BIA Forestry Seeks Input from Tribal Members

Looking south towards Wyoming from the top of the Big Horn Mountains' Black Canyon. Crow News Photo/April Gregory.

By Bob Dillon
BIA Forestry Department

Every 15 years we do an inventory of the reservation's forests so we know how much timber there is, how fast it is growing, and if there are insect or disease problems we need to deal with. We also identify the timber's age, species and size class.

We took inventory during the summer of 2006. The Crow Reservation has 160,535 acres of forestland.  There are 79,552 acres of commercial forest that are available for management in the Wolf and Pryor mountains, and the Ceded Strip; 19,627 acres of commercial woodland (hardwood species), 1,391 acres of reserved woodland (hardwood species in the Big Horn Mountains), and 59,965 acres of reserved timberland (Big Horn Mountains).

We will use this information to update the Forest Management Plan.

The Forest Management Plan gives us direction on how to manage the timber. We will be seeking input from the tribe and tribal members. We will hold public meetings, and will have a draft plan available for comments.

This is your opportunity to direct how your forestland is managed. We need you to participate in the process so we know what you want. Take part!

The BIA Branch of Forestry is re-writing the Forest Management Plan for the Crow Indian Reservation with the cooperation of the Crow Tribe.

Have you ever thought, “Why don’t I get asked how my mountains should be managed?”

Now is your chance to tell the BIA how you want the forest managed in your mountains. If you are 18 or older, stop by one of the locations listed below, fill out a survey and ask questions.

Everyone is welcome. Bring a friend! Survey should take less than five minutes.

Bob Dillon is the acting manager for the BIA Forestry Department.

Comments

[Jay Harris]

Open Letter to Crow Tribal Membership on the BIA Timber Management Plan:

By Jay Harris

March 17, 2008

To use the words of Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the US Forest Service, forests “should be managed for the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run.” In a democracy, it would seem only logical that the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run be determined by the owners of the resource. As Crow tribal members, you are owners of the tribal trust lands where most of the forests are located.

So, as Mr. Dillon asks, have you ever thought why you are not asked how your mountains (and forests) should be managed?

If not, perhaps this public comment review period can serve as the beginning of your active interest in tribal natural resource management. But if you have asked this question before, the answer (as you likely know) directly implicates the federal trust responsibility and centuries of Congressional legislation and Supreme Court case law which has both created and vindicated Congressional plenary and trust authority over Indian (and tribal) affairs, including management of timber resources. Regardless of your answer to this question, please continue reading for more information which you may find useful if you decide to participate in this important commenting process, which I highly encourage.

Since the early 20th Century, the Secretary of the Interior and, by delegation, the BIA, has held the statutory authority to manage timber on Indian lands (see 25 USC §§ 406, 407, and 466). Under 1964 legislation (now codified as 25 USC § 406) the Secretary of the Interior was charged with the duty of “tak[ing] into consideration, among other things:

(1) the state of growth of the timber and the need for maintaining the productive capacity of the land for the benefit of the owner and his heirs,

(2) the highest and best use of the land, including the advisability and practicality of devoting it to other uses for the benefit of the owner and his heirs, and

(3) the present and future financial needs of the owner and his heirs.”

For nearly three decades, the US Supreme Court has recognized the “comprehensive” nature of federal regulation of Indian timber so as to shield tribal timber development from state regulation or taxation (see White Mountain Apache v. Bracker, 1980). Further, the statutory scheme enacted by Congress over the years has produced a federal fiduciary responsibility in tribal timber management which can create a liability against the United States for damages resulting from a breach of this duty (see United States v. Mitchell, 1983). Since the Mitchell case and subsequent Senatorial hearings which produced a scathing Senate Report critical of the BIA for its “poor management” of tribal forest resources, Congress has affirmed the federal trust responsibility for timber management through the National Indian Forest Resources Management Act (or NIFRMA; see 25 USC § 3101; importantly, this Act recognizes the trust responsibility and significantly expands the tribal role in timber management). But the BIA’s implementation of the NIFRMA has long been criticized by, among others, Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who called an initial five-year delay by the BIA in issuing regulations “unconscionable." As is well-documented by Congress and private organizations such as the Intertribal Timber Council, the BIA still has some way to go before tribal forests are managed in a way befitting their importance to the quality of life and economic development of Indian reservations.

Today, the BIA operates within a complex regulatory framework pursuant to the afore-mentioned legal principles (see 25 CFR Part 163). Similar to directives given the Forest Service under the National Forest Management Act of 1976, the BIA forestry programs are required to periodically review and renew practices and policies through the issuance of forest management plans. Currently, the BIA aims to have every tribal forest resource under a management plan by 2015 (the Office of Management and Budget reports that 85% of reservations have a management plan today).

So what could possibly be improved with the BIA’s management of the Crow timber resource? First of all, we should ask the goal of management be the health of the forest ecosystem – that is, the plants and animals whose habitat are the forests. Not only is such a focus good land stewardship, but many traditional Crow uses of the land depend upon healthy forests. Additionally, the forests provide such important ecologic values as watershed quality, protection against erosion, and carbon filtration.

This is, of course, not to mention the intrinsic scenic qualities of our majestic forestlands. Just as the Forest Service has been slowly moving away from decades of policies supporting below-cost but for-profit timber sales, the BIA needs to work with tribal leaders to establish a comprehensive timber management program that does not subsidize the timber industry by selling off a common tribal resource. Instead, timber harvest -- which is entirely compatible with managing a forest for the health of the ecosystem -- should be part of a reservation beautification effort on behalf of the tribe.

We have a very diverse reservation and our forests and woodlands are an integral part of that diversity. Within the woods, so to speak, the legacy of long-standing timber cultivation tends to be monoculture rather than the natural diversity which would otherwise abound. An ecologist by the name of C.S. Holling is well known for his “bounceback theory of forest resilience," which basically means that, given time and proper management (which can mean doing nothing more than leaving the forest alone), a forest usually has the ability to return to natural conditions of biologic diversity.

As well, a sustainable yearly timber harvest should be used exclusively to supplement a renewed tribal and federal effort build homes and business infrastructure for tribal members on the reservation (using tribal timber as building material). In other words, let’s keep everything in the woods standing that is not in danger of burning or disease or impeding upon the overall productivity of the forest and let’s keep tribal timber from leaving the reservation.

Secondly, we should ask to always be part of the equation. I applaud the BIA for making this attempt to gather public comments on this important matter, but we should have a citizen’s advisory board comprised of tribal members who are not BIA employees and an information clearinghouse (and routine public meetings) for people to review and discuss management on the smallest scale feasible.

Other important points which can be made in our commenting concern the statutory obligation the BIA has to consider tribal input, and particularly tribal laws (see 25 USC § 3108). Also, the difficult to quantify intrinsic land values (which have always been a critical part of the Crow traditions) in intertemporal resource allocation decisions, which is an important consideration since the timber resource is largely managed under the common law trustee-beneficiary relationship. It is likely the institutional resistance to more progressive resource valuations will be strong. Using such a broad perspective, however, to understand the long-term costs and benefits of resource management decisions is continuously proving itself to be the best way to manage public lands, if the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run truly is the goal.

Of the vernacular familiar to foresters is the term “GOTAC” (an acronym for get out the allowable cut). Forest management should, however, not be based on such short-sighted simplifications. Consider the following excerpt from an essay titled “[The] Dilemma of Indian Forestry” by Winona LaDuke’s (from Earth Island Journal, 1994):

"The Grand Portage Ojibwe (Anishinabe) reservation, nestled at the tip of Lake Superior, has a similar story. All 56,000 acres of the reservation wooded and support a chipping mill and a pallet mill, allowing the tribe to capture added value for its timber.

'In 1985,' tribal forester Rick Novinsky recalls, 'the BIA wanted to upgrade the forest management plan and....came up with its forest management planning staff from the central office...When they got here, we wanted to do something completely different [from] what they wanted to do. We wanted to look at things in a holistic way - timber, recreation, aquatic life, wildlife, resources - and manage each one with the others in mind. We ended up [using] that plan and it turned out to be the first integrated forest resource management plan approved by the BIA.'"

A great book which discusses in readable form the necessary balancing between responsible timber harvest and environmental preservation on public timberlands, as well as the larger importance of forests to society, is “The People’s Forests” by Robert Marshall (the Bob Marshall Wilderness of northwest Montana is named for the author).

Of course, there are a multitude of other problems associated with the management of our tribal forest resource, including overgrazing of cattle, degraded fish and wildlife habitat, off-road vehicle use which accelerates erosion and spreads invasive plants, illegal timber cutting, trespassing, water pollution, and the omnipresent threat presented by an on-going drought and drying forest fuels.

So let’s call on both the BIA and the Crow Tribe to work together to create an integrated forest resource management plan which looks at the resource in a holistic way and requires management of forests for ecosystem health first, with a deliberate focus on watershed protection and fire prevention. The management plan should also recognize the intrinsic but no less important forest values associated with sustainable, low-impact uses such as hunting, fishing, hiking, and camping.

Under federal law, such an agreement is possible. Under the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run, such a management plan is necessary.

Aho.