Table A.15. Estimated Costs for Stewardship for Commercial and Other Indian Lands, $/ac/year, using estimates based on National Forests for commercial forests and commercial woodland with an adjustment for reservation size and BLM for non-commercial woodland without an adjustment for reservation size. Stewardship including Hazardous Fuel Reduction Preparedness to Support Stewardship Commercial Forest Land $9.32x1.29=12.02 (National Forest) $8.49 (National Forest) Non-Commercial/Range $2.35 (BLM) 0.75 (BLM)
1.27 to 6.05 with a weighted average of 1.29 considering the distribution of commercial forest land over 76 reservations (Figure A.12, Table A.14).
A.11) compared to a hazardous fuel reduction budget of $91.2 million (Table A.13), so they are grouped at a combined cost of $2.35/acre. For average preparedness costs on non- commercial forest/range lands, the BLM preparedness budget $183.5 million (Table A.13) divided by the 245 million BLM total surface acres or $0.75 per acre is used. To bring funding for Indian forests up to parity with funding for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (Table A.16) it is estimated that a base of $144 million is needed plus a timber budget depending on timber production consistent with tribal goals. At a harvest level of 400 million board feet, the timber production funding would be $57.2 million. A timber production cost of $143/mbf is used recognizing the tribes following federal government policies, other than those in the
ITARA demonstration project, are required to go through similar NEPA procedures as the federal government as well as Section 7 Consultation under ESA. The budget assumptions assume that Indian forest staff are brought up to equal pay for equal work as federal staff (see Task C). The increase in funding to bring BIA Forestry to parity with federal funding on comparable lands in the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management at a timber production level of 400 million board feet (MMBF) per year is estimated at $201.2 million (see Table A.17). Deducting current funding sources of $105.5 million leaves a budget gap of $95.7 million additional needs (Table A.17). This combined with the $41.9 million in additional wildfire funding (see Fire Preparedness section below) makes up a total funding gap of $137.6 million to raise federal funding in tribal forestry to parity
Parity with Forest Service and BLM Expenditures
Forest management goals for tribes are being increasingly focused on traditional uses, forest restoration, increasing forest resilience, and non-timber forest products and less on commercial timber production. Forest Service costs are separated between stewardship costs and timber production costs. The term stewardship in this analysis are activities that are performed for the restoration and maintenance of healthy, resilient forests outside of active timber production. The cost of stewardship (Table A.15) on the National Forests is estimated as $9.32 per acre excluding Forest Products, Stewardship Sales, Salvage Sale Funding, and the Timber Pipeline (see Table A.9). On a per thousand-board-foot basis, the direct cost of timber production on the National Forests based on a planned sales offering of 3.52 billion board feet is about $143/mbf. For the BLM, outside of the western Oregon O&C lands, timber production is low, generally supporting forest restoration with an allocated budget of $9.8 million (Table
Table A.16. Estimated Stewardship Cost and Timber Production Costs for Indian Forests for parity with federal investments in Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.
Stewardship Cost
$/acre
acres
million $
Commercial Forest Land Non-Commercial/Range
$12.02 10,206,625 $122.68
$2.35
9,071,629 $21.32
Subtotal
$144.00
million board feet
Timber Production
$/mbf
million $
$143.00 $143.00 $143.00 $143.00
300 350 400 450
$42.90 $50.05 $57.20 $64.35
70 Assessment of Indian Forests and Forest Management in the United States
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