"Emerging Challenges in Indian Country"
Thirty-first Annual National Indian Timber Symposium KwaTaqNuk Resort at Flathead Lake
Polson, Montana, June 5, 2007

A Speech by James D. Petersen
Executive Director, The Evergreen Foundation

It's a pleasure to be here among friends on this fine June afternoon.

As many of you know, the Evergreen Foundation has in recent years published two special reports highlighting Indian forestry in the United States, so it goes without saying that I am a great admirer of your land management philosophy, especially the way it translates so fluidly into benefits for both land and people. I also have great sympathy for the uphill struggle you face in your ongoing efforts to both stabilize and grow your forestry businesses.

I'm always a bit surprised when I'm invited to prestigious gatherings like this one. After all, I'm just a lowly journalist, not a Ph.D. forester or wildlife biologist, as many of you are.

Most of what I know about forests and forestry I've learned from asking stupid questions of very smart people. My Rolodex includes the names and phone numbers of many of the world's most respected forest scientists and economists. They are the real intellectual horsepower behind Evergreen Magazine. Without their energy and input, we never would have gained the reputation we hold today - and I dare say I would not be here with you this afternoon.

I confess that I have struggled mightily with the simple matter of topic. Your program says I am going to talk about "Emerging Challenges in Indian Forestry." And I am, but I'm going to spice things up a bit by posing a question that I hope you will consider as seriously as the spirit in which I offer it up for discussion. And the question is simply this: "Is it time to give our nation's federal forests back to the Indians?"

When the question first rose in my mind last February, its magnitude frightened me so much that I sent an e-mail note to my friend Gary Morishima asking for his advice. In a matter of moments, his answer flashed across my computer screen: "Good topic to get the blood flowing," he wrote. I felt better - but only a little.

It would be disingenuous of me to imply that I think the United States ought to consider giving federal forests back to Indian tribes as a peace offering or a long overdue apology for the country's dreadful and ill-conceived reservation policy of the 1800s.

No, there is another far more compelling and contemporary reason why I think the country ought to consider returning its federal forests to you. Put simply, the system is broken. The federal government and its proxies - the US Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the US Fish & Wildlife Service - are no longer capable of caring for our federal forests. And no amount of congressional tinkering is going to fix what is wrong.

I think it is time to wipe the slate clean and start over. If we do not do this soon, what is left of our federal forest heritage will be lost to insects and diseases, catastrophic wildfires, environmental litigators, activist judges, and wrong headed environmental groups that seem more interested in their own political power than in defending public interest.

You no doubt know that my idea - giving federal forests back to Indian tribes - is not new. In fact, my good friend Bill Hagenstein, who has been my inspiration for more than 30 years, first broached the subject with you at your Third Annual National Indian Symposium, in Phoenix, Arizona, April 10, 1979. Back then, Bill was the Executive Vice President of the old Industrial Forestry Association, a position he held for more than 30 years. I know of no one in history who more ably or more passionately represented forestry in public and congressional forums than Bill. Now 93, he remains keenly interested in forestry - and was delighted to know that I intended to highjack his title for my presentation today.

In his 1979 remarks Bill gave credit where credit was due, recalling that he'd first heard the suggestion 20 years earlier at a wilderness hearing in Albuquerque. Here is how Bill recalled the hearing in his Phoenix speech:

"One of the most imposing witnesses at the hearing, where the battle lines were being drawn between those who understand the need for getting the most out of most of our lands for most of the people and those who think otherwise, was Lester Oliver, Chairman of the White Mountain Apache Tribal Council, who suggested a possible solution to the controversy. He said, ‘Give it back to the Indians'."

Suffice it to say, Bill Hagenstein, who is himself a very imposing figure, was very impressed with Mr. Oliver's presentation. I know this because he brought it up to me over dinner last month in Portland.

Much has changed since Bill spoke before your group in 1979. Much more has changed since Lester Oliver first suggested it was time for the federal government to return lands it had taken from Indians.

It was Bill's good fortune to work briefly in the shadow of Bill Greeley, the third Chief of the Forest Service - and in my opinion the most able and enlightened conservationist the country and the Forest Service ever had. He retired from government service in 1928 to assume leadership of the old West Coast Lumbermen's Association. Under its aegis, he became the architect of the American Tree Farm System and the soul of the post-war Forest Service.

Greeley, whose father and paternal grandfather were both Congregational ministers, had great faith in human enterprise - the entrepreneurial spirit that drives so much that is good about our country. He believed that federal foresters could do much to advance forestry's great cause - especially on private lands - by partnering with landowners in programs that reduced the risk of wildfire, an obvious first step in the process of encouraging reforestation after harvest.

Those of you who are schooled in forest history know that in the early 1900s Greeley and his mentor, Gifford Pinchot, who was the first Forest Service chief, engaged in a bitter and very public debate over the best way to encourage improvements in harvest practices. Pinchot was very suspicious of private timber men and held fast to his belief that heavy-handed federal regulation was the only way to control them. Unlike Greeley, he seemed not to understand that private capital was not going to flow toward forestry until the government got serious about corralling wildfire on its land. It did so when Congress ratified the Clarke-McNary Act in June of 1924.

Clarke-McNary institutionalized the public sector-private sector partnership that remains the historic basis for your contractual firefighting relationship with state and federal governments. It was Greeley's finest hour and Pinchot's final humiliation. But more importantly, it set the stage for forestry's long march in America - an advancement that continued unabated until the 1970's, when our country's great material wealth lured it down new and very different pathways, leading us away from the commitment to forestry earlier generations felt so keenly.

Before I lay out the case for returning the nation's federal forests to your care, I'd like to read what are in hindsight two very insightful paragraphs from Bill Hagenstein's 1979 speech. They help set the stage for what I am going to suggest. These paragraphs follow Bill's assessment of proposals then in the offing for reducing harvest levels on federal forests in responses to political pressure from environmental groups that by 1979 were enjoying great success in their efforts to undermine both the federal timber sale program and government plans to open vast roadless tracts across the forested West.

Quoting now, "What this whole thing sounds like is that Uncle Sam is succumbing to the temptation to turn his back completely on his opportunities for practicing forestry in our national forests and failing to utilize the results of his own 50 years of forestry research, which have cost the taxpayers well over a billion dollars. Instead, he seems to indicate that the non-industrial lands -the least stable in tenure - are where the American people should get their wood. Also, the bait is held out that all of the other ownerships, like yours and ours, will have a better incentive to practice much more intensive forestry because of the fact that Uncle Sam is going to retire from the scene."

For Bill in1979, and for me this afternoon, the question of the hour is simply this: can the federal government afford the luxury of allocating so little of its very productive forestland base to the growing and harvesting of timber for the needs of our ever expanding nation?

I don't think it can, especially given the fact that the nation's federal lands, with their vast timber, water, mineral and energy reserves, constitute our country's largest single monetary asset. The billions in gold held at Fort Knox are chump change by comparison. But listen to what Bill had to say about what he perceived to be the government's apparent desire to distance itself from its then half-century commitment to sound public lands forestry.

He said, quoting now, "It is my opinion as a professional forester that this is tantamount to saying that our government seems dedicated to creating a completely unnecessary artificial timber shortage in the country. Once the American people catch on that this is our policy you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be a whole new set of politicians in public office and some significant housecleaning in the bureaucracy. Any artificial shortage of anything is inflationary. If it's a renewable resource like our trees, it's criminal."

Twenty-eight years have come and gone since Bill stood before you in Phoenix. There have been many political changes, but none for reasons of the artificial shortage he feared. Other nations have proved quite willing and able to fill the supply gap left by the federal government's decision to abandon a half-century of taxpayer investment in forestry, just as they are filling the gap created by our nation's refusal to tap its own energy reserves.

Can you imagine the stunning transformation that would occur among Indian tribes if the revenue that once flowed from federal forests and federal oil fields into the federal treasury instead flowed into tribal bank accounts? Someone told me a few years back that the day the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act became law several Alaska tribes became Fortune 500 companies overnight - on nothing more than the perceived monetary value of natural resources that were suddenly theirs.

Federal forestry, which at its zenith provided about 25 percent of the nation's timber, provides an amount so small today that it cannot be measured. For all intent and purpose, the federal timber sale program is dead - and there remain very few signs that it can or will be revived. For one thing, the intellectual capacity that delivered federal timber to the marketplace is gone. So too is the political will necessary to restart the program.

What remains of this once splendid program is a waste of taxpayer dollars. The hundreds of millions of dollars that are annually spent on wildfire suppression could easily be transferred directly to states and tribes that do the heavy lifting during fire season. So could your thinning contracts. Campgrounds and other recreational facilities could be given to the states in which they reside or sold to private interests. The agencies could be dismantled, just as sawmills and logging companies have been dismantled a thousand times over in the last two decades.

Here I want to add that I have Forest Service and BLM friends who are trying hard to do good work, especially in the stewardship contracting arena, dedicated professionals like Bruce Fox, Tim Love, Barry Wynsma and Obie O'Brien here in Region 1; Doug MacCleery in the Washington office, a frequent Evergreen contributor; Marlin Johnson in Albuquerque, in my mind the nearest thing to a saint in the modern-day Forest Service; Ed Shepherd, BLM director for Oregon and Washington, who I have known for 25 years; and my old friend Blair Moody, who works for the BLM in Medford, Oregon.

None of these dedicated professionals deserve to be dismissed because others can't or won't do their jobs, but then again, the thousands of woods and mill workers who also did good work did not deserve the fate that befell them after the northern spotted owl was listed in 1990 on the basis of some still very flimsy science.

Permit me to now gather these last two paragraphs into a single sentence, so there is no mistaking what I've just said. Put simply, I believe it is time for the country to consider sunsetting our federal land management agencies: the Forest Service, the BLM and the Fish & Wildlife Service.

You have no idea how difficult it is for me to say this - what sadness I feel - having steadfastly and very publicly defended the Forest Service and the BLM on the pages of Evergreen Magazine for the last 22 years, and I remain an unabashed admirer of what old hands called "the outfit." Never let it be forgotten that in 1953 Fortune magazine voted the Forest Service one of the two most admired organizations in the country. The other was the United States Marine Corps.

My admiration for the Forest Service goes back to my grade school years at Sunnyside School in Kellogg, Idaho. Every spring, the Wallace District Ranger visited our school. His name was Bill Stout. He stood six-foot three and had a voice that sounded like it had just risen from the basement of time. In my mind's eye I can still see him standing before us, ramrod straight in his green uniform - a uniform I was to learn years later had been deliberately designed to look like a Marine uniform in order to encourage the wearer to do his level best for his country, by executing the Forest Service mission to the very best of his ability, come what may. I also learned that it was the legendary Bud Moore - a Marine himself long before he became Northern Region fire boss - who wrote the 10 Standing Orders for Fire Fighters, and patterned them after the Marine's 10 Standing Orders.

It was thus no accident that Bill Stout looked and acted like a Marine, and thus no accident that my classmates and I hung on every word he said. Nor is it an accident that I have so many friends who are Forest Service retirees - or that I continue to seek their counsel, especially the members of the National Association of Forest Service retirees.

But the esprit décor that was once the outfit's hallmark is long gone - and we and our forests are the lesser for it. It's true that a few stout hearts remain. The crew at the Forest Service's Forest Products Lab in Madison, Wisconsin is genuinely committed to environmental problem solving on a societal level. I'm very impressed with and very supportive of their various wood utilization and wood technology initiatives, most recently in the bio-fuel and bio-chemical arenas. Now more than ever, our country needs this lab and its dedicated cadre of scientists, engineers and technicians. For quite similar reasons I'm also a long time supporter of State & Private Forestry's technology transfer program, which does much to assist our nation's Tree Farmers..

These things said the Forest Service in particular is no longer the splendid organization it once was. Too many in its employ today are eight-to-fivers who are only there for the benefits. Driving by their new offices drives me nuts. What do they do all day? What product or service are they creating that will benefit our society?

Some in the Forest Service are very open in their desire to remake the organization. While I respect their candor, I do not admire their goal. The idea that late succession species can somehow be suspended in time and space is bogus. Nature won't allow it.

I am reminded of a wisdom shared with me by my friend Alan Houston, a PhD wildlife biologist on the Ames Plantation in middle Tennessee. We were out walking on the Cumberland Plateau one crisp October morning in 1995 when, out of the blue, he turned and said something to me I can still quote verbatim. He said, "When we leave forests to nature, as so many people seem to want to do, we get what nature serves up, which can be pretty devastating at times; but with forestry we have options, and a degree of predictability not found in nature."

One might legitimately ask what brought such profoundly negative change to these once fine federal agencies. Sally Fairfax, a Professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at Berkeley, and a periodic Journal of Forestry contributor, gave us the best answer I've ever seen more than 20 years ago. Here is what she wrote - what I did not want to believe, but now know to be true.

"Far from achieving a rational decision-making process, RPA and NFMA may well result in stalemate and indecision as the Forest Service turns from managing land to simply overseeing a convoluted, ever more complex set of congressionally mandated procedures. The tradition of land stewardship, if indeed it survived the 1950s and 1960s, may have died in the 1970s. RPA and NFMA take the initiative from experienced land managers - those revered people on the ground, the folks who have lived with the land and their mistakes long enough to have developed wisdom and a capacity for judgment - and gives it to lawyers, computers, economists and politically active special interest groups seeking to protect and enhance their own diverse positions. This shift in initiative will result from the layers of legally binding procedure that RPA and NFMA foist on top of an already complex and overly rigid planning process. Constant procedural tinkering does not, I fear, lead to efficiency or simplicity. Rather it promises a proliferation of steps, sub-steps, appendices and diverticulae that makes the Forest Service susceptible to the ultimate lawyer's malaise, the reification of process over substance."

Sally was right...and in my hopefulness, I was wrong.

I do not know if it is possible to sunset a federal agency, but if our land management agencies were to pass into history, we Americans would need to answer a very important question to our mutual satisfaction. And the question is, "What should we do with the land itself?"

As I see it, the country has four alternatives that ought to be seriously considered:

First, reaffirm the original intent and purpose of the 1897 Organic Act.

Second, let nature take its course - just as environmental groups have wanted.

Third, sell it to private interests, perhaps REITS or TIMOS.

Fourth, give it back to the Indians.

Alternative One would be the cheapest and easiest to implement, and of course reaffirming the Organic Act would mean we would not be sunsetting the Forest Service or the BLM. We would instead immediately launch a search for new talent capable of managing the country's timber reserves. This is the sweetest dream of many Forest Service retirees. But I doubt that more than one in fifty members of Congress have ever heard of the Organic Act or would have the slightest understanding of the historic context in which it was ratified. The Act was Congress' response to our country's fear of a timber famine - a result of the widely held public perception that our wood-based economy was cutting more timber than was growing in forests. It gave the President of the United States the legal authority to establish national forests on public domain lands that held timber.

There were three objectives - all very clearly stated in the Act. Quoting now, "No national forest shall be established, except to improve and protect the forest within the boundaries, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of the citizens of the United States."

Despite this Act's clarity - or perhaps because of it - I don't see much chance that Congress will reauthorize it anytime soon, if ever. Too many in Congress are beholden to special interest groups whose main interests lie in controlling and limiting access to and development of the nation's natural resources. In the case of the Organic Act, what we are left with is the National Forest Management Act, a bastardized version of the 1897 law, passed in 1976 in response to the Monongahela clearcutting litigation.

The assertion that our country no longer needs to manage its federal forest resources - or its mineral or energy resources - has led us into harm's way in god-awful places like Baghdad, Mosul and the Sunni Triangle of Death - to say nothing of what it has done to once heavenly places like Libby, Montana, Forks, Washington, Coos Bay, Oregon and Hayfork, California.

I confess the cynic in me likes Alternative No.2, "the leave it to nature" plan. It is long past time for Americans to again witness the unbridled forces of wildfire that my grandmother experienced fleeing the great 1910 fire with a one-month old baby in her arms. So let's think seriously about bowing to the selfish and ill-informed interests of environmental groups that have for years been harping about "letting nature take its course" in the public's forests.

Of course, bowing to their nonsensical view of nature runs contrary to well documented public support for thinning programs capable of reducing the deadly risks posed by wildfires, insects and diseases. In two recent national surveys, the following forest amenities polled highest: clean air, clean water, abundant fish and wildlife habitat and a wealth of year round recreation opportunities.

Ladies and gentlemen, these amenities are not associated with the dreadful aftermath of catastrophic wildfire, yet we are told again and again by environmentalists that these fires are simply natural occurrences - nature's way of rebalancing the scales after a century of excluding wildfire from forests. This claim is absurd on its face. It ignores both history and science - to say nothing of social and economic necessity.

But for the moment let's set this debate aside. Let's concede that neither the government nor the courts have the slightest interest in heeding majority public opinion. Let's let environmentalists have it their way. Let's let nature take its course for the next, say, 25 years. Then the public can decide once and for all if it likes the "leave it to nature" approach. Maybe it will, but I'm betting that long months of summer smoke, the destruction of watersheds, the loss of fish and wildlife habitat and the ruination of scenic vistas and recreation opportunity are not things the public will appreciate or support for very long.

This brings us to Alternative No. 3. Given the billions of dollars in ready cash these forests represent perhaps we should sell our most productive national forest acres to capital-rich REIT's and TIMO's. Of these two financial instruments, I prefer Timber Investment Management Organizations because they are the tools of choice for wealthy individuals seeking long term capital preservation. This is an important concept, because it suggests to me that these owners aren't interested in the rapid liquidation of assets - in this case timber.

There is a good deal of misunderstanding about both Real Estate Investment Trusts and TIMO's. At their core, these investment vehicles are responses to disparate factors that have in recent years undermined investor confidence in traditional, vertically integrated forest products companies - companies that own both land and manufacturing facilities. These factors include global competition, double taxation of corporate profits, striking increases in per acre growth rates in forest plantations and the widening acceptance of engineered wood products.

Selling national forestlands to REIT's or TIMO's might work, especially if federal tax laws were first changed to make it advantageous for these purchasers to hold standing timber for longer periods of time. It's ridiculous that current laws make it virtually impossible for a timberland owner to hold timber beyond 35 or 40 years. Why not 70 or 80 years or, better yet, why not tie the holding periods to desired forest types.

Although I think this alternative could work well over time, there isn't much evidence suggesting that the American people are yet ready to sell their forest heritage to a bunch of Wall Street suits, which leads me to Alternative No. 4: giving it back to the Indians.

This alternative isn't as far-fetched as you may think. Many of the West's sawmill owning families like the idea. Indeed, many of them are already regular buyers of your timber.

I also believe that counties that have been devastated by the loss of federal harvest receipts would be among your earliest and most ardent supporters. Most of these forested counties have no other economic assets or potentials. They owe their very existence to the presence of commercially valuable federal timber, which the Forest Service and BLM worked hard to develop in the years following the Second World War.

Were the decision mine, there would be only two strings attached to this transaction. First, I would want counties - not the states, but the counties in which the respective national forests lie to be your working partners. They need the money and you will need their political muscle.

Second, you get free title to land that was once yours, but no additional federal money comes with the deal - ever. You are on your own. In order to make your vastly expanded land base pay its way it will be necessary for you to manage it for the enormous wealth it holds. This means timber harvesting, energy development, mineral development, soil, habitat, fire and watershed protection, managing for early and late succession species, protecting historic, cultural and scenic values and, of course, development of a full range of year-round recreation opportunities for public enjoyment. In a phrase: multiple-use the old-fashioned way - the way you do it in your forests, the way the Forest Service and BLM did it before they and Congress lost their way.

To insure that you can actually practice science-based forestry in your new forests it will no doubt be necessary for Congress to pass legislation that bulletproofs your claims to sovereign nation status, thereby eliminating the likelihood that serial litigators will show up on your doorstep the morning after we complete this transaction. Imagine local coalitions working together to solve social and environmental problems in a litigation-free environment. Lord knows, the national forests were a tremendous source of economic, social and cultural well being for decades before the program disintegrated under the crushing weight of litigation.

No doubt some of you are wondering just how you might get this ball rolling in the right direction. Clearly, this is going to take some time and thought. You are going to have to reach far beyond your own tribal community for political support. And you are going to have to develop a well thought out strategy for convincing the public that you have their best interests at heart.

I am not naïve enough to think radical environmentalists are going to take this without a fight. Federal forests have been a vitally important revenue stream for them since the 1960s, more so since the Equal Access to Justice Act gave them unfettered access to the federal treasury. This is why, with the federal timber sale program now all but gone, they're searching for new ways to stay engaged. Some groups even see themselves running our national forests - and getting paid to do it. I'd much rather see you get paid to do it - and the best way to ensure that everything goes according to plan is to simply transfer title to the land to an independent tribal-county entity of your joint creation.

Let's be frank here. You are going to have to enter into iron clad agreements with the country - and especially the counties with whom you would be partnering. And unlike our own federal government, you are going to have to honor those agreements. Don't get greedy and don't let the past - however painful it was for your ancestors - cloud your judgment or spoil the enormous potential this momentous economic opportunity represents.

My guess is that most members of Congress from rural environs will be early and effective supporters of your proposal. You will need their help in the many House and Senate sub-committees and committees that will doubtless want a piece of this action. They, in turn, will need the support of important hunting, fishing and recreation constituencies around the country. We tapped into this reservoir of support during deliberations concerning the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. It worked very well and I see no reason why it wouldn't work here.

I grant you this is a giant leap into the future, so be prepared to seriously discuss alternatives that may be offered up by groups that have a stake in the destiny of our federal forests; especially groups representing citizens who live in or near these forests, far from the political environs of Beltway powerbrokers. Form partnerships with local groups as they rise to the occasion. Leave no idea unexplored and turn no one away who is interested in serious dialogue. This idea and the many permutations and combinations that it is bound to spawn are far too important to let the usual sky-is-falling screamers shout them into oblivion.

Count me among those willing to help you sort out this idea whose time may well have come. We've been pleased and proud to represent your hopes, interests and concerns on the pages of Evergreen Magazine twice in the last decade. May I suggest that we need to do this more often in order to get you on the public's radar screen and keep you there?

We have done everything humanly possible to help our readers understand what is happening to our nation's forest heritage - and I think they are finally coming to grips with the realities posed by insects, diseases and wildfire, but save for the minor success represented in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, none of the good ideas we've tried to advance has gained any traction, nor will they until someone figures out how to stuff the litigation genie back in the bottle - an event I consider extremely unlikely given the presence of so many lawyers in Congress. Meanwhile, our forests have become prisoners in a much wider war for our country's soul.

Standing before you then is one American who is prepared to surrender title to these beautiful forests if that is what it takes to save them from radical environmentalists who have repeatedly signaled their willingness to let our country's forest heritage burn to the ground for the sake of their own political and financial power.

I want you to have free title to these forests and I want you to manage them the way you are trying to manage your own forests. I am confident that as the American people see more of your brand of forestry - and learn more about your management philosophy and its cultural and spiritual underpinnings - they will become more comfortable with the idea of handing you free title to our nation's federal forestland base.

Of course, this great national discussion will take time. There is bound to be heated debate, if for no other reason than the fact that Americans love their forests. The question is do they love them enough to set them free. I know I do. Thanks for inviting me to join you this afternoon. I wish you well in all your endeavors.