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Forest Facts

By: Alan Newell

Indians enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps plant pine seedlings at the Choctaw Agency in Mississippi. The Roosevelt Administration authorized enrollment of 14,000 Indians when it created the CCC program in 1933. Unlike other CCC inductees, Indians stayed on their reservations, where they worked mainly on erosion control. This photograph was taken in the late 1930s.

Indian forestry occupies a unique and often contradictory place in the history of tribal communities. Since the mid-nineteenth century, federal policymakers have viewed those tribes fortunate enough to have merchantable forests as well-positioned to reap the benefits of integration into a national economy. Treaty commissioners who established reservations for tribes during the 1850’s considered the forest an important resource for both tribal and nontribal communities. Yet, while federal agents and employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs encouraged the use of the forest resource, Congress and sometimes the judiciary have often acted to stifle forest development. The reason for this contradictory federal approach is rooted in an ambivalent federal Indian policy.

For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, federal policy toward native communities has sought to make them self-sufficient. The reservation system initiated in the 1850’s had this goal in mind. But, the inflexibility in a system that envisioned all Indians as Jeffersonian yeoman farmers ironically hampered tribal members by denying them participation in the emerging local economy. This was the case in 1872, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Cook that Indians on the Tulalip Reservation in Washington did not own their timber and, thus, could not cut and sell it. [See Footnote 1] The only way that timber could be removed from a reservation, according to the court, was if it was harvested incidentally to prepare the land for agriculture. The Indian Forest Policy Rooted In Federal Ambivalence By Alan Newell Historical Research Associates Missoula, Montana Cook decision shows how the goal of self-sufficiency was often obscured by the dictate of means, in this case the requirement that all Indians become farmers.

Congress reluctantly realized that not all Indian reservations were susceptible and Congress gradually implemented measures to conserve the nations dwindling resources. The Branch of Forestry within the Bureau of Indian Affairs emerged in 1910 as a byproduct of one of the most notorious debates of the period over the nature and control of the conservation movement as espoused by Chief of the Forest Service Gifford Pinchot and Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger.

Congress laid the cornerstone of Indian forestry with the Act of June 25, 1910 that not only created the Branch of Forestry but also authorized the sale of mature, as well as “dead and down” timber from reservation forests. But Congress in 1910 refused to address the legacy of a failed allotment policy or the possibility that reservation resources, including forests, should be tribal, rather than individual, resources. By failing to fundamentally reconsider how Indian communities might achieve economic self-sufficiency, Congress initiated a pattern of patchwork funding and statutory reform for Indian forestry. Even after federal Indian policy shifted during the 1930’s with the Indian Reorganization Act (1934), a new emphasis on tribal political reconstruction, Congress seldom provided adequate funds to support the management of Indian forests on a sustainable basis. The fragmentation of many reservations a legacy of allot-ment and homesteading), as well as Congress’ impatience with its role as trustee, (Termination) only accentuated the difficulties that BIA and tribal foresters faced in managing the reservation forest.

Congress’ historic vacillation with Indian policy also incorporated a heavy dose of paternalism. The federal government, in its role of trustee, usually decided how tribal forest and other resources would be used without consultation with the affected tribe. The government’s trust relationship with tribal governments often placed BIA foresters in an awkward position. On the one hand they felt obliged to manage the tribal forest on a technically sound, sustained yield basis. Yet, these forests represented a private not a public re-source that was intended to support a diversified tribal economy. The specific wishes of tribal leaders and allottees only served to complicate the management mandate. Lee Muck, Director of Forestry, in 1938 captured the essence of the BIA forester’s dilemma when he observed that it was difficult to “coordinate the sustained yield management of forests and range resources with the economic and social development of the Indians (in fact, it) is more difficult and time consuming than is the administration of most federal lands”. These management demands often meant that tribal governments were not fully integrated into the decision making process.

Tribal governments gained a stronger voice in the management of the Indian forest beginning in the 1960s. BIA foresters generally encouraged this greater participation and saw it as a way to forge an alliance that could advocate more effectively for congressional support for the forestry program. Passage of the Self-Determination Act of 1975, Congressional review of federal Indian policy during the mid-1970s and the formation of pan-tribal groups such as the Intertribal Timber Council in 1976 all contributed to greater legislative awareness of the importance of Indian forests. Identification of the deficiencies in the tribal forestry program prompted Congress to provide additional funding for forest development and management planning beginning in the late 1970s.

Congress appropriated more money in 1985 to address the management planning needs on the nation’s reservations. Legislative support for the program continued into the late 1980s and culminated in passage of the National Indian Forest Resources Management Act in 1990. This watershed legislation signaled the emergence of a coordinated and articulate voice for Indian forestry. Unfortunately, the bill’s passage coincided with the federal government’s efforts at fiscal austerity. As a result, the specific funding requirement initially identified in the bill was stripped before final passage and, in its place, Congress inserted the vague intent to appropriate “such sums as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this title”.

Greasing a log chute on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana in 1920.

Inadequate funding continues to plague the tribal forestry program. This, coupled with increased pressure on tribes to assume full control of their forestry program, suggests an uncertain future for Indian forestry. Timber harvest operations will continue on reservation forests, as will efforts to develop tribal enterprises. However, increasingly, these enterprises will be forced to adjust their social goals of providing tribal members with income, jobs and training with the economic realities of a world market. Moreover, other tribal interests in the forest (recreation, food-gathering, spiritual), all of which play important, historical roles in tribal cultural identity, will undoubtedly compete with more cash-oriented uses of the forest.

The role of the federal government in Indian forestry will require adjustment. However, President Clinton’s recent policy memorandum, reinforcing the tribal trust responsibility held by all federal agencies, makes it unlikely the nature of this trusteeship will change in the near term. [See Footnote 2] But as the Branch of Forestry is downsized, whatever persuasive power it held in Congress will surely be diminished. Increasingly, the responsibility for ensuring that the United States acts as a responsible trustee will fall on the tribes and tribal organizations such as the Intertribal Timber Council. Even with this effort, it is uncertain if the necessary funding will be forthcoming, absent the presence of a strong internal federal agency to advocate for its interest.

1. Indian reservations are federal lands held in trust for the benefit of Indian tribes. The various policies applied to America’s native tribes, however, have created a mosaic of ownership on many reservations. Some reservation lands were allotted to tribal members and, thorough heirship, devolved to numerous individual tribal members. Other reservations were opened to non- Indian entry and Indian lands eventually passed to non-Indian owners. This fragmented ownership pattern continues to plague reservation forest managers seeking to combine forested allotments into rational timber management units.

2. The trust responsibility that the federal government owes to the nation’s Indian tribes is rooted in the decisions of Justice John Marshall in several landmark cases in the 1830s involving the Cherokee Nation in Georgia. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, Justice Marshall found that tribes existed as “domestic dependent nations” within the United States. This status established a ward/guardian relationship between the tribes and the United States. Various treaties, the creation of reservations and statutory mandates imposed by Congress have defined the trust responsibility. In an April 29, 1994 memorandum, President Clinton emphasized the federal government’s acknowledgment of its trust responsibility when he directed all federal agencies to evaluate their functions in relationship to their impacts on tribal communities. The President also directed that federal agencies interact with tribes on the basis of a government-to-government relationship.

"We must always consider the environment and people together, as though they are one, because the
human need to use natural resources is fundamental to our continued presence on earth."