Not Much has Changed
An essay by Jim Petersen
John Gordon is one of the most widely respected foresters in the world. He is Pinchot Professor Emeritus of For- estry and Environmental Studies and for- mer Dean, Yale University School for the Environment. He has been the guiding light behind all four IFMAT reports. Like- wise, John Sessions, his co-chair for IFMAT II, III and IV. Sessions is a Distinguished Professor of Forestry and Strachan Chair of Forest Operations at Oregon State University. As IFMAT IV co-chairs, Gordon and Sessions were two of the four PhDs se- lected to be members of a Core Team that guided the work of 12 Technical Specialists, seven with PhDs. Corrao was tasked with shepherding the entire program through two years of COVID shutdowns, numerous ZOOM calls, forty-one site visits and focus groups involving thirty-five tribes. ITC’s August 3 press release high- lights the underfunded programs and needs IFMAT IV identified. Here verbatim: • An annual increase of $96 million is needed to reach per-acre parity with National Forest and Bureau of Land Management funding. • Despite funding declining by almost 36% on Tribal lands, com- pared with other federal agencies over the last decade, Tribal Foresters continue to innovate using Indige- nous Knowledge and enhancing forest stewardship. • Annual timber harvests are only 50% of allowable levels, resulting in up to a $40 million lost opportunity in annual Tribal income. • Tribal economies are adversely affected by declining wood-process- ing infrastructure and market com- petition. • Significant investments are need- ed for transportation systems, facili- ties and enforcement. • Major forest stand improvement treatments are needed to improve climate change resiliency. • Need to reduce barriers to using prescribed fire to reduce catastrophic wildfire. John Session’s verbatim conclusion: “A lack of sustainable management is the most pressing forest health issue facing many Indian forests. Lack of funding is seriously jeopardizing responsible Tribal forest stewardship.” IFMAT IV’s take home messages appear on the back side of Gordon’s
“The continuing failure of the United States to meet its fiduciary trust responsibilities for stewardship of these renewable resources is placing Tribal forests in jeopardy with the risk of catastrophic loss from insects, disease and wildfire.”
Cody Desautel, President, Intertribal Timber Council, Portland, Oregon
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incent Corrao’s assessment of progress and promise in what the nation’s Indian tribes call “forestry in Indian Country” is direct and brutal. “Not much has changed since the first IFMAT report was completed 30 years ago,” Corrao told me in a July 27 interview in his Northwest Management offices, just east of the University of Idaho cam- pus in Moscow. “Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs – an agency of the U.S. Depart- ment of the Interior – are responsible for ensuring adequate funding for the nation’s three hundred tribal forestry pro- grams. The current annual funding gap is about $100 million,” he added. Corrao was Program Manager for the Fourth Indian Forest Management Assessment Team [IFMAT] report. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of all four decadal IFMAT reports, beginning with IFMAT I, completed in 1993. He is one of the nation’s most respected, forward-thinking foresters. Several tribes use his leading-edge Light Detection and Ranging [LIDAR] system to inventory their resources at a level that includes trees, wildlife habitat, stream corridors, and soils as well as the impacts of wildfires. Lots of promises from Congress and little progress over the years since IFMAT I was completed,” Corrao said. “Underfund- ing remains a major problem for tribes. The federal government was not holding up its end of treaties that it made with tribes beginning in 1832. Corrao’s assessment is highlighted in an August 3 press release from the Intertribal Timber Council [ITC], a based in Portland, Oregon non-profit consortium of Indian tribes and Alaska Native Corpo- rations formed in 1976 that represents the resource management interests of more than three hundred Indian tribes in the United States. Collectively, they own and manage more than 19.3 million acres of forest, much of it in the western United States. Forty-one tribes are stewards of
IFMAT IV again highlights the potential for well-man- aged Indian forest to serve as models for sustainability for all American forests. John Gordon, Co-chair IFMAT I, II, III and IV more than 10,000 acres. The remaining tribes own fewer acres. The press release comes with its own Tweet: Healthy forests are critical to the cultural and economic well-being of not only Tribal communities across the country - but forests are also cen tral to all Americans’ quality of life. Tribal forests are part of the national network of forests that provide clean air and water, wildlife habitat, climate change solutions and rural jobs. In his masterful summation of the IMFAT IV Executive Summary, John Gor- don expanded on ITC’s Tweet. “IFMAT IV again highlights the po- tential for well-managed Indian forests to serve as models for sustainability for all American forests,” Gordon wrote. “Tradi- tional Ecological Knowledge when applied with modern science can result in integrat- ed forest management of the best kind since it blends ancient, proved concepts and practices with current technology.”
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