Thank you for pointing out the importance of controlled burns!

"only WE can start forest fires" so badass hahaha

And we shouldn't try to have zero impact. We should try to have a POSITIVE impact. Like those controlled burns.

The moral of this episode is humans are here, so we can't have zero impact on the world. However, that doesn't mean we can't have a positive impact. I have heard of cities that are planting trees on balconies, and in Singapore there are these giant metal towers with all sorts of plant life growing on them.

I'm a Highlander. The highlands of today are nothing like what they were a few hundred years ago. There used to be larger forests, greater diversity of flora and fauna and a healthy culture. What happened? A few things. One being the Highland Clearances. Because of the industrial revolution, cities needed more food and material for clothing. So Highland landowners realised they could make more money off the sheep than the people who lived on those lands for generations. It's not a happy story. To give the sheep more grazing, and because Britain was an expanding empire before it named itself one, wood was harvested in a big way. And since the ruling class of the United Kingdom loved to holiday up here, it was made more tourist friendly. Since the toffs love shooting Groose (as they are easy as Hell to shoot), birds of prey and the like were decimated and a few breeds went extinct. The highlands now is a beautiful desert compared to it's wild past. No more than a garden for the rich.

Do people still believe the myth that all burns are bad?

I took a fire fighting class in my last year of high school and learned a lot abt controlled burns. They help a lot and not enough people know abt them and how they are conducted. So just saying "yeah we just burn down a part of the forest to help clear dead plants." Then some fire bugs are gonna get the wrong idea. It is a supervised and contained burning of select areas

Option 2: start reading the comments and weep for humanity 😂😂😂😂

I actually recall watching a forest documentary years ago and a some point, fighter fighters show up in order to set the forest on fire. It was a controlled fire meant to help preserve the forest so more intense ones won't show appear later. I saw that when I was a kid by the way, so it's a wonder how this detail isn't more well known now.

The natives mastered living in harmony with nature. We tend to try to compartmentalize and separate ourselves from the “natural world,” but we ourselves are part of nature. We have a lot to learn from natives and early societies about how to live sustainably and harmoniously with our environment.

That David Attenborough impression was hilarious.

Our ability to transform nature, i find a gift and a curse

Controlled fires are actually very important to pine barrens like the New Jersey Pine Barrens and the Albany Pine Bush.

This just made me miss the WKUK.

Zach finished his gallon.

I knew about the controlled fires. Not far from my house there are large agricultural fields which are set on fire from time to time. I thought that it was a dangerous wildfire the first time but I learned it was done inteltionally to clear the field of weeds and left over plants. The ash actually nurishes the soil and leaves room for new plants to be planted.

Well, now we know that controlled burns are good and do that to protect people. If people in frequently drought prone areas burned vegetation before a forest fire happened then they'd be fine because there'd be nothing to burn by the time the fire got there and it would save lives. I highly doubt the people at the time knew that. Well, the natives did because they spent enough time in that area to know how things worked and how to survive there.

"Have we started a fire?" "Yes. The fire rises."

"David Atten-boring" is a savage insult that I love so much lol 🤣

It was pretty much the same for Australian Aboriginal people. When they were living off the land they spread seeds, “farmed” the land and did burnoffs. Many native plants need fire to germinate seeds. But in recent years, there weren’t so many controlled burns in the bushland, and that’s why last year Australia had wild fires that burnt for months.

Establish national parks: Destruction 100!

1:33 is a reality check.

I love this format of the video. It's interesting and getting to me a new knowladges!

I’ve been binge watching the show... love the guest at the end of the episodes.. I had no idea about the olympians and this, it’s wild- I liked the interview at the end though. Much love and do your thing.

we should put natives in charge of preserving nature and just trust them. I mean they've been doing it longer than literally anyone else, and they care for it more than literally anyone else

And one day Pokemon holograms will roam those national parks.

"David atten-boring" xD

U rock!! I love this show!!!

Excellent video! For more on how the Natives sustainably managed ecosystems, I'd recommend 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus, if you haven't read it already. Also, John Muir wasn't all bad. Apparently his views evolved. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir#Native_Americans

I think this is literally the first mainstream mention I've seen about native agriculture and how they controlled what we considered untamed wilderness and altered it to suit their needs.

Great video!! Please make more like it!!

“David Attenboring “ 😂 😂 😂

Zack from wkuk! glad to see he's still acting

I'm already weeping for humanity.

Great video

Thanks for this video. When I bring this up, people think I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Humans are like gods of Destruction .

To be sort of fair, I'm not sure there is a "natural" state, everything is always in flux, and even on the off chance it stabilizes for some time, all it takes it a weird event like the Siberian Trap eruptions to completely destroy it all anyways. Interesting that they knew about controlled burning already though.

3:06 That face though xD

Bring back the podcast! I’d love to hear from the experts for this episode.

I choose "weep for humanity", i always wee for my self pity

AWWW we're like a parasitic virus.

This series should also be called “Adam spits true facts”

so it seems that many indigenous cultures do the controlled burn thing. I'm from Australia and while I'm not an Indigenous Person, I do know that our Indigenous People also used controlled burns to positively impact the environment. Done properly, controlled burns are fantastic, so fantastic that our farmers and Fire-fighters try to use the same techniques to prevent larger more dangerous fires, a task that is becoming increasingly difficult thanks to climate change.

But if you're fabricating the fires (controlled fires), isn't that also altering the ecosystem? The underbrush was supposed to form naturally but they were preventing it.

I pick option 2

This is great

How do you think the plains tribes knew where to find the buffalo in spring as they migrated north? Burning off the dead grasses in late winter made it easier for the buffalo to eat the fresh green shoots that they preferred.

The fact you said David attemboring made me triggered

Reminds me of the fire stick farming methods used by aboriginal Australians

Merry Christmas

The controlled burning are very true, undergrowth is actually the leading cause in why forest fires in the past few years have gotten so bad. All it takes in one drought season, a bit of burning embers, and suddenly half of the Appalachian trail is up in flames. These undergrowth also prevent most things from sprouting, such as pine trees. Fires are needed for the seeds in pine cones to come out and sprout. Ash also happens to fertilize the ground.

I used to like Adam’s show but after a few questionable episodes, especially his animated histories, I really have a hard time trusting what he argues. While he is correct on some points in this video (humans always have an effect on the environment and the removal of native peoples from their homelands have more than just one immoral consequence) it is ultimately misleading. In William Cronan’s “Changes in the Land,” it is argued that Native Americans had a long-lasting relationship with the environment, it’s resources were exploited and nature, as a result, shaped itself around the impacts of native peoples. While controlled forest fires helped prevent overgrowth and major fires, the goal of native people in New England was to make the forest easy to hunt in (think of a city park). It is also important to note that the environmental practices of tribes varied from region to region. Many semi-agricultural tribes practiced controlled fires, while more nomadic tribes simply moved from place to place and sometimes conduct controlled burns. When Europeans arrived on the East Coast, and American settlers in the west, native peoples actually willingly participated in the Western styles of land exploitation. In early New England, for example, European settlers wanted to get into the fur trade but were unfamiliar with the land and they had limited resources and manpower to do so, turning to the native population, they offered European goods and wampum in exchange for furs. The native population not only agreed and turned their attention to hunting, but also they neglected long-standing traditions of maintaining the land and over-hunted the region to the point of near extinction for the beaver population. Western tribes (Apache, Sioux, etc.) are usually seen as horse cultures, while this is true for at least 400+ years, horses are an Old World animal that weren’t reintroduced (horses were in North America 10000 years ago but were over-hunted by humans coming to the region) to the America’s until the early 1500s. Indigenous people adopted horses from the European settlers because horses provided several advantages for prospering. It is false to assert that Native American peoples had some sort of harmony with nature, rather it is more accurate to see native peoples as having a different concept of property and utilized the land in a way that was beneficial to themselves. The conditions of the environment were shaped by this use of the land and once that changed it reverted to an ice age environment where megafauna and the climate had a different impact on the land. Adam’s view that conservation as it is in places like Yosemite is bad is very misleading. We should be aware of the political forces that forced the natives from Yosemite and, like much of the history of America’s expansion into the West, it is a sad and shameful part of the past that should not be forgotten. What we should remember is that, while the lands were seized unjustly, at least, Yosemite did not follow the traditional path of Western resource exploitation, it could have easily become Yosemite City rather than Yosemite Park. Some of the natural element of the land is being preserved and it is adjusting to a less present human influence, the ecosystem will eventually adjust. Remember, there was a time in North America when no humans were on the continent.

Great video. Thank you. Maybe humans really are intended to be the stewards of the land as the native Americans demonstrate in the video..and that is our contribution to the earth.. our brains allowed us to figure out fire and controlled burns and seeding pruning etc.. to support the forest!! and that is our natural contribution to the earth eco system. We could live in nature and support it and ourselves like the native Americans did in this example... instead of sectioning it off to be preserved away from natural living humans. We can be a harmonious part of nature when we live IN and WITH nature- respect the land water air animals insects etc as the native Americans were. we don’t need to visit natural parks as spectators of nature.. we are nature, too! We’ve lost that in the US and sadly much of the world is following. That said, I’m a big supporter of the parks bc if not protected they will be exploited for corporate profit so they are important measures right now. Just sad native Americans were kicked off land in order to preserve it by people ignorant of the benefits these humans brought to the forest. Not all ways of living as a human on this earth are detrimental to it. Separating humans from living natural spaces is such a terrible crime against those humans and the piece of earth they cared for.

Mind Blown! 🤯

Fires also help with pine seeding.

Adam, care to talk about Roosevelt and the Manifest destiny? I'd love to see my students being taught about the true colors of 19th century USA

Wait so if the native americans also affected the land, then doesnt tht mean by removing em tht it did in fact return it to its natural state? I agree tht parks guy who kicked em out sounds like a douce and it doesnt seem cool for him to kick out the native people from there homes, but technically speaking it sounds like nature was returned to its natural state. I think a better argument here would be tht natural states are overated and we got this douce native american hater to blame. Or that native americans reduce forest fires.

Denali among others would like a word about what our greatest national park is, and that's an example of a park where indigenous people are given a say and still use land.

I like Adam's impression of David Attenborough!

There are some very broad statements made here. Also, couldn’t you argue that since humans are apart of the ecosystem, the changes made by them should just be considered the new ecosystem? Other animals do impact and change it as well on very small things but it is a change nonetheless.

This is why the National Parks should be homesteaded so hunters, ranchers, and tribes can conserve the lands

Love the voice Adam

Does Adam have longer episodes?

Perfect!!!!

in the universe of jurassic park, this topic is EXTREMELY true.

I am weeping :'(

lol great intro

David Attenboring lol lol

That David Attenborough narration

Apparently the lack of burning is what led to the bushfires in Australia earlier this year

1:06, uncle Jack is that you?

The narrator/Adam sounds like Stewart griffin in the beginning

I love the Attenborough narration style

"Only we can start forest fires" lmao

Controlled burns also would have helped prevent the huge Australia wild fires

Just learned about john Muir on drunk history lol

That's deep. I think this topic should be expanded a little

The David Attenborough impression tho

Ive seen plenty of dried bushes next to healthy greens ones

I mean there are places north of algonquin which are pretty wild places to do Bush craft...

I thought I recognized that guy from somewhere! (The one accompanying Adam). He's from Whitest Kids U' Know. Lots of nostalgia just hit all at once!

when i fist saw this vid i thought wow i cant wait for the next nevest videos now its a foreign consept

I wish he would've elaborated on how these controlled burns were even done, and on what scale.

Here in Finland we still use controlled forest fires to give natural growth and man made growth more room. Been doing that for ages. Keep doing that for ages.

I love the color of his suit

Zach was always the best actor from WKUK

David Attenbring 😂

Okay, that was a pretty good Attenborough

There's a great video by Sustainable Human called "How Wolves Change Rivers." Natural ecosystems are so finely tuned that any change, man-made or otherwise, can have a drastic effect

Heck, even places we don't go (often) are affected by our presence. The Great Pacific garbage patch comes to mind. It's not like bored teenagers are strolling by their every day and tossing their soda cans into it but by golly is it a good example of human impact on the world.

Can anyone tell me what episode this is?

Where's a world ending meteor when you need one?

Oh my, we should try to continue that controlled fire

I'm from Indonesia, that recently have horrible forest fire all over the country, the smoke is so bad for health and people it become headline in few neighbooring countries Watching this video do give me conflicted mind

Nature has been changing since the beginning of life on earth, it's not wise to preserve it but always recommended to protect it.

is that one of the guys from wkuk?

""Every where we go is affected by our presence." Boldly going were no man has yet affected our presence.

Omg he’s from TWKUK!

I always love watching the cast of The Whitest Kids U Know make appearances, such as this video with Zach Cregger!