Self-Governance Act, the amendment to ISDEAA, which created an office of self-governance, or the 2016 Indian Trust Asset Reform Act [ITARA]. With these come varying degrees of BIA involvement. IFMAT IV includes an Executive Summary that raises most of the same concerns that were raised in IFMAT I in 1993. The nearby bar graph tells us that Congress has underfunded tribal forestry and fire management programs by close to $100 million dollars annually. The shortfall most heavily impacts staffing, planning, forest roads condition, and up- grades and equipment and technology. Underfunding comes at a time when billions of additional federal dollars are flowing to the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land management but not tribes. They are receiving about one-third as much on a per acre basis. This same gap appears in IFMAT I, II, and III. Why? Our sense is that Congress does not fully understand the increasingly signifi- cant role tribes are playing as models for all federal, state, and private forestland owners in the nation. Look no further than climate change and carbon storage markets to understand the implications. To its credit, Congress did ratify the 2004 Tribal Forest Protection Act, which gave tribes the authority to thin diseased, high-wildfire-risk federal forests adjacent to their land. Recognizing that there is no one law that fits all tribes, Congress also expanded the range of possibilities in the 2018 Farm Bill, granting the U.S. Forest Service the authority to execute “638” agreements with tribes. These agree- ments pave the way for tribes that seek
greater control over their own lands. So, again, our question: Why hasn’t the funding gap between tribes and fed- eral forest and rangeland management agencies been closed in 30 years? Tribes aren’t asking for special treatment. They are asking to be treated as equals in their government-to-government relation- ships with the U.S. Government - mean- ing parity with investments on other federal land ownerships. The IFMAT IV team included five Core Team members – four with PhD’s, and 12 technical specialists – seven with PhD’s. They completed 41 tribal site visits from coast to coast over a grueling two-year pe- riod filled with COVID-related challenges that necessitated many ZOOM meetings. Most Indian tribes do not own wood processing facilities and prefer to sell their logs on the open market, the notable exceptions being the Yakama in Washington State, the Menominee in Wisconsin, the White Mountain Apache in Arizona, and the Mescalero Apache in New Mexico. Other tribes have attempted to maintain viable, year-round wood pro- cessing facilities, but it is very challenging given staffing and funding shortages, the impact of the nation’s recession on the housing and commercial building industries and brutally competitive log and lumber markets. This situation is very unfortunate given the enormous opportunities new wood processing technologies have opened up in recent years. Cross laminat- ed timbers [CLT] and mass panel plywood [MPP]have taken the architectural and
construction markets by storm. In sum, tribal forests grow all of the wood species and tree sizes these technologies require. Since IFMAT I was completed in 1993, tribes have increasingly opted for emphasizing non-timber revenue gen- erating products of their forests: foods, clothing, medicines, fuel, shelter, musical instruments and other artistic endeavors, world-class resorts, golf courses, casinos, and ecotourism. But most tribes still practice tradition- al forestry and several are LEED certified [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design], but in all tribal forests there are body, mind and spirit components – and a sense of place and time – that simply does not exist on federal, state and private forestlands in our nation. This is the model that IFMAT IV4’s Core Team and Technical Specialists believe all forest landowners should follow because it yields major environmental benefits, including more biologically diverse forests that are able to naturally fend off insect and disease infestations that lead inevita- bly to killing wildfires. More than 20 years ago we said pub- licly that the time had come for the U.S. Government to officially return Indian lands (aboriginal and ancestral) to tribes because tribes do a much better job of managing their lands than the federal government does of managing that pub- lic’s forestlands. This continues to be our belief. Jim Petersen Founder and President The non-profit Evergreen Foundation
LIDAR
IFMAT I
IFMAT II
IFMAT III
Page 4 Woodland restoration, San Carlos Apache Tribe, southeast Arizona.
Evergreen
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