Although there is a wide variation, from what information IFMAT could obtain, tribes tend to pay on average about 15% less than the BIA. There is a general belief among BIA foresters, confirmed by anecdotal evidence heard by the team, that they are a GS level below their Forest Service counterparts, creating about a 10% discrepancy between the agencies. Indian preference hiring, which has led to the increased participation of Native Americans in the natural resource workforce, has at times been applied by both the BIA and tribes in ways that do not fully allow for the consideration of non-native applicants in situations where there are no qualified Native applicants. In such cases, the search is scrapped and the position goes unfilled. There are also cases where BIA hiring officials, after a scrapped search, have to re-advertise and request special permission to view non- Native applicants when there are no qualified Native applicants. There also seems to be a still small but increased occurrence over the last ten years of tribes
opting to not follow federal OPM 460 standards in order to hire tribal members into forestry professional positions without the requisite education. Tribes are in no way mandated to follow these federal standards and it has the effect of increasing the pool of potential tribal member applicants. However, this results in foresters who are educated and trained in other natural resource fields but not in specific forestry disciplines and may not have received in-depth education in areas like silviculture, forest inventory and planning, forest health, and other key topics. Of special concern is the potential for these foresters to not be able to attend the National Advanced Silviculture Program (NASP), due to a lack of “prerequisite” education. This has already occurred in several cases and is likely to become more common. NASP is among the most valuable reoccurring forestry specific training that BIA and tribal forestry staff can attend and any barriers to tribal foresters’ access to this is detrimental.
development and retention. IFMAT III found that the BIA invested approximately 33% of what the USFS spent on personnel training. Although specific numbers were hard to find for IFMAT IV, it is clearly apparent that this lack of investment continues to be a major issue. Lack of capacity, making it hard to spare personnel for multi-day training, combined with a shortage of funding for travel and associated training costs, were frequently cited as challenges. In the last decade, the BIA has developed and offered some trainings, but these tend to be focused on compliance with BIA regulations and handbooks, and not on tribally identified priorities. The IFMAT IV workforce survey asked respondents to identify areas that they would like to receive training in. Leadership and people management skills were at the top of the list, followed by GIS, tribal and federal authorities and governance, inventory and cruising software and modeling, and silviculture. These priorities are similar to those reflected in the IFMAT III workforce survey.
Training is an important component of professional
“I’ve worked for several tribal forestry programs. None of them have been adequately funded or staffed.” —IFMAT IV focus group participant
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