|
|
|
Sustainable
Forestry In Indian Country: A Model For Our National Forests?
In this issue we write
about forests and forestry in Indian Country. That we are revisiting
tribal forests for the second time in just seven years is a measure of our
abiding interest in doing everything we can to help raise public awareness
of Indian forestry’s spiritual and practical underpinnings. We among
many hope our national forests will someday be as well managed as tribes
manage their forests on shoe string budgets. Our focus is forest
sustainability, a quite subjective concept that turns on one’s own
perceptions. Public interest in sustainable forestry has led to
development of close to 100 forest certification systems staffed by an
army of consultants and auditors whose job it is to independently certify
that their clients’ forests are being sustainably managed by the
criteria set out in the chosen certification system. Indian tribes are divided
on the advisability of third party certification. A few like it but many
don’t, often because they feel no real obligation to satisfy prying eyes
from a world they don’t trust. But this much is true about American’s
timber landowning tribes: they faithfully meet every federal environmental
law and regulation, including the costly requirements of the federal
Endangered Species. Equally important, they
meet these requirements while also managing their forests for multiple
outputs: timber, jobs, age class and species diversity and sacred sites;
which leads to a question: How is it that tribes can accomplish so much
while the same requirements stymie the Forest Service and the Bureau of
Land Management? Our partner is this report is the Intertribal Timber Council, a 30-year-old association comprised of tribal governments that work collaboratively to improve the management quality in Indian forests coast to coast. Tribes own and manage 7.7 million acres of timberland and 10.2 million acres of woodlands in these United States. Evergreen
Magazine |
