San Carlos Tribe Chairman Terry Rambler (right) signs an agreement with Kurt Davis, deputy forest Supervisor for the Coronado National Forest, to allow the tribe to contract with the federal government to to allow the tribe to take part in large-scale restoration efforts on the Apache-Sitgreaves, Tonto and Coronado national forests and other ancestral lands in order to return them to a natural and historic state.
“The U.S. Forest Service and the San Carlos Apache Tribe have forged an agreement to allow the tribe to take part in large-scale restoration efforts.
It was made official earlier this week at a signing ceremony on the reservation.
The tribe now has the legal authority to contract with the federal government to work on the Apache-Sitgreaves, Coronado and Tonto national forests and adjacent ancestral lands while tapping $24 million in infrastructure funding.
The treatments will include fuels reduction and use prescribed fire to return the landscape to a historical and natural state in a culturally sensitive way while emphasizing clean water, medicinal plants and traditional food sources like acorns, berries and wildlife. Initial projects have already begun.”
This seems like a great idea and much easier than “conservation leasing”.. just sign a contract, figure out the projects, and get them done..
Copper core samples at Resolution’s processing facility. Photo by the NY Times.
Sometimes the Biden Admin goes with the interests of Indigenous groups and other times it seems to go against them. I wonder what we can see if we examine the pattern of what one might call the “flouts and touts” of various policies and reverse-engineer what interests might be calling the shots at what point in time. When- what kinds of projects, where, do they flout? When do they tout? Can we see flouting and touting in stories of various media outlets? And of course, if Indigenous groups disagree, how is that considered and reported? How does the Admin consider the opinions of elected Tribal officials versus other Tribal groups when they seem to be in conflict?
We can’t be sure that the Rio Tinto case is a flout, since we’re not sure whether the President could do anything differently.
Another interesting thing about this case is that the opponents are a group called Apache Stronghold, “a nonprofit group comprised of members of the San Carlos Apache Tribe and others” and they are supported by people for religious liberty (the Becket Fund), which is another interesting twist on the issue. For those interested, that group is a conservative nonprofit, according to the NY Times.
– The U.S. Forest Service plans to re-publish an environmental report before July that will set in motion a land swap between the U.S. government and Rio Tinto (RIO.L)(RIO.AX), allowing the mining giant to develop the controversial Resolution Copper project in Arizona.
The move would be the latest blow to Native Americans who have long opposed the mine project, which would destroy a site of religious importance but supply more than a quarter of U.S. copper demand for the green energy transition.
The complex case centers around a land swap approved by Congress in 2014 that required an environmental report to be published, something the Trump administration did shortly before leaving office. President Joe Biden then unpublished that report in March 2021 to give his administration time to review the Apache’s concerns, though he was not able to permanently block the mine.
Meanwhile, Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit group comprised of members of the San Carlos Apache tribe and others, sued to prevent the transfer of the federally-owned Oak Flat Campground, which sits atop a reserve of more than 40 billion pounds of copper, a crucial component of electric vehicles. Several courts have ruled against the group.
Joan Pepin, an attorney for the Forest Service, told an en banc hearing of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday that “the prediction for that (new environmental report) is to be ready this spring.”
The Forest Service is not waiting for the court’s ruling to publish the new report, Pepin said, adding that the agency does not believe an 1852 treaty between the U.S. government and Apaches gives Native Americans the right to the land containing the copper.
“This particular treaty is just a peace treaty. It doesn’t settle any rights to land and it doesn’t create any land rights,” Pepin told the court.
The 11 judges at the hearing questioned all sides about the legal concept of substantial burden and whether the government can do what it want with federal land, even if it prevents some citizens from fully exercising their religious beliefs. A full ruling is expected in the near future.
Wendsler Nosie, who leads the Apache Stronghold, said at a rally after the hearing that Pepin’s statements showed Biden – who controls the Forest Service – has not made opposition to the mine a “priority” for his administration.
“It’s not over. It’s just made us stronger, tougher, and deeply committed to our prayers,” Nosie said.
A Rio spokesperson said the company is closely following the case and respects the legal process, but believes “that settled precedent supports” the rejection of Apache Stronghold’s claims by a lower court. Rio has said it will smelt copper from the project inside the United States.
Representatives for the San Carlos Apache tribe were not immediately available to comment, nor were representatives for BHP, which is helping Rio develop the mine.
One wonders whether the Tribe itself has a position, or whether they are staying out of it. If individual members don’t agree what does that mean? As an earlier New York Times story reported
There are differing opinions on the merits of mining even on the San Carlos Apache reservation. Some people view the mine as an affront to their traditions, while others consider it an economic opportunity and a source of employment.
. There’s a lot of detailed context in that story.
I think this is also an interesting angle.. “President Joe Biden then unpublished that report in March 2021 to give his administration time to review the Apache’s concerns, though he was not able to permanently block the mine.”
Despite some organizations that blame Biden for not shutting down oil and gas leasing aka “living up to his promises” he does have to operate within legal boundaries.
Perhaps he can’t due to something related to the 1872 Mining Law. Does anyone know?
Finally, a shout out to all the FS employees working on this project!
This photo from the Rewilding Institute’s website is attributed to George Wuerthner who is a member of their Leadership Council
It’s interesting to watch how different ENGO’s look at different projects where Indigenous people have an interest one way or another. If you folow these issues, you have to be very careful as often the ENGO’s don’t mention in their press releases when they disagree with Native communities, but do mention them when their interests align. Of course, I don’t blame the ENGO’s, they are just marketing their points of view as best they can. It’s pretty much the reporters who have to ask the questions, and seek out information on Indigenous views.
Defenders of Wildlife is widely considered to be an ENGO with the ear of the current Administration (and some previous ones).
Here’s a piece from their website with nary a mention of who wants the road and why, only that the gravel road would be “commercial.”
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will revisit a decision that upheld a land exchange that would make way for a road that would run through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. On November 10, the court threw out the Trump-era decision and ordered a rehearing of the case.
Upon hearing the news, Defenders of Wildlife’s President and CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark released the following statement:
“We are grateful the Ninth Circuit has chosen to rehear this case and reconsider a deeply flawed decision. Defenders of Wildlife is optimistic that the court will ultimately reject this illegal land exchange and protect the irreplaceable wilderness and wildlife habitat of Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.”
Before the case went to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, two Alaska District Court decisions rejected such an exchange. The Biden administration defended the Trump era land swap on appeal. A three judge Ninth Circuit panel ruled 2 to 1 in March that the Interior Secretary could use the land exchange provision of ANILCA to gut a National Wildlife Refuge and congressionally designated Wilderness Area without congressional approval. The panel also found that ANILCA’s purposes include providing economic benefits to the State and corporations within it, contrary to the law’s plain language explaining that it is intended to protect conservation and subsistence in Alaska.
That court’s decision upheld a land swap designed to make way for a commercial gravel road in Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. Law firm Trustees for Alaska filed a petition for rehearing en banc in April 2022 asking the entire Ninth Circuit Court to review the split court decision that threatens Izembek lands, waters and animals, and has dangerous and expansive implications for all public lands in Alaska.
Trustees for Alaska represents nine groups in the lawsuit including Defenders of Wildlife. They also represent Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges, Alaska Wilderness League, the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, National Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, Sierra Club, The Wilderness Society, and Wilderness Watch.
It’s interesting that many of these groups, known to be close with the Biden Admin, split with them on this issue.
The Rewilding Institute was more upfront about who wanted the road and why, and why Rewilding thinks they are wrong..
The Biden Administration, with the apparent support of Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland, has sided with Alaskan Natives and the previous Trump Administration to approve the construction of a road through the designated wilderness of Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge….
Other Alaskan native groups support the land exchange, likely because they believe they could use the precedent to further their own economic interests.
I had never heard this one before, it’s a bit of an argument that the Native Alaskans are not negotiating in good faith..
The Aleut people living in the village of King Cove claim they need the road for medical emergencies so that injured people can readily access an all-weather runway in nearby Cold Bay, a former military base.
Currently, access to Cold Bay’s runway is by boat or from a smaller airstrip in King Cove. But in stormy weather, travel by any means, including by road, is often dangerous and difficult. This situation is by no means unique to King Cove. Many Alaskan villages are far from hospitals and infrastructure that many Americans take for granted.
However, many wilderness advocates believe the real reason for the road is to carry fish captured by the commercial fishing fleet in King Cove to planes in Cold Bay for rapid shipment to markets.
I appreciate (although don’t agree with) the consistency of this group.. they don’t seem to care whether people are Indigenous or not, we are all equally subordinate to their vision of economic development for communities that want it, or “access to the same infrastructure that many Americans” have as a bad thing.
Mostly we tend to think of this as a tendency of international ENGOs (we developed and used resources, but we think you shouldn’t, for environmental reasons) but apparently this is not an entirely international phenomenon.
said Secretary Deb Haaland. “By acknowledging and empowering Tribes as partners in co-stewardship of our country’s lands and waters, every American will benefit from strengthened management of our federal land and resources.”
Of course, federal authorities stay the same, that is, to consult and not go with what Tribes want. It seems to be a focus on the process (consultation) rather than the product (decisions that Tribes agree with). This sounds like a bit of an echo of ordinary public involvement. We can have a great process and not decide the way any particular group wants. But the term “co-management” to me implies more than “we listen to your opinion more carefully than other groups”. But if the Admin can still overrule Tribes, are they any more “empowered” than before an enhanced consultation process?
There’s also the scale thing. For example, when DOI had their public session on oil and gas regulations, that I covered here, Tribes and Native Alaskans said they were for “all of the above” and yet this did not seem to transfer directly to DOI policy. Perhaps the scale is the problem, and Tribes should be consulted on the overall decarbonization- climate- energy policy in its entirety. Because the solar-wind-minerals-uranium under all scenarios would occur on federal lands. To the extent that it does, maybe the USG should back up and consult on the broader-scale policy- both energy and climate. Perhaps have an elected Tribal representative in all White House climate discussions?
Anyway, here’s a story from “This is Reno” on Tribes suing the BLM:
Three Native American tribes filed this week a new lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management over Lithium Americas planned Thacker Pass lithium mine.
The lawsuit comes after federal Judge Miranda Du mostly ruled against the plaintiffs seeking to stop the project near the Nevada-Oregon border. It was filed Thursday by the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, Burns Paiute Tribe and Summit Lake Paiute Tribe in Federal District Court.
The tribes are alleging BLM withheld information from the state “and lied about the extent of tribal consultation in order to secure legally required concurrence about historic properties” at Thacker Pass. They are also alleging BLM lied and misled the tribes about other aspects of the mining project.
“The new lawsuit is also strengthened by the addition of the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe, one of the Tribes that the BLM claims to have consulted with prior to issuing the [record of decision],” they said in a press statement. “Summit Lake and both other tribes the BLM claims to have consulted (the Winnemucca Indian Colony and Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Tribe) have disputed BLM’s assertion that any consultation took place.”
The Winnemucca Indian Colony, they said, was unable to intervene in the case for not filing soon enough.
“When the decision was made public on the previous lawsuit last week, we said we would continue to advocate for our sacred site PeeHee Mu’Huh,” said Arlan Melendez, chair of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony. “It is also the very same place where our people were massacred (never laid to rest properly) by the U.S. Calvary. It’s a place where all Paiute and Shoshone people continue to pray, gather medicines and food, honor our non-human relatives, honor our water, honor our way of life, honor our ancestors.
“The Thacker Pass permitting process was not done correctly. BLM contends they have discretion to decide who to notify or consult with,” he added. “They only contacted 3 out of the 22 tribes who had significant ties to Thacker Pass.”
“Democrats and Republicans are both pro-development in this state and always have been,” Lokken said.
Some Democrats are more likely to be concerned about the environmental impact of mining and about ensuring that the state gets tax revenue from the industry, added Lokken, but development has ultimately won out.
“The party decided a long ago that this kind of development is fine,” he said.
When Joint Secretarial Order 3403 on Fulfilling the Trust Responsibility to Indian Tribes in the Stewardship of Federal Lands and Waters was signed, both DOI and USDA were required to provide a legal review of their “current land, water and wildlife treaty responsibilities and authorities that can support co-stewardship and Tribal Stewardship. Here is a link to the USDA response.
The Forest Service section starts on page 8. There are many opportunities related to “working on projects together.”
As to planning..
Forest Service Planning Rule
The National Forest Management Act requires the Forest Service to promulgate a land management planning rule and to develop land management plans for all national forests and grasslands.40 Land management planning provides an early opportunity for Tribes to engage in developing co-stewardship proposals for management of national forests and grasslands and to incorporate tribal knowledge, and the Forest Service’s Planning Rule guides revisions to Forest
Service land management plans. The most recent version of the planning rule was promulgated in 2012.41
The 2012 Planning Rule requires the Forest Service to:
• “[a]s part of tribal participation and consultation . . . request information about native knowledge, land ethics, cultural issues, and sacred and culturally significant sites.”42;
• “coordinate land management planning with the equivalent and related planning efforts of federally recognized Indian Tribes [and] Alaska Native Corporations”43;
• “review the planning and land use policies of federally recognized Indian Tribes . . . ,Alaska Native Corporations [and] include consideration of . . . compatibility and interrelated impacts of these plans and policies . . . opportunities for the plan to address the impacts identified or to contribute to joint objectives; and . . . opportunities to resolve or reduce conflicts”44; and
• “include plan components, including standards or guidelines, to provide for: … (ii) Protection of cultural and historic resources. (iii) Management of areas of tribal importance.
ShiNaasha Pete, reforestation forester with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, gestures at whitebark pine seedlings being grown in a greenhouse on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana. The tribes are working to restore whitebark pines, which are threatened by an invasive disease, because they serve as a crucial ecologic and cultural resource. Alex Brown
Thanks to readers who sent in this article on Tribes and reforestation by Alex Brown of Pew. I didn’t know this but apparently they have a weekly newsletter called Stateline.
This is a generally good article IMHO, but I felt obliged to add context to this statement.
State-run and commercial nurseries often specialize in the species used for large-scale timber production, such as Douglas fir or loblolly pine. Some tribal programs similarly supply logging operations.
Many, though, have focused on species that are critical to ecosystems, and those that are woven into tribal history and culture.
A person might ask if Douglas-fir and ponderosa might also be critical to ecosystems, because they are predominant species in many places. Also some species seem to do just fine with natural regeneration and others not so much.
Anyway, I checked out my state’s nursery (which is closed this year for new orders).
The seedling program allows farmers, ranchers, other landowners and land managers to obtain trees at a nominal cost to help achieve conservation goals, including:
Restoration after wildfire, flood and other natural disturbances
Growing shelterbelts, windbreaks and living snow fences
Creating and enhancing wildlife habitat
Protecting homes, cropland, livestock and highways
Increasing erosion control
Practicing “backyard” conservation that promotes clean air and water
You’ll note that trees for timber production aren’t mentioned..
Seems like each state nursery focuses on trees that grow there that people want to plant for whatever reasons.
The article doesn’t mention Forest Service nurseries, so here is their story.
Over the last 15 years, the traditional role of the Forest Service nurseries has expanded to include the production of a wide variety of additional native plant species to meet the increasing needs of ecosystem restoration. These opportunities present new challenges to nursery managers because little is known about propagating many of these new species.
Anyway, that’s just a little context. Below are some excerpts from the Pew story.
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Pete oversees a program to restore whitebark pine trees to tribal lands and nearby forests. After identifying a handful of trees with genetic resistance to the blister rust, the team has collected enough seeds to repopulate the tribe’s entire 105,000 acres of whitebark pine habitat.
“It’s a keystone species,” Pete said. “It has over 100 different species that are reliant upon it. If we lose whitebark pine, it’s going to eliminate that ecosystem and habitat at the higher elevations, and that will have an effect on everything down below.”
The program has produced almost 11,000 seedlings, with plans to plant 4,300 of them next spring. Pete hopes to scale up to planting 50,000 seedlings a year. It will take 60 to 80 years before the trees she plants produce their own seeds.
Pete said she hopes to plant enough trees to reintroduce seeds as food for tribal winter ceremonies.
….
State-run and commercial nurseries often specialize in the species used for large-scale timber production, such as Douglas fir or loblolly pine. Some tribal programs similarly supply logging operations.
Many, though, have focused on species that are critical to ecosystems, and those that are woven into tribal history and culture.
“Our forest management isn’t based on revenue. It’s based on restoration,” said Tony Incashola, Jr., head of forestry with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
The tribes grow more than 1 million seedlings each year at nurseries on the reservation, and the operation has doubled its conifer production over the last five years. Roughly half of the plants are grown for restoration projects on tribal lands, while the remaining half are sold to partners, including state agencies and other tribes.
…
In many tribal nations, nursery managers are growing tree species to help forests survive climate change, diseases and pests. The Mescalero Apache Tribe grows about 75,000 seedlings of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir each year.
“Our forest on the reservation is probably one of the healthiest in southern New Mexico,” said Smith, the nursery manager. “We cut out all the diseased trees and go back and replant in that area.”
Cut Douglas firs are used as lodgepoles for teepees, Smith said. Within the past five years, the tribe has grown more native plants to benefit wildlife using money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The Fort Belknap Indian Community, home to two Montana tribes, is seeking to restore subalpine fir, which a wildfire devastated in the 1930s. The tribes are in the first phase of their effort, conducting a study to see whether any remnant populations of the tree exist in its chain of mountains.
“If we do find some pockets of any remaining subalpine fir, we’re going to collect some seeds and possibly use them to grow and propagate and plant them back up in our mountains,” said Dennis Longknife Jr., the community’s climate change coordinator. “If we don’t have any, we have to find out where we can get some seed stock.”
Longknife, Jr. said the tree has cultural significance to the tribes, used for ceremonial purposes. The next steps in the restoration process will include identifying sites to grow the plants and areas for restoration. He noted that grant programs in the federal infrastructure bill may provide funding opportunities to support that work.
As nursery operations proliferate and expand, such efforts stand to benefit many other tribal programs, said Pinto, the Forest Service nursery specialist.
Since Tribes have different histories with different pieces of land, which are the “right” Tribes to consult? And why didn’t the White House know this and take the time to consult? Of course, the Camp Hale Monument designation is an attempt to side-step Congress (we don’t actually know what part of the Monument was endangered by whom, so how important it was to “protect”?) there were probably partisan political motives and this being October, perhaps those motives were time-sensitive. Generally there’s no ticking clock for FS or BLM (or as I’ve said, why not NPS and Wildife Refuges?) Still… if the White House can’t do it right, what hope have the BLM and the Forest Service?
Here’s a story from the
However, one Ute tribe is not happy about the new designation. The Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in northeastern Utah issued a press release late Wednesday saying they were only consulted a few days before the signing ceremony, were not included in the years-long and ongoing legislative discussions about the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy (CORE) Act that preceded the designation, and will fight it, perhaps in court.
The Ute Indian Tribe’s Uncompahgre Band considers the Camp Hale area part of its traditional homeland by right and by law.
“We’ve tried to work with this Administration, but time after time they refuse to address the real issues tribes are facing,” Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee Chairman and Uncompahgre Band representative Shaun Chapoose said in the release. “Even on our traditional homelands, they refused to work closely with us. These new monuments are an abomination and demonstrate manifest disregard and disrespect of the Ute Indian Tribe’s treaty rights and sovereign status as a federally recognized Indian Tribe. If it’s a fight they want, it’s a fight they will get.”
But the Colorado Times Recorder had an interesting political take on this.. perhaps “some Tribes are more equal than others.”
Chapoose says the White River and Uncompahgre Bands of the Ute Nation were forced out of Colorado, but tribes that are still in the state – such as the Ute Mountain Utes and the Southern Utes — naturally support their state government when it comes to protecting Camp Hale.
“It works for them because they’re residents of Colorado, right?” Chapoose said. “So, politically, it’s in their best interest to be on the right side of the politics there. If somebody would pull out the actual map of Colorado, you will see who was the bands of the Ute that were in that area [Camp Hale]. And you’re going to see it wasn’t no Southern Ute or Ute Mountain Utes. It was the Uncompahgres and the White Rivers.”
The Ute Indian Tribe is a stakeholder in the proposed Uinta Basin Railway, an 85-mile connector between oil fields in the Uinta Basin that would cross tribal land. Bennet, Hickenlooper and Neguse have expressed their support for an Eagle County lawsuit challenging federal approvals for that railway, which would connect to the mainline and send up to 10 oil trains a day through western Eagle County and along the Colorado River.
“OK, so they don’t like the fact that I’m trying to have a rail to take oil and gas from my reservation to a market to generate revenue so I can provide services for my people,” Chapoose said. “They don’t like that, but at the same time, they forget, if I wasn’t removed from where I was to begin with [in Colorado], I wouldn’t be doing this anyway. So people need to remember, I didn’t choose to be removed. They made that choice for me.”
The manager of Eagle County, where Camp Hale is located, has said the oil train plan would exacerbate climate change, endanger the Colorado River and increase pressure to reopen the Tennessee Pass Line along the Eagle River and adjacent to Camp Hale.
Two of the three Eagle County commissioners on hand for Wednesday’s signing ceremony said they were not sure what impact a national monument designation would have on efforts to reopen the Tennessee Pass Line through Eagle County between Dotsero and Pueblo.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, on hand for Wednesday’s ceremony, previously declined to discuss calls for the federal government to derail the Uinta Basin oil trains. Bennet told the Colorado Times Recorder he hoped they would.
Yes, it’s the same Senator Bennet as the Tribal Co-Management letter. Yes, the Uinta Basin oil trains that the Ute want. Sigh, what does consultation mean again?
I also thought this was interesting..
In a phone interview with the Colorado Times Recorder, Chapoose said the difference is that Utah Republicans consulted his tribe prior to federal action on Bears Ears, which was cut in size by 85% by the Trump administration after being designated by the Obama administration. Biden returned it to its original size, and then some, but Utah is now suing the administration.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, left, is honored at an assembly at the King Cove School. (Marc Lester / ADN)
Saturday I posted about a controversy between Tribal people and a ski area on federal lands. I’d like to place that story in conversation with another story, the King Cove controversy. We don’t hear much about it, because it’s about a Fish and Wildlife Service (US DOI) administered area, and we usually talk about the FS and BLM. But it has many familiar issues. Native Alaskans in the village want a road to access a hospital. Some national ENGO’s don’t want the road.
So we often talk about “political” decisions and decisions being “corrupted”. I’d like to delve into this further. As a person who has worked on numerous controversial EISs and rulemakings, I think it’s safe to say that there are a number of reasonable options that could be chosen. What makes something “political”? Obviously there are numerous levels of internal and well as external politics. I think to agency people it might mean “a decision that I don’t agree with that favors interests I don’t like.” But then I think perhaps it’s about politics in the sense of “rewarding your friends and/or punishing your enemies,” perhaps beyond what is a reasonable approach toward your stated aims. For example, I think if the Admin’s stated goal is decarbonization, then shutting down US production on federal lands seems like more punishing oil and gas companies, or assuaging NRDC or ??, more than a rational policy call. Others may disagree. I would call that a political decision in that sense. Do you agree or disagree or do you have a different definition?
So let’s look at the King Cove cases, which looks like Native Alaskans who need the road vs. (some) national ENGO’s. The Admin appears to be picking a side by defending the decision (pro-road). Is this political? Was Sally Jewell’s decision not to political (assuaging ENGO supporters)? Was Bernhardt’s political? Are they all political?
An interesting aspect of this case is that he same argument (the federal property rights trump other considerations) seems to be made by these groups for Native people as for any local people.
Others complained to Haaland that outsiders can access Izembek to hunt and fish, and that much of the opposition to the road comes from conservation groups based on Alaska’s road system or in the Lower 48.
“Those folks live there,” said Skoey Vergen, chief executive of Aleut Corp., the Native corporation for the King Cove region. “These folks live here.”
Those dissenting groups were not present Wednesday in King Cove. But they’re still examining last month’s court ruling approving the Trump-era land exchange, and an appeal is an option, said David Raskin, president of Friends of Alaska Wildlife Refuges.
“This refuge is not owned by the people of King Cove. It is a great, valued possession of the people of the United States,” Raskin said in a phone interview Thursday. “And to have a small community like that reap horrible damage on one of the jewels of the refuge system would be a travesty, and a terrible blow to the American people.”
It appears that 11 miles of the road between King Cove and Cold Bay have not been built and that is what this decision is about. People from King Cove want a road to the hospital in Cold Bay.
Would we say that if the road goes through it is politics, or if the road doesn’t go, through it’s politics. Do we feel more sympathy for the native Alaskans, or for far away people with environmental concerns. If the Biden Admin were to give in to them, would that be undue political influence.
What groups, might we ask, are concerned about this road (desired by local Native Alaskans) to the extent that they are litigating it? Well, plaintiffs include The Wilderness Society; Defenders of Wildlife; National Audubon Society; Wilderness Watch; Center for Biological Diversity; National Wildlife Refuge Association; Alaska Wilderness League; and Sierra Club (collectively “Plaintiffs”). Many of these are powerful friends of the Obama/Biden Administrations. Perhaps why Sally Jewell made her decision (political influence?).
And how did our friends at the New York Times cover the Jimmy Carter angle? “The legal battle over the gravel route could gut an environmental law that the 39th president called one of his highest achievements.”
They are arguing the precedent of course, not the actual road.
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Another interesting angle is how political decisions get validated or invalidated by the courts.
I got hopelessly confused over the legal questions involved. At first it sounded a little like that Sec. Jewell made a decision from an EIS, and Sec. Bernhart couldn’t make a different decision off the same EIS by weighing things differently. Then the judges became frustrated at having their time potentially wasted because conceivably Sec. Haaland could make a new decision (with a new EIS?) .
But then there’s this explanation in the Anchorage Daily News article.
Trump’s administration was good to King Cove. After a federal judge invalidated a land exchange aimed at authorizing the road, Trump’s Interior Department redid the plan and tried it again. A different judge rejected it a second time, in 2020. But last month, a federal appeals panel reversed that decision and said the land exchange could proceed,..
In the NYT article:
The exchange was authorized by Congress during the Obama administration, but was rejected by Sally Jewell, then the interior secretary, after a review found it would cause irreversible damage to the refuge and its wildlife.
If Congress asks the Admin to do something, it can just decide not to? Hopefully someone knowledgeable can explain.
Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, a Clinton appointee, disagreed with her two colleagues, writing in a dissenting opinion that Bernhardt never explained the reasoning for this policy shift from Jewell and that she would have found that the land swap violated the Administrative Procedure Act and other federal laws.
DOJ argues in its brief that Bernhardt’s explanation placing public welfare over other concerns “sufficiently explained the change in policy,” in compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act, and that no other documentation was needed.
I thought that it was interesting that of three judges two thought (and DOJ thinks) that it was adequately explained, and one thought not. That’s why to us observers, it sometimes seems like when we go to court the decisions are more or less random. If I were redesigning the system, the judge would have to explain what they thought would be an adequate explanation. Otherwise it’s like “bring me a rock”; decisions can’t be improved without constructive feedback.
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Here’s one from E&E News, part of a long interesting article from 08/08/2022, if you are interested in more background.
Laura Jo West stands outside the Coconino National Forest headquarters, where she served as forest supervisor for more than seven years. Jake Bacon, Arizona Daily Sun
Many thanks to an Anonymous for sending this piece in! So many interesting facets.
Tribes, political issues, ski areas, how politically hot topics are managed internally by the Forest Service, the difficulty of developing collaborative relationships with shifting people, how the line officer is uniquely responsible relative to others on the forest, due to the line/staff structure. Questions.. would we feel differently were environmental interests pushing someone out of their responsibilities rather than a for-profit permittee? Would we feel the same way about, say, a rare-earth mining operation or a wind energy facility exerting political power? What does consultation actually mean if it doesn’t mean “we can’t go ahead without your sign-off”? If the same decision had been made during the last Admin, would the coverage have been different? The Forest Service is in the Executive Branch, so clearly elected officials get to decide ultimately. Which can be extremely frustrating for employees who have sunk their hearts, souls and extra hours into a project or a relationship.
Because the article is so long, and interesting, and with no paywall, I’ll only post one excerpt. Check it out for yourself. And thanks again, Anonymous!
“The new agreement
Presented with the chance to create consensus and collaboration around a sacred site that had long been the “epicenter” of controversy, West had no illusions about the difficulty of the work ahead.
“It was going to be messy, it was going to be hard, we were probably going to have fights in various places along the way,” she said. “It was going to be a challenge. But I think it was the right challenge.”
For these reasons, West wasn’t willing to unilaterally promise a timeline for approving the new MOA. As recommended by federal directives, she went in with an “open mind” and wanted to develop a timeline through the consultation process.
“I wasn’t promising anyone, including the tribes, an outcome because I didn’t know what was going to develop,” she said. “It was a completely wide open, kind of scary place. But I thought, ‘That’s OK, we’re going to travel it together.’”
From Jocks’ perspective, West “saw an opening and took it.” Her efforts seemed “sincere” when he met with her about a new MOA.
“She wanted to do the right thing,” he said. “She understood there were limitations, but wanted to do what she could.”
But West’s approach of elevating tribal consultation soon caught the attention of Mountain Capital Partners (MCP), which owns Snowbowl. She said her refusal to offer a definite timeline was unacceptable to MCP and Snowbowl executives.
“I told them it could take at least a year and a half, maybe even two, to get a new MOA down because we’re opening up a conversation with tribes,” she said. “They said, ‘No, it only takes three months.’”
Snowbowl put forth the MOA timeline built around “minimum legal requirements,” but this did not satisfy West.
“We have the discretion to do so much better than that,” she said.
What happened next was somewhat expected, West said: Snowbowl complained. In January and February this year, MCP, the largest ski area collective in the Southwest, scheduled meetings with Forest Service Chief Randy Moore. In a Feb. 17 phone call with West’s superior, quoted in a grievance letter provided to the Arizona Daily Sun by West, regional forester Michiko Martin informed West that MCP stated it did not “believe [West is] a neutral and trusted agent. They believe that you are orchestrating a master plan to upend them.”
West was accused of being “pro-tribe” and “biased toward tribes” and otherwise “deliberately stalling to prevent MCP from implementing approved projects.”
“I asked regional forester Martin if MCP provided any evidence for their allegations,” West wrote in her grievance letter. “She replied they had not.”
While West expected that Snowbowl would complain, she did not expect how these complaints would be received by the Forest Service. On March 17, right after the conclusion of the meetings between MCP and Moore, West received a letter from Martin informing her that her authority to address the expiration of the Snowbowl MOA was rescinded “effective immediately,” and re-delegated to Steve Hattenbach, supervisor of the Cibola National Forest in New Mexico.
West said she was shocked that in one fell swoop, the Forest Service chose to accommodate MCP rather than defer to her judgment, despite the fact that she was a devoted employee and agency leader with 33 years of experience.
When asked to estimate the reason behind this decision, West speculated that it could have something to do with the influence of the National Ski Area Association (NSAA), whose board overlaps with MCP leadership.
“I was told by my boss that [the NSAA] lobby on behalf of the Forest Service for additional funding for recreation, infrastructure and things like that,” West said. “It was made clear to me in a conversation I had with my boss that it was a relationship the agency wanted to protect.””
We have recently convened a partnership of scientists and Indigenous leaders from across the Western states to advocate for the kinds of policy solutions necessary to build beneficial relations between people and the land and to restore resilience to our ecosystems. We call for change by federal and state policymakers, land managers and fire agencies in four main areas.
First, state and federal governments must commit to active stewardship in a manner we have not seen before. Entire landscapes are now endangered, and we must begin implementing ecosystem-level solutions.
Second, active stewardship must include restoration of tribal stewardship across both public and private lands. The Biden administration and a handful of states have called for tribal co-management of public lands. Cultural fire practitioners must have the right to engage in fire management activities according to traditional Indigenous law. And federal and state governments must support long-term action with funding for tribal practitioners so they can expand capacity to do the work.
Third, federal land management agencies need the staffing to actively manage forests. Across the Western United States, the federal government manages around 45% of all lands and over 65% of forest ecosystems. Active stewardship of these expansive lands requires a significantly larger workforce with updated training to align with this new approach. If we are going to return beneficial fire to the landscape — as we must — we cannot expect exhausted fire suppression crews to take care of the needed work in their off-season.
Fourth, we must acknowledge that fire is part of our baseline environmental condition. Our bedrock environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water and Clean Air acts, and the Endangered Species Act, were adopted at a time when fire suppression was at its peak. We designed these laws with the faulty assumption that people could fully exclude fire and keep our air free from smoke and our ecosystems intact. Therefore, they treat our suite of fire stewardship practices the same as other human activity – akin to building a freeway or power plant – with the attendant regulatory review.
But fire will burn in one form or another. We need to develop laws and policies that encourage the kind of fire that people and ecosystems need. We cannot have clean water, clean air and critical wildlife habitat if we don’t first have resilient, fire-adapted forests.
We do not ignore the risks inherent in these solutions. The Forest Service recently acknowledged that its intentional fires were the ignition source for the Calf Canyon and Hermits Peak fires — vast and destructive blazes in New Mexico this year, the sort of fire that is never a goal of intentional burns. These events must be carefully studied and learned from. But calls to pause or otherwise shut down all use of fire are misguided. In nearly all cases, prescribed fires are kept within the confines of the planning area. The Forest Service’s decision in May to pause such intentional burns sends the wrong message to the public that these tools are inherently unsafe.
Perhaps more important, removing cultural and prescribed fire will make the threat of wildfires worse in the long run. Rather than focus on the source of the ignition as the “cause” of the harms from megafires, we need to focus on the condition of the forest. The current lack of resilience across much of the American West is largely responsible for the devastating effects. Keeping fire and other restoration techniques out of the landscape only makes infernos more likely and more expansive.
We have begun to imagine what “beneficial relations” might look like between people and our forested lands and call for a new stewardship policy. But we cannot implement them without fundamentally changing the systems we’ve built to try to keep fire out of our landscapes. The West is in a fire crisis. It is time to change the behaviors that caused it.
My take: I don’t think the pause “sends the wrong message”. Sometimes you have to go slow to go fast (think collaboration). According to the Hotshot Wakeup report on Friday there are many managed fires going right now, so there’s that. And the folks I’ve talked to, who are working on the report have all kinds of improvements to be be considered. Last year the managed fire pause caused the same kind of drama, and yet here we are with plenty of WFWB going on as we speak. To my mind, “in nearly all cases” isn’t very compassionate to say, the folks in NM. To me, “trust us, we’ve (mostly) got this, except when we obviously don’t” is actually the wrong message.
The seedling program allows farmers, ranchers, other landowners and land managers to obtain trees at a nominal cost to help achieve conservation goals, including:
