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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (July 1, 1989)
Smoke Signals July 1989 . Page 12 1 .. if',, - : Jib Mm - &tn, fffriiiiiir Tribal members Tara Leno, Jolene Poole and Molly Reimez participate in the Phil Sheridan Days Parade in June. RESERVATION TRIP A trip through the reservation is being planned for our elders on July 14, 1989. Cliff Adams will be taking us through, and showing us the boundaries. We would like for each of you planning to go to plan on taking a picnic lunch. The vans will be leaving the Tribal office at 10:30 a.m.. It is very important that you let us know in plenty of time as to whether you are going or not, because we need to rent the vans about 10 days before the trip. Please call Joann at 879-5211 if you are planning on going. BIA OPPOSES NEW ACKNOWLEDGEMENT BILL FOR INDIAN TRIBES The Bureau of Indian Affairs is opposed to legisla tion that would reform the process for extending federal acknowledgement to petitioning Indian tribes. In testimony May 5 before the Senate Select Com mittee on Indian Affairs, Hazel Elbert, a spokeswoman for the BIA, said the bill, S. 611, weakens the criteria for acknowledging groups as tribes and could lead to the establishment of tribal status for groups that are not Indian tribes. ' The bill, introduced by Senate Select Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, would replace the BIA's Branch of Acknowledgement and Research with an office within the Interior Department to be headed by a director appointed by the President for a six-year term. Indian groups petitioning for tribal recognition on the basis of prior tribal acknowledgement by treaty, executive order or statue would not have to provide as much documentation as Indian tribes whose petitions are not based on prior legal recognition. Inouye's bill would also provide an appeals process. Currently, the head of the BIA makes the final determi nation on petitions for acknowledgement. Courtesy of the American Indian Report IdcstroyandcrusKlveihkgtakea:!; TIMBER GROUP SAYS 20,000 JOBS COULD BE LOST TO SPOTTED OWL IN THE NORTHWEST A timber industry group predicted that more than 20,000 Oregon workers could lose their jobs over the next four years if most Northwest old-growth forests remain off-limits to logging. The Northwest Forest Resource Council announced the conclusions of the study in an attempt to predict how timber supplies, jobs, income and tax revenue would be affected if federal judges continue existing court orders that bar logging in Washington and Oregon forestes where the northern spotted owl makes its home. It also projects the economic impact if sales already under contract are cancelled - a possibility if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lists the owl as a threatened species. "We have been telling people throughout the Pacific Northwest about these job losses for more than a year," Bob Spcnce, the council's chairman, said in a prepared statement. "Here is an independent economic ananlysis that confirms substantial job losses if these lawsuits continue." For Oregon, the study predicts a loss of 8,500 direct forest products jobs in 1989; about 12,650 jobs by 1990; and more than 20,000 jobs by 1991 if court orders blocking old-growth sales remain in effect. For Washington, it predicts the job loss would be more modest, peaking at 4,500 in 1991. The hardest-hit areas, according to the study, would be timber-dependent communities in Western and South west Oregon. In southwestern Oregon, for example, it predicts total job losses due to wilhdrawl of old-growth timber could climb to 5.4 percent of the work force by 1991. Last week environmentalists released their own study saying the economic impact of withdrawing spotted owl habitat from logging would not be as severe as the industry has claimed. The environmentalists' study, released by the Oregon Natual Resources Council, said more than 60 percent of the commercially productive U.S. Forest Service forests in Western Oregon would remain for logging - even if as much owl habitat as environmentalists want is set aside. State Economist Ann Hanus said the timber industry group's job loss predictions were in line with her May 15 estimate that U.S. Forest Service sales presently blocked by a court order cost 10,000 to 15,000 jobs over the next four years. "What we don't know yet is whether the judge will extend that restraining order to cover all sales in spotted owl forests this year," Hanus said. 'The difficulty is that there's so much uncertainty surrounding this and so many scenarios that could take place, it's difficult to say this is the definitive scenario and this is what will happen," she said. "The problem is, it's making for a very precarious situation for the industry." The latest projections differ sharply from those the council released in April just after U.S. District Judge William L Dwyer blocked most national forest timber sales as a result of a suit challenging the agency's plan for protecting the spotted owl. The council predicted then that 5200 direct and indirect jobs in the Northwest would be affected by summer if th injundons were not lifted. Courtesy of the Oregonian r
