Documentation:Open Case Studies/FRST522/2021/The Klamath Tribes Forest Management Case Study

Background

Klamath River in former Reservation land in Fremont-Winema National Forest.

The Klamath Basin in Oregon is home to the Klamath Tribes, made up of the Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin- Paiute people who are bound together through family and loyalty.  They are known to each other as the mukluks and numu, meaning “the people”.  The Klamath Tribes have lived in the Klamath Basin since “time beyond memory” and their oral history speaks to the life story of the land.  The Klamath Tribes believed that their ancestors were created by Gmok’am’c (the Creator) and the animals, believed, and that the Creator provides all that is necessary for life on this land.  The Klamath have thrived in the Klamath Basin by living in harmony with nature.  Harvests reserved from the abundant summer seasons provided provisions for the winter months until the beginning of spring when the c’waam (fish important to Klamath culture and livelihood) run up the Williamson, Sprague, and Lost Rivers.  The return of the c’waam is still celebrated through a spiritual ceremony.  The land provided the Tribes with all they needed, and in return the Klamath Tribes looked after the land.  The Klamath Tribes described their relationship with the land: “if stability defines success, our presence here has been, and always will be, essential to the well-being of our homeland and those who abide here.” . However, their ability to access and steward their ancestral and then Reservation land has been stolen and impeded on by Euro-American colonizers and then the United States government.

Treaty Relationship

The Treatys Impact on Access and Exclusion

In 1864, the Klamath Tribes signed the Treaty of Klamath Lake, which ceded 15 million acres to the US government.  The remaining 2.8 million acres became the Klamath Tribes Reservation. Between 1864 and 1986, the US federal government, as well as some private landowners, limited Tribal access and increased exclusion to Klamath Tribes’ land. Reservation land was parceled for commercial or infrastructure development, and there was poor management of forests by the commercial logging industry.  In 1901 the Reservation land was reduced by an additional 1.2 million acres due to ‘clerical errors’ in drawing treaty lines.  In 1906 another 87,000 acres was removed from Klamath ownership for road development and private company use.  The Dawes Allotment Act, introduced in 1910, only further fragmented the Reservation. The Dawes Act gave small portions of land to individual Tribal members (Klamath Tribes members received 248,000 acres) however, any surplus land, which was still within the Reservation, was sold to white buyers .         

Natural resources on the Reservation benefited the Tribe through timber sales, ranching, and farming, which facilitated a thriving economy for the Klamath.  They were the second wealthiest Tribe in the nation at the time until Tribal termination in 1986. Their industriousness and knowledge of the land helped them prosper even under the harsh circumstances of Reservation life.  However, the presence of Euro-American colonizers brought with it new foods and technologies, which over time changed traditional social relationships and food gathering practices.  Missionaries and government agencies, such as the Klamath Indian Agency- controlled many aspects of reservation life and strictly limited Klamath cultural practices, movement and use of the land.  They restricted access to hunting and fishing and tried to end the use of fire, because it reduced merchantable timber.  A police force was created to preserve order and prevent fires, creating an increasingly carceral environment on the reservations.  As their access to traditional gathering sites became more limited, the Klamath had to depend on new food and agriculture sources stemming from commercial and government sources, which changed their diets over time.  Industrial forestry and agriculture only displaced traditional gathering sites more.     

Tribal Recognition Removal and Reinstatement

Asymmetric Power and the Importance of Land

To force assimilation of Indigenous people, Congress adopted the Indian Termination Policy in 1954 which ended the treaties between Tribes and the federal government.  This meant that Tribes were no longer legal entities and that their land was now controlled by the U.S. government.  This had a devastating impact on the Klamath Tribes economy and culture .  In 1958 the Termination Policy was amended to allow for the sale of Klamath Reservation land to private buyers, and a remaining 525,000 acres of forest was brought under US Forest Service control.  A portion of the Reservation land was managed by a private trustee for Klamath Tribe members that wished to retain some common ownership of the land. However, a major portion of this forested land became Fremont-Winema National Forest (FWNF). The Weyerhaeuser Corporation and the US Department of Agriculture forest managed much of the former Reservation and supported clearcutting and Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa) monoculture plantations, both of which the Klamath Tribes opposed.  

Fremont-Winema National Forest.

When Tribal recognition was restored in 1986 both traditional Reservation land and the money made from these commercial activities was not returned and remained in federal and local government control.  However, the land managed by the private trustee was returned to the Klamath Tribe as part of the Klamath Indian Tribe Restoration Act and it called for an economic development plan to be constructed.  Later the Tribe would go on to create a Forest Management Plan with the aid of a private consulting agency they hired, and a key aspect to that plan was economic self-sufficiency.    

Prior to the termination policy, the Klamath and U.S. Indian Service created a sustained-yield logging program on Reservation land, which provided $500 million in revenue that was shared with every Tribal member, becoming their main source of income by the 1950’s.  As a result, the Klamath were economically self-sufficient and one of the only Tribes able to pay for federal, state and private services themselves. However, by the 1960s the asymmetric power of forest management and control strictly favored the US government. This coincided with the self-determination movement when Tribes across the US fought to restore their communities and ability to self-govern, renew their cultures that the government sought to erase, control development on reservation land and have an equal voice in federal government policies and programs.

A Place at the Table

The Role of NEPA and Importance of Government-to-Government Consulation

In 1970, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was introduced to help protect and enhance the environment by requiring federal entities to submit environmental impact statements and assessments prior to proposed development that might significantly impact the environment or violate treaty rights.  The NEPA also included an appeals process for the public to voice concerns about proposed development.  This process was used by the Klamath Tribes for up to 10 years, because much of their former reservation land was within Fremont-Winema National Forest (managed by the US Forest Service) and therefore subject to NEPA.  The appeals process allowed for the Klamath Tribes to provide their input on timber harvesting, timber sales and its impact on important biodiversity of their former Reservation.  The Klamath argued that certain timber sales would violate subsistence treaty rights that allowed for the Klamath to sustain livelihood resources and culturally significant practices in the area as well as, negatively impact the overall health of the ecosystem.  Upon restoration of federal recognition of the Klamath treaty, the Klamath felt they should have a greater voice in forest management and planning prior to the NEPA appeals process, which was an avenue meant for the public.  Since they were now federally recognized they should be able to participate as a formal, sovereign group and included in meaningful government-to-government consultation.  Before and prior to federal recognition in 1986, the US Forest Service would listen to the concerns of the Klamath but fell short of implementing any of their knowledge and complaints.  The Forest Service was reluctant to include the Klamath in the planning process prior to NEPA appeals, but overtime and through persistent hard work from the Klamath (constantly filing appeals claims regarding development impact on important biodiversity health, fishing rights and old growth stands, and pushing for a greater voice in the process) they signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Forest Service in 1999. This memorandum formally placed in writing a framework for meaningful government-to-government consultation as well as an explanation of each parties rights and duties surrounding forest management and development. It clarified that the Forest Service had an obligation to protect subsistence treaty rights and acknowledge the Klamath’s sovereign status (Bilka, 2008).

Formal and Informal Agreements

The Role of Private Consulting Agencies and Western Foresters

Following the signing of the MOA the Klamath Tribes Natural Resource Department, reinstated following Tribal recognition, commissioned a private consulting agency Interforest LLC to help in creating a sustainability strategy for Reservation forests, many of which were in the Fremont-Winema National Forest.  The framework for this strategy was constructed through a Tribal survey and focus groups, and together with Interforest LLC they created a tribal vision:

Mule Deer are an important species to the Klamath Tribes for both subsistance and cultural values.

“…The Klamath [Reservatin] Forest will move towards higher wildlife and fish populations, larger areas with a higher proportion of older trees, restoration of mule deer, fish and other habitat, and will move away from practices such as clearcutting and the maintenance of high road densities.  More of the forest, in time, will visually resemble the largesly remembered forests dominated by large pines with a variety of pine age classes of each acre, and an abundance of bitterbrush and other important browse species. More careful attention will be given to the maintenance of species of medicinal and spiritual important to the Tribes.”

Through this participatory process the Klamath identified three pathways to achieving their tribal vision: restoration of the forest and environment, protection of key species and continuing on their current trajectory of forest management with their values and benefit at the forefront.  Restoration was the preferred pathway, because it was seen to achieve their goals more rapidly for a future forest with diverse biodiversity of animals, plants and trees important to the substance and spiritual needs of the Klamath Tribes.  Restoration, through a community-based forestry approach, also provided an avenue for realizing the Klamath goals of restoring community vitality, gaining economic self-sufficiency and preserving cultural identity.  Then in 2001, the Klamath Tribe and Interforest LLC partnered with preeminent foresters from the Pacific Northwest to construct a forest management plan for restoration of 670,000 acres of forest to “move as much of the forest as possible toward a structurally complex Ponderosa and mixed-conifer dominated forest as rapidly as possible.”.  Through this partnership, they identified use of historical forest composition information, plant associations to classify forest site potentials, past harvests impact on stand structure, and fuel treatments as necessary principles to enacting restoration. This management plan also expressed the Klamath Tribes willingness to integrate western science with their Indigenous and traditional knowledge.  

The Role of the U.S. Government

Planning and implementation of forest management practices, as guided by NEPA and the MOA, now included the Klamath Tribes as a more prominent actor.  With this new role the Klamath are able to integrate their values into the management of the forests, detailed within their forest management plan. Integration of the Klamath management plan in the early 2000s coincided with a changing of philosophy for the Forest Service.  They were opening up to a more inclusive model of forest planning, which included increased Tribal participations and collaboration.  Also, areas of Klamath Reservation Forest within Fremont-Winema were identified by the Forest Service as a ‘high priority’ restoration site, therefore it was within both groups interests to collaborate and share resources in order to best protect the forest.    

This ‘new’ relationship of collaboration between the Klamath Tribes Natural Resource Department and the Forest Service posed challenged as well.  First was an epistemological difference in their planning process, the Klamath worked from a knowledge base that was deeply rooted in living on the land for centuries while the Forest Service favored stricter analysis and documentation.  However, this challenge has not harshly curtailed their ability to work together in the planning process.  The Klamath Natural Resource Department sends in proposals containing their enriched Tribal knowledge and field work observations and analysis that is then integrated into the Forest Service’s more formal documentation. Second is the challenge in understanding what aspects of the Forest Service bureaucracy may need to change to properly reflect the framework written within the MOA.  The MOA writes out formal steps that must be taken when collaborating with the Klamath, but the two parties have found that some of their most important strides taken in collaborating on management happens in the day-to-day interactions they share, rather than in the formal steps laid out by the MOA.  The formal MOA provides a framework that ensures Tribal involvement, which is important considering a history of exclusion by the Forest Service.  However, the informal day-to-day interactions are reflective of the realities of this partnership.  Lastly, the MOA states that the Klamath should be provided government-to-government consultation and a role in planning and management, but as their Tribal capacity for management grows the relationship changes.  What the Klamath Natural Resource Department was able to do upon signing the MOA in 1999 differs years later after concentrated efforts to build capacity and increase trained Tribal personal.  The two parties must continue to work together to ensure the Klamath are given proper roles fitting of their desires and capabilities.  Important to note is that while there is government-to-government collaboration, the Tribe is still beholden to laws and regulations set out by the government, therefore the power is still asymmetric.

Tribal Forest Protection Act (TFPA)

In 2004, the Tribal Forest Protection Act (TFPA) created another link between the US government and the Klamath Tribes regarding forest management, “the TFPA authorizes the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to give special consideration to Tribally-proposed projects on agency lands bordering or adjacent to Indian Trust Land.”. This act came after a fire in 2003 that hugely impacted both federal and Tribal forests.  The Klamath have been working to buy back parcels (Mazama Tree Farm) of their trust land, and if successful the land will meet these special requirements, they will be within their rights to invoke the TFPA.  While this purchase has not yet happened at the time of this publication, the Klamath have still been able to work in collaboration with the US Forest Service, non-profits, and universities to restore land, increase Tribal management and planning capacity, secure greater food security and revitalize cultural and spiritual connections to the land.

Social Networks and Participatory Engagement

The Role of Non-Profits

In March of 2011, the Klamath Tribes partnered with two non-profits the Lomakatsi Restoration Project (LRP) and the Nature Conservancy (TNC) to form the Klamath Tribal Ecosystem Restoration Partnership Initiative.  The LRP has a history of facilitating conversation and relationship building geared towards to goal of restoring ecosystems, and sustaining communities, culture, and economies. Much of their prior work has been in creating and implementing stewardship and participation agreements between Tribes and government bodies. The TNC has over 60 years of experience in supporting private and public landowners with expertise and resources to protect and restore their land. The partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), a formal document indicating the willingness of all participants to collaborate towards a shared goal, to increase Tribal capacity building within the scope of forest management and planning.  This MOU outlined goals for training and employing Tribal members in ecosystem restoration work, working together to create restoration programs on private and federal land, and raising money to fund these initiatives.

Collaborative Network Between the Klamath Tribes, Non-profits and the U.S. Government

The MOU goals were finalized later in 2011 when the partners signed on to a Master Stewardship Agreement (MSA) along with the US Forest Service and Fremont-Winema National Forest. An MSA is a legally binding agreement between actors on the land (in this case the Klamath Tribes and their partners) and a government department (USFS and FWNF) that documents the collaborative initiatives of restoration.  The MSA also includes a statement of the mutual benefits and interest of the participants, the planned actions of each partner and government department, and standards to clarify what the agreement entails.  Within an MSA there can be supplemental provisions in the form of Stewardship Supplemental Project Agreements (SPA), which outline specific projects on land within the MSA boundaries but not in its entirety.   This MSA provided a framework for a 10-year restoration plan of 1.7 million acres in FWNF, of which 1.1 million acres are situated on former Reservation land.  The goals of this agreement were as such, “to treat unhealthy forest conditions and habitats in an effort to restore diversity, resiliency, sustainability and overall landscape health.”.  Key aspects to the MSA include: “restore forest structure and diversity to enhance wildlife habitat, enhance aquatic systems, and reduce the risk of un-naturally severe fire, produce sustainable jobs that support a tribal restoration workforce, conduct scientific monitoring of restoration projects, generally, build tribal capacity to engage in long-term ecological restoration, and economic development, and build strategic partnerships and support with other tribes, agencies, organizations and industry.”.  In 2012 a Master Participant Agreement (MPA), similar to an MSA, was entered by the Klamath Tribes and FWNF to further develop and train Tribal members in restoration through field experience. 5 SPAs were implemented over 40,837 acres of FWNF which included training in restoration design, unit layout, tree marking and thinning.  The LRP facilitated the training of 45 Tribal members in these restoration activities.  Training and employment of Tribal members involved mentorship and shadowing programs, employment in restoration under the MOU, both of which aid in supporting job stability for the Klamath Tribes.  Another SPA was geared towards timber contracts (Quicksilver Inc., Wampler Inc., and Murphy Co.), which generated a net value of $3.63 million and $1.1 went back into the program expenses.

Sycan Marsh Preserve.

The Indigenous Peoples Burning Network (IPBN)

In 2020, the Klamath Tribes joined the Indigenous Peoples Burning Network (IPBN), a non-profit that has worked in the south-central Oregon region to support Tribal goals of fire management.  The IPBN works with FWNF, TNC and Sycan Marsh Preserve along with Tribes in the region to create collaborative forest restorations programs that integrates both Indigenous and traditional knowledge, and western scientific practices. Members of this team include Don Gentry (Tribal Chairman of the Klamath Tribes), Craig Beinz (Sycan Marsh Director and member of TNC) who worked as the Klamath’s Natural Resource Director for 20 years, Steven Rondeau (current Natural Resource Director), Judd Lehman (District Ranger for FWNF), Katie Sauerbrey (Sycan March Preserve Manager and TNC Burn Boss) and Wauseka Brown (Lead Forestry Technician for the Klamath Tribes). Between these actors, cultural and spiritual values of the forest and the knowledge of fuel suppression become actions, not just suggestions. There is an understanding between the network of how colonization impacts cross sectoral relationships and that trust built over years of positive collaboration is essential. When assessing a possible burn site Klamath Tribe Natural Resource Department staff can identify which plants, trees and animal habitats should be protected for subsistence or cultural value.  They are also able to bring historical references of past burns and their impacts on the land, to inform current projects. Future efforts seek to increase Klamath Tribal knowledge and cultural revitalization through connection to the land and management of important species.  These efforts will continue to be informed through a collaboration of western and Indigenous knowledge and used to protect the common land they all care for.  

Management Data Reflects Management Goals (fuel treatment)

Klamath Tribe member looking after low-intesity prescribed burn.

One of the first tests of these new partnerships was just this past summer in mid-July when the “Bootleg fire” tore through part of FWNF and up to Sycan Marsh Preserve.  Flames reached 150 feet in heigh (taller than the highest trees in FWNF) and burned over 413,000 acres and destroying 200 homes.  The Bootleg fire was one of 107 devasting wildfires at the time that cumulatively burnt 2.1 million acres across 14 different states.  This was a chance for the IPBN to see if their low intensity prescribed burns made a difference when the larger fires started. Certain portions of land burned by the Bootleg fire had been previously treated, and initial assessments showed that the efforts of IPBN and their partners had helped to reduce the severity of the fire.  Land previously treated did not burn as high or as intensely as land not treated, where 200–400-year-old pines were completely burned from top to bottom and the soil made uninhabitable. Hopefully, the success of Tribal knowledge and prescribed burns, as demonstrated during the Bootleg Fire, will fuel more pathways for Klamath Tribes engagement in forest management and planning in the years to come.