Tribes and Tribal Management

For Tribes, Reforesting Means Reconnection to History, Culture: Pew Story on Tribal Nurseries

by
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).

Here’s what it says..

Covering Conservation

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..

OK, well perhaps Colorado isn’t a timber state, OK then, here’s Montana’s state nursery inventory. And Tennessee’s.   

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.

********************

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.

Tribal Consultation Can Be Difficult: Camp Hale Monument and the White River and Uncompahgre Utes

by

 

 

 

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.

 

Biden DOJ Defends Bernhardt Decision on King Cove: What Makes Something a “Political” Decision?

by
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.

Does this sound familiar?From an Anchorage Daily News story on Secretary Haaland’s visit.

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.

***********************

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.

***********************************

Here’s one from E&E News, part of a long interesting article from 08/08/2022, if you are interested in more background.

 

Tribes, a Ski Area, a Sacred Mountain and a Former Forest Supervisor: Plus, What Does it Mean to Consult Exactly and Who Decides?

by

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.””

Weekend of Op-Eds II. Why Forest Managers Need to Team Up With Indigenous Fire Practitioners – from L.A Times

by

Here’s the link:

 

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.

Bears Ears And Other Co-Management Efforts: Relocalizing Federal Land Decision-Making?

by

 

Bears Ears co-management is said to be new and unique.  Inquiring minds wonder… shouldn’t Tribal views always be taken into account? Are there legal differences in various places that matter? What is different and better about the Bears Ears approach? How does it compare to other Co-Management efforts?

As I read the cooperative agreement, I wondered..

It sounds to me like there’s much “coordinate” and “provide opportunities for input” in this document.  It sounds perhaps like a Forest FACA committee. There’s even a “meaningful seat at the table before decisions are made.” As I read these, FLPMA also says something about coordinating with local governments. The meaning of that seems to be highly contested, will this work any better?  And who has a “meaningless” seat at the table?

On the face, the Agreement it sounds like something both the BLM and the FS should always do with Tribes with historic ties to that piece of federal land. Isn’t it?

Would co-management actually mean decision-making authority rests in both entities, and have a conflict resolution mechanism if the two groups disagree? Does co-management give veto power over projects and activities the Tribes don’t want, or similarly, if the Tribes want a project or activity, and the Agencies don’t, what happens?  Or do the legal authorities not really change and the Feds just have to take the views of the Tribes into account in some way.

Tribes have unique and special knowledge based on their history and experience with the landscapes, places, plants and animals. Other local people whose families have lived in an area, in some places for centuries (e.g. descendants of Spanish colonists in the SW), also have local knowledge. To what extent should incorporation of that local information take place in a similar way?

Will Tribal co-management ultimately make it less likely that federal lands issues will be dealt with at the national level by national interest groups? That in some sense, non-Native locals were seen to be by some national groups as  obstacles to correct management, but that doesn’t hold for Native locals? Anyway, check out the agreement for yourself and see what you think.

Here’s the text of the Bears Ears Co-Management Cooperative Agreement

C. In order to implement the direction in Proclamation 10285 and Proclamation 9558, the BLM and USFS agree to:

I. Ensure that Federal policies reflect the needs of Tribal Nations and that Tribal leaders have a meaningful seat at the table before decisions are made that impact their communities by centering Indigenous voices, including increasing the recognition of the value of traditional Indigenous knowledge and empowering Tribal Nations to make decisions for their cultural, natural, and spiritual values.
2. Honor applicable Executive Orders, Secretarial Orders, and Memorandums of Understanding including, but not limited to, Executive Order 13175 ofNovember 6, 2000, Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments, Secretarial Order No. 3403: DOI and USDA Joint Secretarial Order on Fulfilling the Trust Responsibility to Indian Tribes in the Stewardship ofFederal Lands and Waters, and the November 16, 2021 Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Interagency Coordination and Collaboration for the Protection of Indigenous Sacred Sites.
3. Coordinate and consult with the Commission throughout land use planning and subsequent implementation-level decision-making processes concerning Bears Ears, including preparation of a monument management plan and a travel management plan.
4. Identify opportunities for development of initiatives to cooperatively conduct land management programs concerning Bears Ears.
5. Seek specific opportunities to involve the Commission in public land management activities concerning Bears Ears.
6. Coordinate, organize, and assure appropriate government professional and management involvement in programs within the scope of this Cooperative Agreement.
7. Ensure that Tribal knowledge and local expertise is reflected in agency decision making processes for Bears Ears. Develop and share information and data with the Commission, to the extent possible, to facilitate understanding of issues and sites, such as providing pictures and other information to Tribal Elders who cannot travel, and facilitate Tribal Nations’ work and engagement on the management of the monument.
8. Provide opportunities for input on implementation of interim guidance issued jointly or individually by the BLM and USFS, including the BLM’s interim monument management guidance issued on December 16, 2021, which directs the BLM to (a) inventory monument objects and values, (b) review existing discretionary uses and activities within the monument to detennine whether their impacts are consistent with the protection of the monument objects and values, and (c) update existing monitoring plans to ensure protection of monument objects and values.
9. Provide opportunities for input to the USFS review of existing discretionary uses and activities within the monument to deternine whether their impacts are consistent with the protection of the monument objects and values.
10. Provide opportunities to review and provide input on BLM and USFS policy guidance for the Bears Ears prior to issuance.

Biden Admin Promotes Tribal Consultation and the Use of Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge

by

There’s an excellent article on EnergyWire on Biden Administration’s policies to increase consultation and collaboration with Tribes.

In the first Tribal Nations Summit since 2016, President Biden this month committed to, among other things, pursue more collaborative public lands management strategies with tribes and incorporate traditional ecological knowledge into federal agencies’ scientific analysis of projects.

“We’re going to make some substantial changes in Indian Country,” Biden said during the virtual event.

The same day, the government released a memorandum of understanding signed by 17 federal agencies agreeing to increase consultation and collaboration, in recognition of existing treaty obligations between the United States and tribal nations.

The announcements drew praise from Indian and environmental law experts, who saw the change as an important step for the Biden administration in improving relations between sovereign tribes and the United States.

The agreement, signed by agencies such as EPA and the Interior and Agriculture departments, is not legally binding, so it cannot by itself serve as the basis of a legal challenge to federal approval of energy projects on treaty lands.

But the agreement could help tribes hold the federal government legally accountable to its commitments to treat tribes as an equal partner in energy development on public lands.

The Biden administration’s pronouncements “may be relevant if there is litigation down the road, even if the tribe wouldn’t be able to just say, ‘You violated this [memorandum of understanding], and therefore, we’re suing you, and we win,'” said Monte Mills, co-director of the Margery Hunter Brown Indian Law Clinic at the University of Montana.

One way the agreement could bolster legal arguments is by allowing tribes to point to agency decisions that aren’t in accordance with the Biden administration’s consultation policies. Those arguments could be made in the context of lawsuits alleging violations of federal laws like the National Environmental Policy Act or the Administrative Procedure Act.

Besides consultation, there is also movement toward using Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge to inform federal decision making.

The Biden team’s move for greater collaboration with tribes isn’t a new concept, but the effort to establish common standards across agencies is a change from previous administrations, experts said.

“To have a president acknowledge and pay homage to the idea that there are different forms of information and worldviews that are helpful, it’s exciting to see it in a public way,” said Karen Bradshaw, an environmental law professor at Arizona State University.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the White House Council on Environmental Quality released a memorandum this month that committed to incorporating “Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge” into scientific and policy processes across the federal government.

The White House defined Indigenous knowledge as “a body of observations, oral and written knowledge, practices, and beliefs … applied to phenomena across biological, physical, cultural and spiritual systems.”

OSTP Director Eric Lander noted in a statement last week that Indigenous knowledge should “inform federal decision making.”

“This effort will give Federal agencies the tools they need to ensure Indigenous knowledge is appropriately considered and elevated,” Lander continued.

Schlenker-Goodrich of the Western Environmental Law Center said that increased consultation would complicate federal decisionmaking but would ultimately result in stronger agency actions.

“Bottom line, it’s the right move,” Schlenker-Goodrich said.

“It’ll accentuate complexity,” he continued, but the approach “also creates a path forward to better public lands management; respect for the first peoples of this continent; and a thriving, resilient future for all of us.”

It certainly make sense for the federal agencies to do consultation the same way. And it’s definitely the right thing to do IMHO. It’s also true that any efforts that complexify may create a tension with the Biden Admin desire for rapid renewable build-out on federal lands, as it has already done for mining for renewables.

RVCC Report on Good Neighbor Authority

by

Here is a link to a report by Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition (RVCC) on the use of Good Neighbor Authority- extensive and comprehensive. There’s a section on key findings that’s a good summary. Below are the implications.


Key Implications

• Use of GNA will likely continue to look different across states and forest types due to differences in timber value, proximity to market, state capacity, existing agency programs and priorities, restoration needs, and other factors.

• The frequent inclusion of commercial restoration in Good Neighbor agreements among states most actively using the authority suggests the ability to generate and retain revenue is contributing to greater engagement with authority.

• State and region-level variation in GNA tracking and reporting, as well as trends toward writing agreements broadly and flexibly, could make it difficult to evaluate and report accomplishments and outcomes associated with GNA in a unified way. Such reporting may be important as the statute governing state management of revenue is set to expire in 2023 and would need reauthorization to continue.

• Across the states we examined, the authority was largely being used as a tool to implement projects that had been planned under NEPA, as opposed to state and federal partners planning projects with the express intent of implementing them through the authority. This trend suggests that thus far, GNA has not generally been used or considered as an avenue for collaborative planning.

• Counties and tribes were largely just beginning to explore the authority’s utility for accomplishing restoration and capacity-building goals.

• Positive perceptions among state and Forest Service employees about GNA’s potential to increase capacity for implementing restoration activities on federal lands, utilize and leverage specific expertise and capabilities of state agencies, increase treatment efficiency, and strengthen relationships between states and the Forest Service suggest the tool itself and the state-federal partnership it perpetuates will remain strong.

• There remains a need to more systematically evaluate and define the additive benefits of GNA. This could be aided by new or modified systems for tracking revenue generation and expenditure, partner contributions, and non-commercial restoration accomplishments associated with GNA timber sales.

Notes from Sharon:
* As to the Tribes just beginning to use the authority, I believe at the present time Tribes currently can’t keep funding the same way States can; and a change is currently being worked on in Congress.
* I liked how the authors separated and defined non-commercial and commercial restoration activities; seems very helpful.
*As to “new or modified systems for tracking”, I think the accomplishment and expenditure system for vegetation management could use a total revamp (including GNA), based on the kind of information needed to manage effectively today, not whenever it was developed. Including transparency with States, Congress, and stakeholders. Even without that, it seems useful to develop some kind of standardized approach before units diverge too much.

The Biden Administration and New Opportunities for Tribal Co-Management: E&E News Story

by

Richard Sherman points out plants used in traditional Lakota medicine during a tour Friday at Badlands National Park.
Rapid City Journal Photo by Josh Morgan
Here’s an interesting story in E&E News with the headline “Tribes flex political muscle in quest to co-manage parks” .. looking more closely, it’s about all federal lands. I’ve excerpted sections about the PEER evolution in thought on this topic and the idea of the “peacemaking system.” The whole thing is worth reading, hope you all have access to E&E News. My favorite quote:

“Alternative dispute resolution, as they call it now, for us that’s not alternative,” Nez added. “That’s our original way of resolving issues in our communities. For Navajos, we call it the peacemaking system, where everybody comes in and has a seat at the table to talk things out.”

Co-management plans on federal lands could ignite thorny jurisdictional disputes among agencies. As an example, tribal projects involving forestland would have to include the Forest Service, which is part of the Department of Agriculture.

Even without such disputes, progress can come slowly, as Jarvis discovered in 2016 when the park service modified a regulation to allow tribal members to gather plants at national parks, but only for “traditional purposes.”

When he announced the change, Jarvis said it would support tribal sovereignty and the “unique cultural traditions of American Indians,” with plants used for everything from basketry to traditional medicines. To be eligible, a tribe must have “a traditional association” to certain lands within the National Park System. Any commercial uses are prohibited.

While the park service consulted with more than 120 tribes before making the change, Jarvis said NPS officials still encountered plenty of opposition from outside groups like the advocacy organization Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

“It took nearly 15 years to get that done, in part because of opposition by organizations such as PEER,” Jarvis said.

Yet as another sign of the changed political winds, even PEER has changed its stance on co-management.

In 2017, PEER warned that co-management with tribes could conflict with the park service’s desire to protect wildlife, protected species and forests.

At the time, Jeff Ruch, who then served as PEER’s executive director and who now heads the group’s Pacific field office, headquartered in California, said the concern was that “two sovereigns under one roof is a house divided.”

“If it is true co-management, then any disagreement could lead to utter impasse,” Ruch said.

But Tim Whitehouse, PEER’s executive director since 2019, offered a much different take on the issue, saying the organization welcomes “the Biden administration’s efforts to better engage culturally diverse communities in shaping the direction of conservation and public lands policies.”

“The co-management of parks and public lands with tribes must be part of that discussion, as well as guaranteeing tribes access to their cultural lands,” he said.

Asked to explain his organization’s change of heart, Whitehouse said it was the result of “a much-needed evolution in thinking on these issues.”

I wonder whether commercial uses by Tribes would work on BLM and FS?

As longtime friends, Nez said that he and Haaland “rely on each other’s counsel for a lot of things” and that she now will get a chance to help fix “the wrongs of the past” by advancing co-management plans. He said the idea is gaining in popularity as more Americans — tribal members and non-tribal members alike — seek to be caretakers of the land.

“Look at what’s happening in California, the over-forestation,” he said. “If you would allow people to harvest firewood, that will help in cleaning up, and that way large-scale fires don’t happen. You see, that’s the perspective that Native Americans can bring to the table.”

If allowed to hunt more on public lands, Nez said: “We’re not going to kill all the animals because we as Native Americans believe that you just take what you need at the time, for instance the winter.”

And Nez said that giving tribal members more leeway to collect roots, plants and herbs from more national park sites could also help lead to medical breakthroughs, if tribes are only given the chance.

“Maybe we even have the cure for COVID-19, who knows?” he said.

As for making all this work, Nez said there’s an easy answer: consensus.

“That’s where both sides have to agree on moving into the future,” he said.

“Alternative dispute resolution, as they call it now, for us that’s not alternative,” Nez added. “That’s our original way of resolving issues in our communities. For Navajos, we call it the peacemaking system, where everybody comes in and has a seat at the table to talk things out.”

We’ve Been Adapting to Climate in These Places for 10,000 Years: Learning from Ancient WUI Practices in New Mexico

by
Conceptual map of landscape zones and 27 fire and wood uses for Hemish people.

At a webinar I attended yesterday, one of the speakers worked for Indian Country Today.   He spoke a bit about climate and pointed out that Native people have been adapting to changing climate for 10,000 years. Recently in the scientific literature, we’ve heard much more about traditional burning practices, and what we can learn from Native American practices. Perhaps the selection of Deb Haaland as Interior Secretary could accelerate this trend, especially with scientific research as USGS is in Interior.

Thanks to Rebecca Watson  for the link to this interesting (open-source, yay!) study  by Roos et al.

Policy Implications.

The Jemez ancient WUI obviously contrasts with modern WUI in the American West in ways that make the ancient WUI an imperfect analog for modern conditions. The economic, technological, and political differences are irreconcilable but they do not obviate the relevance of the ancient WUI for modern problems. The cultural contrasts between ancient and modern WUI highlight opportunities to cultivate more resilient communities by supporting particular cultural values. Two of the important characteristics of the Jemez ancient WUI are: 1) That it was a working landscape, in which properties of the fire regime were shaped by wood, land, and fire use that supported the livelihoods of the residents; and 2) that there was much greater acceptance of the positive benefits of fire and smoke. We emphasize that these are malleable cultural features, because reshaping western United States culture by learning from indigenous cultural values may be critical for building adaptive and transformative resilience in modern communities (26, 28, 85, 86). Learning to value the positive benefits of fire and smoke and to tolerate their presence will undoubtedly be critical to WUI fire adaptations. Furthermore, the ancient WUI highlights two key processes that may make modern WUI more resistant to extreme fires: 1) Intensive wood collecting and thinning, particularly in close proximity to settlements; and 2) using many small, patchy fires annually (approximately 100 ha) rather than using larger burn patches (thousands of hectares) to restore fire and reduce fuel hazards, particularly closer to settlements. Many WUI communities—especially rural and Indigenous communities—rely on domestic biomass burning for heat during the winter. Public/private–tribal partnerships to thin small diameter trees and collect downed and dead fuel for domestic use could have dual benefits for the community by meeting energy needs and reducing fuel loads. Tribal communities that have deep histories in a particular forested landscape may be ideal partners for supervising such a program (87). Lessons from the Jemez ancient WUI also suggest that federal and state programs to support prescribed burning by Native American tribes, WUI municipalities, and private land owners would provide equal benefit to modern communities (88). It is imperative that we understand the properties and dynamics of past human–natural systems that offer lessons for contemporary communities (89⇓–91). The Jemez ancient WUI is one of many such settings (72, 92⇓⇓⇓⇓–97) where centuries of sustainable human–fire interaction offer tangible lessons for adapting to wildfire for contemporary communities.