The mouth of the Klamath River, critical salmon habitat for the Yurok and Karuk Tribes in California. PHOTO CREDIT: VINCENT CORRAO
■ BIA training tends to be technical and compliance oriented and tribes are not receiving access to the broad scope of trainings that would benefit staff (C5) and build capacity. ■ At most locations, tribal staff are fully engaged in carrying out ongoing forestry operations and lack capacity to take on new initiatives even if those initiatives will streamline processes and result in more cost-effective program execution (H10). 4. Roads, facilities, and enforcement on tribal forests are in dire state. ■ BIA and tribal road systems are in very poor condition jeopardizing forest protection, water quality, and active forest management (A3). ■ The overall condition of the facilities used for forest management are in poor or worse condition, posing safety
and security issues. There are also needs for additional buildings to house equipment that is being left outside. While the BIA facilities are in fairly good shape, tribal facilities are significantly worse in condition (A9). ■ There is limited law enforcement on Indian forest lands for the protection of the natural resources (A7). 5. Major challenges continue to exist for forest protection, forest health, and planning. ■ For most tribal forests, excessive stand density, high fuel accumulations, and insect and disease issues remain a major forest sustainability issue (B1). This is conflated with an overall decline in processing infrastructure resulting from federal policies that limited timber harvests on National Forest lands more than three decades ago. This situation has created immense impacts on
tribal forest product industry employment and revenue to tribes. ■ Tribal forest managers face immense forest health challenges following 100 years of fire suppression policies and historic fire suppression. Current Incident Management Teams (IMTs) who are generally not trained in tribal values, management, and culture are assigned to work on tribal trust lands on incidents. This is a significant issue for tribes due to the conflict between forest health, cultural and archeological sites, and wildfire suppression tactics. ■ A 500,000-acre backlog of precommercial thinning treatments remains since the IFMAT III report despite the pressing need for density regulation (B2). Implementation of hazardous fuels reduction treatments is often made difficult by the separation of traditional
6 Assessment of Indian Forests and Forest Management in the United States
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