For countless generations, the economic and spiritual well being of Indian people has been tied to the land, air, water and all things that walk, fly, swim or grow roots. In many ways, culture is maintained by traditions, practices and rituals that bind the health of the individual to the community and the community to the Earth. The full extent of this linkage—of Indian dependence on plants and animals for medicines, food, shelter, transportation and commerce—has not been fully understood or appreciated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), though the agency has been responsible for managing tribal natural resources for more than 150 years.
New forestry, ecosystem management and biocentrism exemplify our society’s admission that it can no longer manage natural resources in isolation, either from one another or from their impacts on human communities. In Indian country, “coordinated management plans” are supposed to guide use and protection of tribal natural resources. But few such plans currently exist. On many reservations, forest plans have been around for years, mainly because forestry is the only functional resource division that has existed in the BIA for more than a few years. But these plans focus principally on silvicultural and timber harvest activities related to commodity production and income generation. The need to incorporate them in an over-arching framework for multiple resource management is now firmly established in both law and policy.
When Congress passed the National Indian Forest Resources Management Act in 1990 (NIFRMA, Title III of P.L. 101-630), it required the development of integrated (coordinated) plans by defining forest management plans within the context of tribal integrated resource management plans:
“(5) forest management plan means the principal document, approved by the Secretary, reflecting and consistent with a tribal integrated resource management plan, which provides for the regulation of the detailed, multiple-use operation of Indian forest land by methods assuring that such lands remain in a continuously productive state while meeting the objectives of the tribe” SEC 304(5)
In Section 305, NIFRMA sets forth objectives much broader than timber production:
(5) the retention of Indian forest land in its natural state when an Indian tribe determines that the recreational, cultural, aesthetic or traditional values of the Indian forest land represent the highest and best use of the land;
(6) the management and protection of forest resources to retain the beneficial effects to Indian forest lands of regulating water run-off and minimizing soil erosion;
(7) the maintenance and improvement of timber productivity, grazing, wildlife, fisheries, recreation, aesthetic, cultural and other traditional values. These requirements for coordinated planning are codified in federal regulations at 25 C.F.R. 163,11(b), which reads in pertinent part: “Forest management planning for Indian forest land shall be carried out through participation in the development and implementation of integrated resource management plans, which provide coordination for the comprehensive management of all natural resources on Indian land. If the integrated resource management planning process has not been initiated, or is not ongoing or completed, a stand-alone forest management plan will be prepared.” As matters of policy, management plans are pivotal to the ability of tribes to establish management direction for the use of trust resources under the Secretarial Order entitled “American Indian Tribal Rights, Federal-Tribal Trust Responsibilities, and the Endangered Species Act” signed by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Commerce Secretary William Daley on June 5, 1997.
The Departments acknowledge that Indian tribes value, and exercise responsibilities for, management of Indian lands and tribal trust resources. In keeping with the federal policy of promoting tribal self-government, the Departments shall respect the exercise of tribal sovereignty over the management of Indian lands, and tribal trust resources. Accordingly, the Departments shall give deference to tribal conservation and management plans for trust resources that: (a) govern activities on Indian lands, including, for the purposes of this section, triballyowned fee lands, and (b) address the conservation needs of listed species. The Departments shall conduct government- to-government consultations to discuss the extent to which tribal resource management plans for tribal trust resources outside Indian lands can be incorporated into actions to address the conservation needs of listed species. Principle 3(B).
Despite the need for tribes to take a holistic view of resource management, coordinated plans have been slow to develop. There are four problems impeding progress:
- Coordinated management has been a low priority
- The organizational structure is disfunctional
- There are information deficiencies
- Allotments and other special problems
Ponderosa pine overlook on the Spokane
Indian Reservation in eastern Washington |
Multiple resource management planning has not been a high priority within the BIA: Federal appropriations for Indian forestry have always lagged far behind the budgets available to private industry or those provided to federal agencies like the U.S. Forest Service. Very little funding is available for management planning for lands other than commercial timberlands. Because BIA funding is so limited, agency management skills have been concentrated almost exclusively on timber production. The skills needed to support coordinated management— ecologists, geologists, botanists, archaeologists, hydrologists, fisheries and wildlife biologists, soil scientists, range conservationists and engineers, to name a few—are in woefully short supply.
In its 1993 report, the Indian Forest Management Assessment Team (IFMAT) identified an annual need for $187 million to bring Indian funding for coordinated resource management to a par with funding available to National Forests. The Forestry Program Funding & Position Analysis published by the BIA in April, 1997 reinforced these findings, indicating that multiple use management was being funded at less than half the level of need. Concluding that additional resources were necessary “to effectively meet the requirements for today’s resource management expectations of the tribes, the public and the courts.”
The lack of emphasis on coordinated planning is due in part to inadequate federal appropriations and in part to the lack of a cohesive, integrated resource management program within the BIA. Common understanding of management goals and objectives, is of course, a major focus for coordinated planning, but this cannot occur without adequate budgets and organizational infrastructure. No single division within the BIA is in charge of coordinated planning, instead, staffs are left to fend for themselves. Relationships and communication between staff responsible for forestry, minerals, water, agriculture, fish, wildlife, range and cultural resources are tenuous at best.
This unhappy situation is further complicated by functional separations of tribal and BIA forestry programs. At most locations, tribal funds support multi-disciplinary management activities and tribal employees form the vast majority of natural resource professionals who are trained in disciplines other than forestry. Thus, in addition to trying to overcome the confusion and misunderstanding caused by specialized jargon that frequently characterizes interdisciplinary processes, participants in coordinated resource planning efforts must contend with structural organizational barriers that can inhibit effective communication among foresters and other natural resource professionals. The problem of obtaining ready access to the specialized expertise needed to undertake coordinated resource management planning is exacerbated by low pay scales and high workloads of tribal staff. Tribal employees are often required to function without adequate budgetary support, without a solid foundation of resource information and without the full opportunity to experience professional peer interactions, which are essential for effective participation in coordinated management efforts.
In most instances, coordinated management is hampered by the inadequacy of basic information on the resource base. Although continuous forest inventory and stand-level inventory data are frequently available for forested reservations, comparable information for other resources are generally unavailable or inadequate. Even forest inventory data are rarely suitable for much beyond the limited purpose of developing silvicultural prescriptions and scheduling timber harvest. Little effort is dedicated to the collection of information that would be valuable for management of other resources. Communication must be improved among the various disciplines that require access to resource data to develop systems capable of efficiently collecting the suite of information required to support coordinated planning. Since coordinated management on reservations cannot occur within a vacuum, efforts must be undertaken to ensure that procedures and impact models are consistent with those used by other jurisdictions to permit landscape scale assessments.
Looking across a clearcut into a
stand of 50-year-old Douglas-fir
growing on the Quinault Indian
Nation. In this timber-rich region, it
only takes about 50 years to grow a
ready-for-harvest forest. |
Another problem confronting coordinated management is the difficulty of gaining recognition and respect for traditional knowledge. Much wisdom and understanding of the workings of natural systems has been gained over countless generations of observation and experimentation. However, the validity of this type of information has often been challenged by resource professionals due to the lack of academic credentials and supporting research, which are acknowledged in scientific circles.
A significant problem confronting coordinated resource planning is the extreme sensitivity of some of the information. Tribes are often reluctant to disclose the location and use of culturally important resources and sites. They are understandably and legitimately concerned with the security of this information and the difficulty of providing adequate protection against unaut horized use and access. Problems of awareness are heightened by the personal nature of much of this information; even within a tribal community, the importance of some resources and sites are closely held within close-knit family units and are not widely known. This creates a serious dilemma, for without full knowledge of the existence and significance of resources and places to tribal communities and individuals, managers must either act in ignorance or resort to the uncertain advice of designated cultural committees or staff.
Coordinated management planning on many reservations is further hindered by complex land ownership patterns resulting from the General Allotment Act of 1887. The purpose of this Act was to break up tribal communities by allotting small parcels of land to individuals in an attempt to transform them into property-owning farmers and ranchers. Under the provisions of the Allotment Act, lands that were not given to individuals were open to homesteading, eventually causing over 100 million acres to leave Indian ownership. Today, coordinated management on many Indian reservations must contend with a crazy patchwork quilt of checkerboard ownership patterns, where fee, tribal and individually held lands are commingled across the landscape. Nationwide, approximately ten million acres of trust land is owned by individual allottees in 80–160 acre parcels. The objectives of these allottees may, and often do, not coincide with tribal objectives for coordinated management. To complicate matters further, ownership of many allotments is held as undivided property interests, often as a mixture of fee and trust status as a result of processes of inheritance.
Coordinated management of Indian resources also raises troublesome issues relating to the administration of the federal trust responsibility within the context of tribal self determination. Although Indian lands and resources are private assets, title is often held in trust by the United States. The United States has a fiduciary obligation, a trust responsibility, to ensure that the assets of the trust are prudently managed. While self determination, the right of tribes to establish their own objectives and plans, is the official policy of the United States, there is a potential for the United States as trustee to constrain or even usurp tribal prerogatives in establishing objec-tives for management. For example, if the BIA sold timber over the objections of the tribe that owned it.
Many formidable obstacles must be overcome before coordinated management becomes a reality in Indian Country. Like many communities, Indian tribes are struggling with the need to reconcile traditional ways and values within the context of total resource management. Competing social forces—economic development, job formation, preservation, and conservation—all exist within tribal communities, just as they do everywhere else in America.
Coordinated or ecosystem management is the new forestry paradigm. But it is not new in Indian Country. Tribes have been engaged in it for thousands of years, honoring the inter-relationship they believe exists between all natural resources. Technology—computers and Geographic Information Systems— makes it possible for modern-day forest managers to apply these ancient principles within the context of coordinated resource management plans.
IFMAT recognized the striking potential for Indian forests and forestry to serve as models of sustainability others might want to emulate. Why? Because in many ways, tribal communities are social microcosms wherein multiple decisions must be made within the context of a larger plan that simultaneously utilizes, preserves, and protects the vitality of the resources in order to avoid governmental and economic crises.
“The more we learn, the more we see that scientific and technological approaches taken in the past have not been adequate to protect the landscape. Drawing from an expanding scientific knowledge base, managers are now promoting new ways of caring for the land which echo traditional ways. Tribes should be able, if anyone can, to use the knowledge that has always been theirs to manage their own lands.” IFMAT, p V-44/45.
At a few reservations, including Yakama, Menominee, White Mountain, and Warm Springs, tribal approaches to landscape management have already impressed many who are now struggling with ecosystem concepts. But at most others, coordinated management planning remains an elusive goal.
Non-Indians have a fondness for the written word, for laws, regulations, and plans. If it’s not on paper, it doesn’t count. But that’s usually not the Indian way. A coordinated management plan is more than a piece of paper. It’s an attitude. To respect and honor the earth, its plants, and creatures, in thought and action. To adapt and change. To use the best that science and technology have to offer and discard the rest. To know that all things are interconnected, yet to have the will and the courage to make tough choices, understanding that the future of their children and their children after them lies in the balance. That’s really what it’s all about.
Whether Indian tribes will eventually record their world views in coordinated management plans is yet to be determined. But the spirit and conviction of tribal beliefs and values run strong and deep; the will to survive as Indians will endure as a promise to generations yet unborn.
Coordinated management must not be allowed to become just an administrative exercise. To have meaning and purpose, it must be more than a piece of paper or a dream. In Indian country, it is; it’s reality. It is being practiced everyday through counsel and legend, through tradition and ceremony, through observation and practice, whether reduced to paper or not. “You are the land, and the land is you.” Coordinated management is just a new word for a time-proven, ageless philosophy, a path from the past to the future, simply a way of life.
