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Forest Facts

By: Larry Mason

A view of the Regeneration cut on Mineral Ridge on the Colville Reservation in Washington. Photo By Dave Skinner

Some visitors are fortunate to be invited to walk in tribal forests. Others may view these lands from afar as they travel America’s highways. However, many Americans may never see the timberlands of Indian Country and most have little understanding of tribal forest management. If sustainability is to be the national goal for forestry in the 21st century, Native American successes in forest management could provide valuable insight on how to move beyond the false choices of preservation verses exploitation that have characterized resource conflicts of the last century. This paper will look briefly at the changing face of contemporary forestry across all ownerships, examine encouraging developments on tribal lands, and suggest that tribal resource programs may be playing an increasingly important, but as yet unheralded role in the evolution of American forestry.

Forestry across multiple ownerships
From 1998 to 2002, fifteen million acres of private commercial forestlands in the United States have shifted from traditional forest products companies to timber investment management organizations (TIMOs). While industrial timberland owners historically held lands for decades, TIMOs typically retain TIMOs (Timber Trends 2002). If this prediction is accurate, by 2020 approximately 40% of the nation’s industrial forestland will be in TIMO ownership.

A recently published report (Stein et al. 2005) warns of growing concerns about the effects of development on private forestlands. Since 1990, the rate of conversion of private forests to developed uses has reached a million acres per year. Forest Service researchers estimate that, by 2050, an additional 23 million acres of forestland will be developed for residential and commercial uses (Alig et al. 2003). Urbanization represents a threat to the extent, con-dition, and health of forests and has been shown to be a major contributor to nonpoint pollution of surface waters and degradation of wildlife habitats (Wear and Greis 2002, Theobald et al. 1997).

On federally owned forest lands, a century of fire suppression, past harvest practices, and overgrazing combined with a lack of forest management activities in recent decades has created a forest health crisis of overstocking, disease, insect infestations, and mortality. As a result, more than 120 million acres of Forest Service (FS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) forest are at moderate to high risk of catastrophic land for seven to fifteen years before selling it for a return on the investment. Within the next decade, the Pinchot Institute for conservation predicts another 12 to 15 million acres will transfer from the forest industry to  wildfire (Norton 2002). During the period from 1994 to present, more than 50 million acres of forest and rangelands, mostly in public ownership, were consumed by wildfire with cumulative fire suppression costs greater than $9 billion (NIFC 2005). Due to conflicting regulations, special interest litigation, shortfalls of trained personnel, and other factors federal agencies have not been able to launch significant response toward the restoration of forest health.

In the years from 1989 to 2002, as a result of dramatic reductions in federal timber harvests, 378 milling operations closed in the Pacific Northwest (Pease 2003). From 1991 to 2002, 48,000 forest products workers lost their jobs in Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, and Idaho (Warren 2004). The shift of forest ownership from vertically integrated industrial corporations to TIMOs, investment groups that typically don’t own mills, is causing further erosion of regional manufacturing capacity.

Across the west, reductions n federal timber harvests have resulted in closures of milling operations that had once been purchasers of tribal logs. In some states, such as Arizona, there are no mills left within reasonable hauling distances and stumpage values have plummeted.

Indian enterprise, illustrated here by Colville Indian Power and Veneer’s plywood lay-up line, competes in the global marketplace while also providing tribal members and others with decent wages in tough job markets.

There are approximately 18.5 million acres of Indian forestlands on 287 reservations held in trust by the United States. The Northwest region has the most productive forests that are owned and managed by tribes. In 2001, tribal forests in the Northwest accounted for more than 67% of the timber volume and more than 72% of the revenue generated from harvests on all Indian forests in the United States (Downes per com). While Indian harvests in the Northwest have remained stable at just under 400 MMBF/year, Forest Service harvests have dropped by more than 80% from 1992 to 2002 (Warren 2004).  

In contrast to industry divesture of forestland assets, many tribes are increasing reservation forests through purchases of allotments and non-Indian lands and by reclamation of tribal titles. During the decade from 1991 to 2001, tribal forestland acreage increased by 2.1 million acres (IFMAT II 2003).

In addition to expanding their forest holdings, some tribes have been investing in timber manufacturing enterprises. For example, in Washington State, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation operate a saw mill and a veneer plant which currently provide 300 jobs, 80% of which are held by Indians (Picard pers com); the Yakama Nation operates two sawmills with 320 employees, 92% of which are Indian (Olney pers com). In New Mexico, the Mescalero Apache have the only two sawmills left in the state. These mills employ 100 people of which 60% are Indian (Ryan pers com). In Oregon, 135 people, of which 75% are tribal members, are employed by the sawmill enterprise of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs (Potts pers com). The Menomonee, in Wisconsin, employ 99 people in the tribal sawmill of which 96% are tribal members (Schmidt pers com). The Menomonee, Warm Springs, San Carlos Apache, White Mountain Apache, and others also have milling enterprises. While hard data is not available, total Indian lumber production is estimated to be more than 400 MMBF/year with most capacity added within the last twenty years. In addition to significant local jobs and revenues, increases in Indian lumber production help to offset the rising national trade deficit in softwood lumber by providing needed products to American consumers. Total harvest volume on Indian timberlands for recent years has averaged just over 600 MMBF/year with log volumes not utilized for tribal enterprises sold on the open market (IFMAT II 2003).

Since Indian Nations own their own forest resources and tribal enterprises are operated under the guidance of tribal councils to achieve broader socio-economic goals than profit maximization, the jobs per unit harvest volume multipliers appear to be greater for tribes than private industry. Available data indicates that for tribal enterprises one MMBF of timber harvest per year generates approximately 51 direct and indirect jobs (IFMAT II 2003) while one MMBF of timber per year harvested from other ownerships is more likely to generate 40 direct and indirect jobs (Conway 1994). In 2001, tribal forest resources in the United States supported 30,800 Indian and non-Indian full-timejobs worth $477 million in payroll expenditures (IFMAT II
2003). Since most of these jobs occur in rural areas plagued by high unemployment, avoided costs of social services have high leverage for contributing to community stability. In addition to creating jobs, tribal purchases of goods and services contribute billions of dollars to state economies (Tiller 1996).

A recent national study of the future availability of qualified resource professionals for public service highlights two alarming trends. The Department of Interior and the Forest Service employ more than 90,000 people and about one-half of them are expected to retire by 2007. Reports from other federal, state, and tribal agencies confirm a similar pending labor need. Compounding the problem, national undergraduate enrollments in natural resource and conservation programs have been declining since 1995 (RNRF 2003-4). When available data for Native American verses all student enrollments are compared, an upward trend of approximately 5% for Native American enrollments in natural resource and conservation programs appears in contrast to the downward trend (40% loss since 1995) in total student enrollments (FAEIS 2005, Sharik and Earley 2004). While national data on numbers of Native Americans pursuing careers in resource management or other forestry related occupations is sparse, the number of tribes contracting, partially or fully, with the federal government to provide management services for their own forests has increased from 64 in 1991 to 121 in 2001. The quantity and quality of tribal forestry professions has also increased (IFMAT II 2003).

While dramatic and potentially destabilizing impacts are being experienced in other sectors of the forest industry, tribal forestry programs appear to be stable or expanding. Three primary factors have been credited with contributing to successes in Indian forestry: culture, sovereignty, and institutional infrastructure

Small feller-buncher salvaging rocky ground on Log Springs fire area northwest of Warm Springs. Log Springs burned in the summer of 2004 and salvaging started at the end of the summer to beat both winter mud and blue-stain fungus damage. Unmerchantable trees and survivors with 25% crown survival are being left.

Culture
Indian  are managed to benefit tribal communities in many ways—by producing timber and a wide variety of non-timber products such as traditional foods and medicines, and firewood. Spiritual use, grazing, water, and wildlife habitats are also important. Protection of forests for use by tribal members on an enduring basis is the paramount management emphasis (IFMAT II 2003).

Throughout much of the twentieth century, the federal policy for Indian development was based upon assumptions that acculturation was needed to help Indians shed their “Indian-ness” (USDI BIA 1969 from Jorgensen and Taylor 2000). Research at Harvard University (Cornell and Kalt 1991) finds that the opposite is true: Indian culture is an organizational resource based in a common set of values and sense of place that binds individual tribal members together in pursuit of the common good. In the absence of such shared mechanisms for defining rights to action and objects, specialization and exchange (key elements of development) become impossible to achieve. While formal governmental mechanisms, such as rules and laws, contribute needed absolute authority, less formal, but potent, cultural mechanisms incentivize individual contribution through honor, praise, group acceptance, affirmations of identity, and other rewards. When culture is in conflict with governing institutions then ruling authorities can never become legitimate and subsequently can never become effective.

Sovereignty
Without exception, claims Kalt (2001), self-determination is the only federal policy that has resulted in the development of economically, socially, and politically successful Native communities.  The long and arduous journey of Native Americans from wards of the federal government, first codified by Chief Justice John Marshal in 1832, to self-governance is too lengthy to be told here. During much of this time, however, the federal government, through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), conducted most tribal business including the management and marketing of Indian timber resources. In 1975, in response to repeated claims that tribal economic and political interests were not properly served by the BIA, Congress passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (Public Law 638). Tribes, participating in the PL 638 program, may take over one or more BIA responsibilities and receive associated concomitant funding to manage the task. Examples for forestry might include project areas such as inventory or forest development all the way to total control of the tribal resource program. Federal costs remain constant but tribal responsibilities increase. A study of 75 tribes conducted as part of the Project on American Indian Economic Development at Harvard University examined the effect of tribal control of forestry under PL 638 and found significant improvements in productivity (Krepps 1991). With no increase in personnel, worker outputs for tribes under PL 638 rose by as much as 40% and better marketing with resulting higher prices brought 6% improvement in stumpage return as compared to achievements under exclusive BIA management. However, Krepps and others are quick to point out that the evidence should not be taken to mean that BIA assistance is not needed or appreciated. What has changed is who is in charge of the decision-making. The BIA remains for most tribes valuable provider of professional advice and technical assistance.

Infrastructure
As tribes pursue greater autonomy in forestry and other enterprises, there remains a huge challenge of infrastructure development needed to integrate the business of competition in a global marketplace with cultural acceptability within tribal societies. Separation of business and government, even though many Indian businesses are tribally-owned, has proven to be important for success to provide a political environment in which investors (large and small, tribal and non-tribal) feel secure. As noted above, substantial investment in milling infrastructure has occurred in recent decades since passage of PL 638 with positive result.

Ecosystem Management
Tribes are known to have been managers of natural resources for 10,000 years or more. In many areas of the United States, ecosystems found by early European settlers were not virgin wilderness untouched by the hand of man, but were instead forests altered through time by many generations of Natives that intensively burned, pruned, sowed, weeded, tilled, and harvested to meet their requirements for firewood, fish and game, vegetal foods, craft supplies, and building materials. Periodic underburning not only produced desirable vegetative conditions but reduced fuel accumulation that might otherwise sustain intense fires. A severe fire in a tribal territory would have meant not only loss of property, resources, and lives, but also long-term disaster for the well-being of the community. A fundamental land ethic, founded upon the survival imperative, has endured through millennia based in respectful interaction with nature in ways that conserve resources while providing for the needs of the people.

Today tribal foresters live and work on their respective reservations. For many, reservations are the homelands of their forefathers. Children and grandchildren have been and will be raised there. The fortune of families and tribes are directly tied to the social, environmental, and economic productivity of reservation lands. There is little incentive to compromise the future for short-term benefit except as response to desperate circumstances. Managed tribal forests provide clean air, clean water, wildlife habitats, beautiful scenery, and other important public values as well as products, jobs, and economic contributions on and off the reservation that benefit all Americans.

Ben Monaghan (at left), CIPV shipping manager, arranges the daily loading of rail cars and trucks of wood chips or finished products for market. Jeff Van Brunt, quality assurance manager for Colville Indian Power and Veneer (CIPV).

Lessons for Sustainability
If we accept the premise that culture, sovereignty, and institutional infrastructure have been the fundamental elements required for success on Indian forests, then it seems logical to conclude that these same influences would be important for sustainable management of forests in other American landscapes. Evidence suggests that, in non-Indian forests, institutional infrastructure is in decline and public discussion of forest objectives is riddled with conflict. Such conflicts manifest themselves as battles between power elites for regulatory control that tend to devalue local communities’ knowledge and practices and disenfranchise rural residents that otherwise are sorely needed as stewardship practitioners.

All tribal and non-tribal forest managers are challenged by public demands for multiple values from forests, many of which are not readily reflected in the market place even though all forest management decisions carry a cost. Tribal forestry programs have inherited ancestral mechanisms for integrating market and non-market values. Cultural resources, for example, must be protected. The balancing of other questions in regards harvest intensity is ultimately determined by tribal council members that are elected by those that are directly affected by management of tribal forests. As is secured by tradition and covenant, all tribal members share the benefits and costs associated with resource management decisions on the reservation. What we can learn from the tribal experience is that a major challenge for forestry in the 21st century will be the connection of a transient American population with the natural resources that sustain them based in a common understanding of shared value and cost responsibility. A broader accounting of market and non-market forest values for redistribution of costs could be useful in absence of cultural imperative.

The rise of markets for organic foods, carbon credits, and green energy illustrate a desire on the part of consumers to share the cost of environmental improvements. Non-market valuation studies conducted at the University of Washington (Xu 1997, Mason et al 2003,  Robbins and Perez-Garcia 2005) offer further evidence of recognition by governmental authorities and consumers that public benefits have value sufficient to warrant compensation to providers. Such compensation expands the marketplace and could function in the broader society as an economic surrogate for tribal cultural responsibility. Under such arrangement
all providers, including tribes, must be equally rewarded for resource stewardship.

Conclusions
While it is not the intention of this paper to suggest that private or public forest sectors in the United States should or could remake themselves based upon a tribal model, there may, however, be benefit in recognizing organizational differences, learning what has proven successful, and adapting concepts of sustainability. It is also not the intent to paint a false picture of Indian prosperity by focusing this article on the recent successes of some tribal forestry programs. On many reservations, sustained economic development has yet to make a significant dent in a long history of poverty and powerlessness. However, the successes for some tribal forestry programs have been profound. The working relationship with BIA professionals has improved. Tribal control, infrastructure, and land holdings have expanded. In some states, vertically integrated tribal management and enterprise programs have become very competitive players in regional timber markets with economic benefit to tribal and non-tribal citizens. Tribal forestry programs stand out as hopeful experiments in sustainable forest management, uniquely evolved from powerful and enduring cultural traditions that are most worthy of public support.

Larry Mason is the Project Coordinator for the Rural Technology Initiative at the College of Forest Resources, University of Washington. larrym@u.washington.edu

"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."