Fish and Wildlife habitat conservation
by Jim Petersen
C
“Fire is part of our culture,” Brink said. “Smokey Bear stripped us of our way of life. We managed for everything from the top of the mountain to the ocean using Traditional Ecological Knowledge.” His remarks are available on YouTube. See QR code for more infor- mation. Public fears drove the nation’s determination to “exclude” fire from forests. Thousands died in nineteenth century wildfires in the Great Lakes Region and millions of acres of federal forestland were leveled in the West in the early 1900s. The tipping point was the 1910 Fire, a wind-driven colossus that leveled three million acres in Northern Idaho and Western Montana, most of it in a 48-hour firestorm. Seventy-eight brave firefighters were killed. But the Forest Service’s debate with itself about how to handle wildfires in the West began in Northern California in the 1890s. “Piute fire” was blamed for the fact that the region was not as heavily forested as western Oregon. What was not understood was that the fires the Karuk’s and other tribes were setting every spring were the rea- son why the burns were “light,” nothing like the infernos that raged through the Great Lakes Region. They stayed on the ground, clearing away woody debris and invasive plant species while enriching the soil, preventing the killing fires that exclusion would bring decades later. A good case can be made for the fact that the negative environmental impacts of excluding fire have fallen disproportionally on tribal lands. On Karuk land, Douglas fir forests have encroached on grasslands and oak woodlands. The Karuk’s do not believe their holistic approach to land management can be measured in board feet so they use TEK data on species impacted by fire exclusion and conifer encroachment to develop site specific treatments that leave shade for shade tolerant plants and provide sun for shade intolerant species – thus preparing the Karuk land to again accept fire. Nearly 700 miles to the Northeast, at Nespelem, Washington, the Confed- erated Tribes of the Colville Reservation fight the same battle against the wrong
kind of fire. Richard Whitney, Senior Manager of the tribe’s Wildlife Division reports that recent wildfires have had negative impacts on nearly every corner of the 1.4 million acre reservation. “Our ecosystems have evolved as fire-based ecosystems that require relatively frequent and historically low intensity fires to rejuvenate herbaceous species and reduce the encroachment of conifers and shrubs on grass domi- nated areas,” he explained. “Our elders describe forests that looked like parks. That’s typically due to the regular natu- ral or human-caused burns that shaped our region.” Whitney, who holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Natural Resource Sciences/ wildlife ecology from Washington State University, says wildlife habitats should be viewed as “constantly dynamic, always resetting themselves in a shifting mosaic while stagnant habitats are not always desired and may prove detrimen- tal to many species in the long term.” He cites the sharp-tailed grouse as one of many species that benefit from low intensity burns that help maintain the Colville tribe’s early successional grassland ecotype. However, grouse are adversely impacted by the loss of older deciduous stands in high intensity burns. Again, the shifting forest and grass- land mosaic created and maintained by Indian fires that were deliberately ignited annually for eons – an ecotype that has lost ground to conifer forests that are frequently too dense for the natural carrying capacity of the land. The result is the insect/disease/wildfire cycle that has overtaken much of the West. Unlike the Karuk tribe, the Colville tribe maintains a widely regarded com- mercial timber program, selling about 77 million board feet annually to three near- by mills: Boise Cascade, Vaagen Brothers and Columbia Cedar. Western tribes are also working hard to restore salmon runs in rivers that have not seen spawning salmon for more than 100 years. Why? Hydroelectric dams now irrigate millions of acres that were once too dry for farming. Four dams along Northern Cali- fornia’s Klamath River are scheduled for removal over the next year. The first – Copco 1– by the time this report is printed. Copco 2, J.C. Boyle, and Iron Gate by this time next year.
onserving and increasing fish and wildlife habitat have been integral parts of Forestry in Indian Country for eons. Indians believe their land and its natural resources – fish, wildlife, herbal medicines, timber, bark, clothing, stone, seeds, ash – the list is long – are Gifts of Mother Earth. Managing – the hands-on caring for these resources – rests on Traditional Ecological Knowledge – passed from one generation to the next by tribal elders. The only tools Indians had were fire and water. Fire to clear land for crops grown from native seeds and wa- ter to irrigate what they were growing. You may be surprised to learn that tribes living in the Southeast and along the Atlantic Seaboard were accom- plished farmers. Early pen-and-ink sketches drawn in the 1600s and 1700s show row crops meticulously planted in designated garden plots: mainly corn, beans and squash. From coast to coast, Indians mas- tered the art of cultivating what Nature provided: roots, berries or herbs. Again, the list is long but the tools – fire and water – were always present. Among today’s tribes, there is a re- surgence of interest in the cultural and spiritual roots of Traditional Ecological Knowledge [TEK]. It is woven into the very fabric of the IFMAT IV report and is seen in tribal efforts to blend TEK with science and technology. Several tribes are using sophisticated Light Detection and Ranging [LiDAR] sensors to map their forests and habitats by single tree count, species, height and diameter. Garrett Jones, Technical Services Manager for Northwest Management, Moscow, Idaho explains. “It’s kind of like taking a picture of your lawn on your cell phone and zooming in on each blade of grass to better understand how it’s doing. Using the data, wildlife managers can talk with hydrologists and foresters about their specific need for elk habitat and calving grounds.” Kenneth Brink, vice chairman of the Karuk Tribal Council, Happy Camp, Cali- fornia, spoke to the TEK aspect of tribal resource management at a September 13, 2023 Forest Service wildfire briefing concerning the Happy Camp Complex, one of dozens of wildfires that burned in northern California in the summer of 2023.
Evergreen
24
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator