Flying Finns
The Ecological Condition of Indian Forests: The Ifmat View
Forests affect the economic, cultural, and spiritual well being of tribal communities in many ways. In addition to being a source of income and employment, the forests provide foods, medicines, recreation opportunities, and materials for commerce, shelter, heat, clothing, transportation, and artistic expression. The forests are also vital for continuity of tribal cultural identity, being places where communal ceremonies are held and where individuals seek spiritual awakening and renewal. These values are largely place-oriented. Indian tribes must live with the land and manage it for future generations. This dependence between tribes and their forests motivates tribes to pay close attention to resource management practices both on and off their reservation lands; they understand that the health of their forests and resources like water, fish, and wildlife depend on interactions between natural forces which ignore man-imposed property boundaries. Because of this integrated way of experiencing forests, tribal forests and forestry are of special interest and value to all Americans both as leading examples of new approaches to solving forest problems and as potential models for sustainable, community-driven forest management. Here, we attempt an overview of the ecological condition of the many and diverse Indian trust forests in the United States, and try to outline some of the major strengths and challenges facing Indian forest managers from an ecological perspective. Obviously, in a short article we can only scratch the surface of a large, complex and rich story.
We have relied on the data, observations and conclusions of the two Indian Forest Management Assessment Team reports (IFMAT I, 1993, and IFMAT II, 2003). All of us, except Gary Morishima, were members of both IFMATs, and Gary was instrumental in overseeing and reviewing the reports on behalf of their sponsor, the Intertribal Timber Council (ITC). The two reports give us a great advantage: answers to the same ecological (and other) questions about the same forests, mostly by the same people, at two times in history separated by ten years. Ten years is a short enough time so the same questions are relevant and the same people can be involved in answering them, but long enough to see changes and trends in forests. We have thus drawn most heavily on the comparisons available from IFMAT II, particularly in the section “Survey of Forestland Conditions.” But we have also drawn material from most of the other sections of the report.
Ecological Approaches to Management
On the whole, the ecological condition and management of Indian forests is different and better than it was ten years ago, largely through the efforts of dedicated tribal and BIA resource managers and staff. Silvicultural practices have improved and been focused toward fire protection, partial cutting and other integrated management goals (e.g. habitat maintenance) on many reservations. Structural complexity (creating a greater array of size classes, retention of green trees and, standing and down dead trees) after harvest and structural diversity across landscapes (creating streamside buffers, leaving hardwood pockets, juxtaposing different aged stands) are innovations designed to integrate commercial and environmental objectives. These increasingly complex ecological approaches to management are a reflection of tribal values and foresight implemented by the competence and dedication of tribal and BIA managers.
Reservations vary in their integration of wildlife, range, water and timber values. In some locations communication among the resource professionals is still limited, but on the whole is improving.
However, despite better silviculture, conditions continue to deteriorate on many Indian forests. Numerous new challenges (large scale fires and pest outbreaks, invasive exotic plants) together with the existing backlog of threats to forest health, most notably overly dense stands resulting from fire control, combine to make complacency about the future of Indian forests inappropriate.
Forest Health
The Intermountain and Southwest regions face the most serious and urgent current problems. Bark beetle epidemics, expansion of the spruce budworm and other defoliating insects, and heavy infestations of dwarf mistletoe singly or, more often, in combination threaten forests on reservations in both regions. However, Indian forests in eastern North America face their share of health problems. Oak wilt, beech bark disease, hemlock wooly adelgid (introduced pests) and the impacts of air pollutants take an unknown but probably large toll on growth of eastern Indian forests. The consequences of introduced pests that have passed their peak of activity (e.g. gypsy moth, chestnut blight, Dutch elm disease) in many areas have left a legacy of poorly or understocked stands, and white pine blister rust is endemic in one of the most commercially and ecologically valuable species, eastern white pine.
New threats loom. For example, sudden oak death, caused by a recently identified Phytophthora fungus, is devastating woodlands in California and Oregon, and has been found in the eastern United States. The rate of transfer of invasive species increases roughly with the rate of increase in commerce and travel among countries and continents. Thus, it can be expected that new threats will continue to appear. This argues for a much greater effort to create diverse and healthy forests, since diverse and healthy forests are most resilient in the face of new pests.
The challenges of forest insects, pests, and disease are likely to increase. Current problems are larger than the budgets available to deal with them, even when the ecological and silvicultural
path to improvement is clear. Also, the communication of research derived information is too slow in some places, although other Indian forest managers were satisfied with their access to new information. In particular, smaller tribes, unable to afford the degree of disciplinary specialization that larger tribes have, felt the need for better information and technical support for their field practitioners.
Forest Fire
Fire prone forests are at the same time a forest health, a social and an economic problem. Most forests are adapted over evolutionary time to a rough but fairly regular frequency of forest fire. If this frequency is changed, the forests change. Over the drier parts of Indian country (and most of the rest of the dry West), this frequency has been greatly reduced by forest fire prevention and suppression. Forests became denser, with more small trees per unit area, and, in pine types, shade tolerant firs came in densely under the larger, older pines on some sites, while on others the density of young pines increased. Wildlife dependent on shrubs and other plants in openings in the less dense forest lost habitat and declined, decreasing opportunities for subsistence hunting by tribal members. At the same time, fire risk to larger timber, old growth ecological values, and dwellings increased dramatically.
The answer is to reduce the amount of fuel, particularly “ladder fuel” (shrubs and trees that can carry fire from the ground to the crowns of the tallest trees), over vast areas of forest. Arguably, tribes have done a better job of partial cutting to reduce fuels than most other land managers, in terms of quality of work and percentage of affected area treated. IFMAT II found that prescriptions and implementation of on the ground fuel reduction programs was good to excellent. Also, prescribed burning, to move toward
earlier fire conditions is being better accepted by tribal members. Indeed, this is a good example of the difference between living with the results of management, as Indians do, instead of viewing it from afar and theoretically. If tribes accept prescribed fire to improve the condition of their forests, they get to breathe the smoke.
However, despite much good work, a large area remains to be treated on most reservations. Dense stands increasingly invite insect attack as they age so the problem is urgent. An even thornier problem is the risk to Indian lands that results from untreated adjacent forests, many of these in federal hands. These lands also need landscape level fuel reduction, but as of the time of the IFMAT II assessment, little fuel treatment was happening on them. Some progress is now contemplated as tribes arrange for stewardship responsibility for federal forests adjacent to reservations. Under this arrangement, tribes will contract with federal agencies to do the fuel reduction.
One of the barriers to better fuel reduction programs is the poor market in most places for the small and low quality wood removed. This problem s becoming general in the United States as wood processing capacity decreases in many localities. Better technology and better markets for small wood may be a cause that could unite tribes and other forest landowners of all kinds.
Wildlife
Although there is a wide range of techniques and competencies with which tribes manage wildlife, some common factors contribute to the condition of forest wildlife on Indian lands. Tribes with large forested areas are better able to provide funding and expertise for wildlife management than smaller tribes. Tribes that met the certification standards tested in IFMAT II were more likely to have good wildlife management than those that didn’t rank as well with respect to certification standards. And, predictably, tribes that actually employ a wildlife biologist do better than those that don’t.
Also, the commonality of problems tribes share with other landowners seems to provide rich opportunities for collaborative management. In particular, the maintenance of threatened and endangered species (without foregoing other tribal values), integrated inventories and habitat programs for both game and non-game species, and cooperative research appear to be areas to explore.
Two overarching issues are 1) conflicts between wildlife, fisheries and forestry staff in deciding wildlife and fish needs when planning and executing timber harvests and 2) tribal sovereignty in relation to cooperative programs with other landowners. The first issue is classic and surely not restricted to Indian forests and managers. Indeed, the emphasis on integrated resource management plans in Indian country has made them leaders in resolving this long standing conflict, but it is still a serious threat to ecologically-based management of Indian forests. With respect to sovereignty, tribal managers have, in some places, faced restrictions on tribal management options dictated by the need to compensate for environmental deterioration on other ownerships, as when remaining habitat for a rare species remains on Indian land. This is not only unfair, it results in poor landscape level
management for all.
Overview
The ecological condition of Indian forests is improving and so is the quality of their management. Tribal goals play a larger part than previously in determining the direction of forest management, and this has resulted in a more ecologically-based approach to both the commercial and environmental facets of Indian resource management. Serious problems remain in forest health and related issues such as the integration of wildlife and forestry management and the development of ways to market the small wood harvested during fuel reduction operations. Limited and fragmented funding, not scaled to the value of the forest resource, bears a large portion of the blame for the lack of more rapid improvement in forest health, and the dire remaining risk from insects and disease. The likelihood of the import of ever more exotic pests and the fact of increased insect, disease and fire risk from adjacent forests make accelerated action even more urgent. Problems with undrefunding and understaffing of Indian forestry were prominently noted in both IFMAT reports and continue to challenge the capacity to remedy these problems.
Tribal and BIA managers have been innovative and leaders in crafting forestry to fit specific tribal, commercial and ecological goals. While severely curtailing the capacity of tribes to address their forest management issues, tight budgets have forced Indian tribes to seek innovative and cost-efficient means to meet their needs. At numerous locations around the country, tribes are working to integrate their programs with those conducted by public agencies and private industry to work on a landscape scale to meet threats wildfire and disease infestation. Tribes are learning to use grants, tax credits, cost offsets, data maintained by other entities, and market-driven enterprises to meet their objectives for forest management. Both IFMAT assessments have concluded that other forest managers and publics can learn much from the way forests are managed on reservations. Because the cultural identity and continuity of tribal communities are so dependent on forests, tribal governments have a profound sense of stewardship for the land and its resources.
At many locations, this world view has placed Indian tribes in a unique position where they can serve as catalysts that can forge disparate interests into collaborative partnerships to address forest management issues. Throughout the country, the involvement of Indian tribes is proving to be the key to enabling people to overcome differences and work in common purpose. In many respects, the fate of our nation’s forestlands will be driven by the capacity to take action on a landscape scale, both for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness. Indian tribes are beginning to play prominent roles in helping to shape the future of forestry for the benefit of tribal and non-tribal communities.
By John Gordon, Gary Morishima, Jerry Franklin, K. Norman Johnson
human need to use natural resources is fundamental to our continued presence on earth."