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About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (March 13, 1987)
W.vini simun(;s, om:(;o.N 97761 SPILYAY TYMOO Letter to Swimmer details concerns, objections March 13, 1987 Introduction This memorandum is submitted as a result of the serious concerns of tribes arising as a result of the visit on Feburary 12, 1987. to the Tort In nd Area Office of the Assista nt Secretary to explain to tribes his forestry initiatives and the request by the Assistant Secretary and Area Director for further information. It should be clearly understood that this memorandum was written at a meeting in the Portland Area Office on February 19 and 20. 1987, by various tribal representa tives called together by the Area Director with the assistance of the Intertribal Timber Council. The individuals present were representing Iribos who arc members of the Intertribal l imber Council, an orga nization composed of many timber producing tribes. During your testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs on February 20, 1987, you referred to the formation of a "task force" to advise you on these matters. We are not such a task force and do not desire to participate in such a task force. You may use these materials if you choose in conjunction with your task force. This memorandum is not an official position or statement of the Intertribal Timber Council or indi vidual Indian Tribes. Nor should this communication in any way be construed as Interior's consultation with Indian tribes. Tribal representa tives at the February 12 meeting were seriously concerned that their opinions regarding the forestry initia tives fell on deaf ears. This memoran dum is intended to give the Assistant Secretary a more detailed position with regard to tribal objections to his proposals. Because of the upcoming appro priation hearings, there has simply not been enough time allocated for effective consultation with affected tribes and it was not possible to form a group that was able to take an official position for an Indian tribe or the Intertribal Timber Council as the Assistant Secretary has requested on February 12, 1987. This memorandum is merely infor mation submitted by a group of interested persons to make clear the opposition to his proposals. This group will forward this infor mation to affected Indian tribes and the governing body of ITC so that they may develop their indi- viauai positions. The Indian Forest Resource Indian forests are important to many Indian tribes and the com munities surrounding their reser vations far beyond a mere descrip tion of the number of acres involved and the annual allowable cut. For many reservations (approximately 25) timber is the primary natural resource and source of income. The tribe's economy, system of government, and continued exist ence absolutely depends upon proper management of the forest. For many other reservations (approximately 90) the forest resource is not the primary natural resource on the reservation but is very significant and any major changes in the BI A forestry programs would still have a devastating impact on the reser vation and the tribe. Apart from purely monetary considerations, the history, the culture, and the roots of the Indian people are tied to these forests. Many tribes have lost their arable lands through the allot ment process and through opening reservations to homesteading. This loss of millions of acres of Indian lands from the 1890s through the 1920s is viewed by both Indians and non-Indians as a national trage dy. Current BIA initiatives may well have the same impact when it comes to Indian forest lands. These Bureau forestry initiatives also strike at the heart of the trust SpSfl jay $pilynav Tymoo .Staff MANAGING EDITOR Sid Miller ASSISTANT EDITOR Donna Behrend PHOTO SPECIALISTWRITER Marsha Shewczyk REPORTERPHOTOGRAPHER Pal Leno-Baker TYPESETTERCIRCULATION Priscilla Squiemphen FOUNDED IN MARCH OF 1976 Spilyay Tymoo is published by-weekly by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Offices are located in the basement of the Old Girls Dorm, at 1 1 1 5 Wasco Street. Any written materials to Spilyay Tymoo should be addressed to: Spilyay Tymoo, P.O. BOX 870, Warm Springs, Oregon 97761 Phone: 553-1644 or 553-1161, darkroom can be reached at 553 - Subscription rate: Within the U.S. Outside U.S. responsibility of the United States . Government, l egal title to these approximately 14.000,000 acres of forest and wood lands is held by the United States in trust for Indian tribes and individual Indians. This administration appears to be mak ing a concerted attempt through the budgeting procedure, and the contracting process, to alter the nature of the trust responsibility as it has developed over the past two centuries. The relationship of the tribes and the federal government will continue to evolve as it has since Chief Justice Marshall speaking for the U.S. Supreme Court first described it in 1832. Tribes are committed to seeing that the direc tion and evolution of the trust responsibility will benefit both the tribes and the federal government. The drastic turn in this evolution evidenced by the Forestry initiative proposals benefits neither the tribes nor the Federal Government. These proposals will devastate tribal and local economics, alter the basic Federaltribal trust relationship,'? impair the ability of manytribesto j prosper and become self-sufficient, and in the long run increase the cost to the Federal Government. It I should be remembered that most j of the income derived by tribes from their forests is used by tribes 10 to fund essential tribal governmen tal functions and services, includ ing protection of treaty rights, police protection, tribal courts, housing, health services, education, and gene ral tribal welfare. The following sets forth this group's analysis of each of the pro posed Forestry initiatives: $7.5 million decrease in timber sales administration funds First, it is important to realize that current levels of Bureau fund ing of timber sales administration are inadequate to properly manage timber sales. For example, Bureau inability to fund environmental assessments and archaeological stu dies have seriously delayed timber sales. A prudent trustee should not be requesting cuts in this area, but rather should be seeking increases. The budget reduction will have two primary effects. First, less timber will be cut each yeai. Personnel will simply not be available to pre pare sales for contracting. Second, the decrease in funding will mean that the timber sales that are completed will not be adminis tered as well and will result in irreparable damage to the forests. Even now the lack of personnel has resulted in an insufficient monitor ing of timber sales. Budget cuts in forestry will result in multiplied adverse economic im pacts for the reservation and sur rounding communities. Many com munities in and surrounding Indian reservations are highly dependent upon the harvest of the full allowa ble cut on the reservation. Finally, it is important to remem ber that Indian forests like national forests have many important non cash flow returns. These non-cash flow returns may be severely impacted by the cut in timber sales administration funds. Forests are important to Indian people for a host of non-commercial reasons including religious use, hunting, fishing, root digging, berry-picking, recreational, and spiritual use. Each of the these uses is dependent on the proper management of the forests for their continued use. For many reservations the forest is the main source of Indian employment. Non profit motives provide important direction for the management and development of Indian forests. Administrative Fees The Bureau proposes to use admi nistrative fees to offset a portion of the reduction in timber sales admini- Tymm ext. 274, 285 1161, ext. 286 or 321. The $5.00 per year $12.00 per year 1 K V I it. " f ' ivwillg l miliiaim Ul lilt llll)iut.ll , I 7 " ' v. v y' s on four specific reservations. ' iv'hl; '"''' 'V V First, the Colville Tribe prcs- rVr" f I r r ' J " , Vv w'S - en,Iy ha about 731.000 acres of :v it V" , - ' ii'f 1 commercial forest lands. They have " TW.1 I - . ' v'; tlf! i i V, an annual allowable cut of tVl ''U'' ' M V 7 U !j 1 20.000.000 board feet. 80.000 acres . 1 IBS V 1 Ik I f 1 nf nndrrnrnlrrtivr Inrest nnrf ,lf A. '4 ' 7'' J. t I v '. . i ! ' , i Funding for forestry training programs could be cut or eliminated should S wimmer's proposals receive approval. stration funds. This proposal fails to recognie the carefully developed practice that currently exists with regard to these fees. This move invites litigation. The current prac tices have their roots in the early 1970s when the issue of Bureau's mismanagement of Indian forests loomed on the horion. Litigation was both filed and threatened. To head off litigation and to remedy some of the mismanagement prac tices the Bureau agreed to apply the administrative fees that it had been collecting to activities intended to improve the management of Indian forests. Tribes were a part of this cooperative effort through their matching contributions to Indian forest management. The current Bureau initiative seeks to dissolve the cooperative rela tionship that has developed over the past 15 years. In doing so the Bureau should realize that they are inviting the litigation that the pol icy was included to avert. Tribes seek cooperation, not con frontation. Congress, through the enactment of the Indian Self-Deter-mination Act, and in its appropria tions over the past 15 years have certainly fostered this cooperative relationship and it has resulted in marked improvement in Indian forest management. These proposals mark an about face in that effort. $3.15 million reduction in special forest development program The proposed budget reduction of $3. 1 5 million out of the special Forest Development program is a classic example of being "penny wise and dollar foolish." The Bureau's own analysis shows that this "savings" will have the follow ing effects: 1) The time to complete the forest development backlog will be extended by an additional 4.9 years from the current projected date of 1995 to a new projected date of the year 2000. (It should be noted that the Bureau has yet to meet its pro jection dates.) 2) A schedule of treatment at the reduced funding level indicates a loss of 2.4 years of growth that will never be recovered. 3) Conservative stumpage value loss ranges, not even taking into account the effect of inflation, indi cate a loss of between $8.1 million and $13 million. 4) There will be a loss of between 1,207 and 1,931 man-years of employ ment and an estimated personal income loss ranging from $25.1 million and $40.2 million based upon standard Forest Service cal culations for economic impact. 5) There will be an undetermined loss due to attack from insect and disease in overstocked stands. 6) There will be an undetermined loss in forage production. The losses become even more staggering when viewing the impact on the individual reservations. For example, on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation where funding levels for this program have ranged from an inadequate level of $300,000 to $600,000 per year, the projected cut will result in an annual decrease of revenues to the Tribes of approxi mately $5,000,000. The situation is similar at the Colville Reservation w hich now has a backlog of 80,000 acres. Implementation of this initi ative will decrease income on the Colville Reservation by approxi mately $5,000,000 per year. $700,000 reduction in area office forestry funding Area Office forestry operations are critical to Bureau Tribal timber f i y i a i v;, " "V, " --- management programs. They pro vide close-by technical services for day-to-day management activities for tribes. They are particularly important for those tribes with smaller timber resources that can not justify large on-site staffs. This reduction is particularly insuppor table in light of the proposal to increase Central Office funding. Forestry Privatization Initiative The Assistant Secretary's fore stry privatization initiative and the means by which the Assistant Secre tary seeks to develop and imple ment it can only be discharged as outrageous. It is an apparent attempt to begin dismantling the Bureau of Indian Affairs and changing the basic relationship between the fed eral government and Indian tribes. This proposal, on its face, is objec tionable for a variety of reasons. First, the Bureau is in essence attemp ting to contract out. unilaterally, one of its trust responsibilities. There are serious legal questions about whether or not this can be done. Despite requests by tribes for legal opinions from the Solicitor on this subject, no such opinions have been provided. While privati zation of government functions is taking place in other areas, the situation is very different with many Bureau functions because they are required by the trust respon sibility of the United States. These functions cannot just be handed off to private concerns. Second, the whole privatization concept flies in the face of self determination. Under the the Indian Self-Determination Act the tribes and the federal government jointly decide which function it is approp riate for tribes to take over. Under lying this process is the concept of government-to-government relation ships in which responsible political entities deliberate regarding the wel fare of their people. To the extent that the trust rela tionship has been modified and is evolving, it has clearly been the policy established by Congress that the changes will be the result of consensual agreements between the tribal governments and the federal government. This is a lengthy pro cess for each tribe that must be carefully developed depending upon special situation on each reserva tion. The Bureau, in developing and monitoring these consensual arrange ments, provides an important sta bilizing factor that simply could not be provided by private indus try. The privatization policy is a unilateral attempt by the Assistant Secretary to change the relation ship over the objection of Indian tribes. Congress, not the Executive Branch, defines the trust relationship. Third, the concept of private management of Indian forests is at odds with the basic nature of Indian forests. The goals of Indian tribes in managing their forests are quite different from those of Boise Cas cade or Weyerhauser. Indian forests are managed on a multiple-use concept similar to that used by the U.S. Forest Service. The motive of private management is profits. Indian forests have far greater importance to the tribes than just profit. They must be managed on a sustained yield basis to provide for long range planning and a stable source of revenues to fund tribal governmental operations. The oppor tunity for the development of con flicts of interests between private forest managers and Indian tribes are obvious. Indian tribes now com pete directly in many cases with those private managers. The con cept of fiduciary duty does not allow for these conflicts. Impacts of proposed forestry Initi atives on individual reservations These forestry initiatives will tran slate into specific severe impacts on many Indian reservations. Ihefol- lopment. Tribal timber sales generate 95 percent of the Colville Tribal income and when combined with State and Federal contracts and grants, this income represents 45 percent of the total tribal budget. More than 800 reservation jobs are directly derived from their forest resource. Under the current budget, ten percent administrative fee is directed back into the Colville forest and accounts for 33 percent of their total program budget. In addition to Bureau funds, the Colville Tribes spends $1,200,000 each year for slash treatment, site preparation, and road construction. Addition ally, the Tribes fund efforts to meet environmental constraints and nu merous other factors related to the management of the forest. The proposed forestry initiative will have 'the following estimated effects on the Colville Reservation. 1. 360 primary jobs and 600 secondary jobs would be lost. 2. The unemployment rate for the tribes will rise from the present 46 percent to a disasterous 66 percent. 3. The total payroll loss to the Tribes will be $14.5 million per year. 4. Perhaps most seriously, will be the impact on the overall func tioning of the Colville Tribal govern ment. These proposals will have the effect of reducing the total budget from 40 to 60 percent. The primary effect of this reduction will be the devastation of the Tribe's core management system, includ ing funding for the following: Executive Director, accounting, per sonnel, enrollment, housing, aud its, insurance, solid waste, donated foods, senior wood supply, and burial and fire grants. The reduc tion in these core management sys tems would necessarily cause the Tribe to be out of compliance for our federal and state grants and contracts. The dismantling of the Colville's core management system and budget reductions would then either cause the elimination or curtailment of the following essential governmen tal services provided by the Tribes: tribal court, tribal prosecutor, parole and probation, reservation attor ney, legal aids, Colville Tribal Enter prise Corporation, law and order program, fish and game program, planning department, education de partment, Headstart program, tri bal libraries, and child weltare. The loss of these programs will have to be borne necessarily by either fed eral or state programs. 5. The budgetary and financial impacts of the proposed forestry initiatives would require the Tribes to quickly exhaust their reserves and curtail programs. It is pro jected that these initiatives would bankrupt the Tribe within a period of three years. At the Makah Reservation the . impact on the Tribal budget is severe, but even more acute impacts may be felt in the off-reservation economy. It is estimated that the proposed forestry initiatives will result in a reduction in havested timber of 8,700,000 board feet each year (58 percent reduction). Stum page payments used to fund tribal governmental operations will be reduced by 23 percent. Approxi mately 50 on-reservation jobs will be lost accounting for approximately $1,000,000 in salaries. Because the "' Ft .j mz ,1 1 -j. r 4 it J Reduction in annual harvest on the 20 million board feet. i Iaiiiiha ii an iiiDliKif Aflksi mini. n J currently backloggcd for forest deve- "ll'lftl "w1 timber is processed off the reserva tion, the impact in the surrounding community will be the loss of 1 10 jobs with total salaries of $2,000,000. The Warm Springs Tribes, who manufacture their own timber, will have an estimated reduction in their annual harvest of about 20,000,000 board feet. The estimated reduction of revenues to fund govern mental operations as a result of the forestry initiatives will be approx imately $5,000,000 per year. The Warm Springs tribes estimate that 150 jobs will be lost on the reserva tion with a total salary of $3,000,000. Many of these jobs are those of non-Indians living near the reser vation. The Tribes are the largest employer in the northern central Oregon area. For the Navajo Tribes, the esti mated decrease in the annual harv est would be 13,000,000 board feet. The impacts on the reservation would be particularly severe at Navajo because the effects are con centrated on the reservation because the reservation is large and self contained. Tribal economic output would decrease by an estimated $29,000,000 annually resulting in the loss of 318 jobs with an esti mated salary of $ 1 1 ,000,000. Conclusion These Indian forestry initiatives, when considered in conjunction with initiatives relating to the trans fer of educational responsibilities, tribal trust funds management respon sibilities, and other bureau initia tives, constitute the greatest threat to tribal existence since the termi nation acts of the 1950s. It appears to be a determined, well planned effort to dismantle the Bureau of Indian Affairs and alter the basic trust relationship between the fed eral government and the Indian tribes. The proposals are ill advised and should be immediately with drawn by the Assistant Secretary. "Privatization" and its ilk have been tried by the Bureau previously under different names. Most recently, during the termination era we saw similar attempts by the Bureau to escape its responsibilities under the trust relationship. Similar arguments were made that "this is good for the Indians," "other agencies or con cerns are better able to manage these resources than the Bureau," "these actions are in the best long term interests of Indians. "The results at Klamath, Menominee, and a host of other reservations were dis asterous. It is ultimately the land base of Indian tribes that provide them with a physical and spiritual base for their continued existence as Indian tribes. These initiatives threaten the very foundation of that land base for over 100 years. Finally, we are very concerned with the arrogance that has been shown in developing and imple menting these proposals. They appear to be an attempt to implement many of the misguided proposals, that have generally been rejected by Indian country, that were con tained in the report and recom mendations of the Presidential Com mission on Indian Reservation Economies in 1984. The Assistant Secretary, who chaired that Com mission, appears to be going even beyond radical changes proposed by that Commission. A good example is the current proposal of the Assistant Secretary to "privatize" management of tribal trust funds by transferring the Bureau's respon sibility for that function to the Mel lon Bank. The Assistant Secretary is proceeding with this proposal despite the objections of Indian tribes. This is despite the Presiden tial Commission recommendation that this step only be taken "with tribal concurrence." The policy of tribal concurrence as recognized by the Indian Self-determination Act no longer appears to be a part of the Assistant Secretary's program. 4' t j. - - -. Warm Springs Reservation may total r. ,! X