impact cross-boundary efforts. Lastly, to further assess how Indian forests fit into landscape ecology and restoration the team considered the cultural connections people have to forested landscapes within the definition of landscape function, defined as the “horizontal and vertical exchanges of organisms, energy, material, and information in a landscape” by Wu (2012). Restoration or specifically ecologic restoration is defined as the goal to recreate, initiate, or accelerate the recovery of an ecosystem that has been disturbed (Vaughn et al. 2010). The IFMAT IV team’s focus centers on forestlands which can and do include woodlands and rangelands within the inclusive landscape-scale approach of many tribal nations where goals can include: restoring historical vegetation conditions and structures, maintaining forest resilience to wildfire, promoting tribal food sovereignty, or increasing the use, support, and/ or experiences a landscape offers the people. Within this task the team focused on restoration practices within forests and woodlands. While conducting the IFMAT IV assessment two recent national scale guidance documents were initiated that may allow tribes to have significant input to landscape-level forest ecology and restoration. First, in November 2021 a Joint Secretarial Order No. 3403 was authorized and is entitled Fulfilling the Trust Responsibility to Indian Tribes in the Stewardship of Federal Lands and Waters. The order recognized that the United States “trust and treaty obligations are an integral part of each
“Restoration brings us back to our connectedness and our responsibility to the Earth.” —IFMAT IV focus group participant
projects. Influences to tribal forests from neighboring landscapes was included in this assessment because of the potential for significant impacts to tribal forest resources. In this analysis, the team focused on lands within and immediately adjacent to reservation boundaries, thus not including the larger ancestral homelands of many tribes, apart from the Reserved Treaty Rights Lands (RTRL) program. Landscape ecology as a discipline is defined as the relationships between the abiotic
and biotic components as well as the patterns and processes of the landscape at various spatial and temporal scales. Wu (2012) defines landscape pattern as the “composition (diversity and relative abundances) and configuration (shape, size, and spatial arrangement) of landscape elements, including both spatial patchiness and gradients.” This IFMAT IV analysis focused on the pattern and forest processes at multiple scales recognizing the challenges to tribal forests do not stop at the reservation boundary. The team additionally considered how differing forest patterns may
A post-fire stream restoration project, including beaver and willow reintroduction, conducted by the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico along with state and federal partners. PHOTO CREDIT: SERRA HOAGLAND
186 Assessment of Indian Forests and Forest Management in the United States
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