Editor's Column

Guest Columns

Forest Facts

By: Greg Blomstrom

Beargrass on the Yakama Indian Reservation

Contemporary forest landowners and managers all recognize the critical importance of sound, current timber inventory and planning data. It has not always been this way, especially in Indian Country.

When the Bureau of Indian Affairs was established in 1849, no thought was given to forestry. In fact, sustained yield management was not required in tribal forests until Congress ratified the Act of June 18, 1934. But it would be another 56 years before Congress saw fit to make approved forest plans a legal requirement. It did so with ratification of the 1990 National Indian Forest Resources Management Act.

Today, the Bureau of Indian Affairs is the federal government’s representative in a government- to-government relationship involving more than 56 million acres of land the federal government holds in trust for Indian tribes. The Bureau’s Branch of Forest Resources Planning maintains a vast forest inventory data base developed over several decades, and it is used daily by tribal and BIA forest land managers. When the IFMAT team released its Assessment of Indian Forests and Forest Management in the United States in 1993, it had high praise for the integrity of this data base.

“The BIA’s continuous forest inventory (CFI) system for planning and policy analysis stands out compared with that of other agencies,” the team wrote.

CFI plots were first established in 1957, on the Spokane and Menominee reservations. But the system now extends to 58 reservations across the country and includes By Greg Blomstrom Planning Forester Hoopa Valley Tribal Council Hoopa, California Quality Inventory and Planning Data Essential to Tribal Forest Plans, Sovereignty more than 22,800 permanent plots scattered across 8.9 million acres of tribal forest land. Most of these plots are remeasured every ten years.

Sustained yield calculations are far more complex and costly today than they were in 1934 when sustained yield was mandated. Forest inventories are required to be statistically accurate, not by region or state, but by reservation or ownership. It is very important to Indian owners that management decisions be based on their forest’s data, not that of their neighbor.

The National Indian Forest Resources Management Act requires forest management plans to be consistent with integrated resource management plans developed by tribes. But sadly, as IFMAT discovered, “The recent BIA policy calling for development of integrated resource management plans for each reservation, developed at the urging of tribes, has not been successfully implemented.” The Bureau recently published a handbook describing the plan integration process, but because funding is scarce, little else has been done.

In 1992, about 60 percent of all tribal commercial forestland— some 3.6 million acres— were covered by a current forest management plan, but by 1997 the percentage had fallen to 40, even though about 6.8 million acres had current plans. Several factors are contributing to this disparity: tribes are buying more forestland, there are more reservations and—of greatest significance—forest management plans are now required for woodlands. The table on page 30 tracks forest plan completions from 1992–1997.

Tribes have long relied on the Bureau for assistance in forest planning and inventory analysis. Unfortunately, IFMAT found that, “In comparison either with the support given harvest scheduling by the Forest Service, or the support given by the BIA to forest inventory, the technical support for harvest scheduling is embarrassingly small.” (IFMAT reported federal funding for tribal inventory and planning averages 26 cents per acre, compared with $5 per acre on national forests.)

Until recently, most inventory information collected from tribal CFI plots was based solely on measuring standard tree characteristics, including diameter and height of previously measured trees, and similar information on new trees in the plot. Most of the data gathered was on trees five inches or larger in diameter.

This is changing, but only gradually when compared to what is happening inside the Forest Service, where funding for computers and advanced software programs is more readily available. Few tribes can afford these tools—sophisticated growth and yield models, visualization programs that show how stands look before and after treatment, harvest scheduling tools and automated mapping software—but those that can are using them to classify their inventory plots by soil type, silvicultural style and habitat type.

Ponderosa pine on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in central Oregon

With advanced technologies at their fingertips, and improved onthe- ground data collection, these tribes are also able to peer much further into the future than they once could. Basic twenty-year management plans are giving way to sophisticated planning that looks 100 or more years into the future.

Self-governance tribes are stepping to the forefront in inventory and planning on their reservations, developing growth and harvest models as sophisticated as those used in national forests by the U.S. Forest Service. But less than 20 percent of the 77 reservations with current forest plans are using sophisticated growth and harvest models. The other 80 percent still calculate their annual allowable harvest by hand, relying on 20-year-old inventory methods. Meanwhile, the BIA’s $1.5 contribution to inventory and planning remains unchanged in five years.

Although tribal dollars now account for more than 40 percent of the entire Indian forestry budget, there is a limit to what they can and should be expected to contribute, particularly with respect to unfunded federal mandates tribes have not agreed to. A recent Bureau report, Unfunded Environmental Mandate Study, BIA, 1994 found that the forestry program had an unfunded annual mandate totaling $8.2 million —money needed to meet requirements associated with several federal laws. This includes the National Environmental Policy Act, the Archeological Resources Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.

While these mandates may seem well intended, they have become a significant forest planning burden, for both tribes and the Bureau as trustee. Tribes are well aware that approved forest plans help insure the sovereignty of tribal government, specifically as it relates to utilization of tribal forest resources. The federal government is similarly obligated, because the only way it can grant sovereignty, while simultaneously fulfilling its trust responsibility, is via an approved forest plan. Thus tribaldirected forest plans, and the planning and inventory data that supports these plans, are critical elements in Indian Country forestry.

For lack of stable and adequate federal funding, Indian forestry is in jeopardy, and with it, tribal sovereignty. Over the past decade, there have been modest increases in the overall Indian budget, but the money has not gone to resource programs. Moreover, appropriations have not kept pace with regulatory mandates or the cost of technology. As a result, inventory and planning data is being collected less frequently with less accuracy, and forest plan revisions are not being made in a timely manner. There is a documented need for $5.7 million per year to maintain CFI, and develop forest plans—far more than the $5 million the federal government has allocated over the past ten years. If something is not done soon, Indian forestry’s technological and scientific gains will be lost, and with it tribal and federal investments in programs designed to benefit both tribes and tribal forests.

Perhaps Senators Inouye and McCain described the situation best in a joint letter to the Committee on the Budget in 1992. “Without question...Indians, the population group that suffers the worst conditions of unemployment, poor health, inadequate education and other social and economic conditions, are the people who, over the past decade, have also suffered the deepest cuts in Federal spending for programs designed for their benefit.”

Log trucking on the Colville Indian Reservation in eastern Washington

Tribal Forest Planning Unique and Challenging Tribal forest planners face a unique set of challenges. Consider these likenesses and differences between tribal, corporate and public shareholders. (Tribal shareholders are Indians belonging to a particular tribe. Corporate shareholders own shares of stock in publiclytraded forest products companies and public shareholders are the citizen owners of federal, state or municipal forestlands) Tribal and corporate shareholders expect direct cash dividends from management, while public forest managers need only break even. Tribal shareholders may live on and use the property. Corporate shareholders cannot live on the property, or use its resources, but may have periodic access. Public shareholders can use the resources but cannot live on the property. Tribal shareholders receive indirect benefits from their natural resources, including hunting, gathering, fishing and clean water. Corporate shareholders receive no indirect benefits. Public shareholders receive some indirect benefits. Where long-term forest planning is concerned, the corporate outlook is subject to constant revision, based on market and regulatory factors. Public forest plans are usually reviewed every ten years but are constantly battered by litigation and political forces. On tribal forests, the long-term outlook traditionally spans seven generations [more than 150 years], but is limited by federal funding shortages and congressional indifference. Tribal shareholders are directly affected by forest management decisions, but corporate shareholders are not. Nor are public shareholders, save for those living in federally-dependent timber communities who may be economically harmed by reductions in harvest levels.

"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."