteria: Plants are chosen based on their beauty, traditional uses for food, medicine, baskets, and other cultural purposes.
- Environmental Program Page Update: The speaker needs to update the environmental program page on bandofpomo.com.
- Importance of Inter-Tribal Knowledge Sharing: The speaker highlights the importance of sharing traditional ecological knowledge between tribes, emphasizing the need to connect and learn from each other.
- Reconnecting with Land and Indigenous Knowledge: The speaker discusses the importance of reconnecting with land and indigenous knowledge, emphasizing that it’s a fundamental human aspect that people are reclaiming.
- Cultural Preservation: Importance of protecting and respecting cultural knowledge, emphasizing that some information is sacred and meant to be kept secret within a community.
- Generational Disconnect: The elders are no longer present to teach the younger generation, leading to a disconnect in cultural transmission.
- Impact of the Internet on Cultural Knowledge: The internet has created a culture where people feel entitled to information that is not theirs, leading to the sharing of sacred cultural knowledge by those who may not fully understand its significance.
- Cultural Knowledge Sharing: Discussing the practice of sharing cultural and spiritual knowledge selectively, emphasizing the importance of earning the right to learn sacred teachings.
- Initiating Learning: Highlighting the approach of gradually introducing knowledge and assessing an individual’s commitment and initiative before sharing more.
- Protecting Sacred Knowledge: Emphasizing the responsibility of safeguarding sacred teachings and not disclosing them to those who haven’t earned the trust and respect of the community.
- Cultural Sovereignty and Information Access: The internet’s democratization of information can undermine cultural sovereignty by making sacred knowledge accessible without regard for its spiritual significance.
- Importance of Initiation and Secrecy: Initiating individuals into cultural practices and teaching them the value of secrecy can help preserve the sacredness of knowledge.
- Ethical Responsibility and Humility: Recognizing one’s own readiness to learn and the importance of humility are crucial for personal growth and understanding.
- Importance of Honesty: Being honest with oneself and others is crucial for building meaningful relationships and a fulfilling life.
- Desire for a Better World: The speaker expresses a strong desire for a world where people are taken care of and things work well.
- Historical Injustices: The speaker briefly touches upon the historical injustices faced by Native Americans, including the elimination of buffalo and the banning of traditional fire practices.
- Impact of Fire Suppression: Criminalizing traditional burning practices harmed food sources and disrupted the way of life for Native people.
- Fire Management and Ecosystem Health: Fire was crucial for managing food and medicine sources, supporting fire-dependent species, and maintaining a healthy ecosystem.
- Misunderstanding of Native Land Stewardship: John Muir’s view of California as a pristine wilderness ignored the fact that its abundance was a result of Native people’s stewardship.
- Podcast Information: Beyond Borders is brought to you by Listen and Be Heard Network.
- Website Information: Listeners can find podcast archives, columns, and a master reading list at listenandbeheard.net.
- Host Information: The host of the podcast is Martha Cinader.
Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians EPD
FEATURED
Dillon Williams, Director of Hybrid Indigenous Stewardship Services and Anna Farporte, EPA Director of Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians
Anna Farporte, Dillon Williams, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra
CREDITS– HOSTS: Martha Cinader, Hernán Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Featured Guests: Dillon Williams, Anna Farporte. Sound Design: Hernan Ramiro. Theme Music: Mana Luca, arranged by Jay Rodriguez Sierra.
Please participate. Say something about this and be heard.