American Indians And National Forests

American Indians and National Forests tells the story of how the U.S. Forest Service and tribal nations dealt with sweeping changes in forest use, ownership, and management over the last century and a half. Indians and U.S. foresters came together over a shared conservation ethic on many cooperative endeavors; yet, they often clashed over how the nation’s forests ought to be valued and cared for on matters ranging from huckleberry picking and vision quests to road building and recreation development. Marginalized in American society and long denied a seat at the table of public land stewardship, American Indian tribes have at last taken their rightful place and are making themselves heard. Weighing indigenous perspectives on the environment is an emerging trend in public land management in the United States and around the world. The Forest Service has been a strong partner in that movement over the past quarter century.

Publisher Description

Forests for the People tells one of the most extraordinary stories of environmental protection in our nation’s history: how a diverse coalition of citizens, organizations, and business and political leaders worked to create a system of national forests in the Eastern United States. It offers an insightful and wide-ranging look at the actions leading to the passage of the Weeks Act in 1911—landmark legislation that established a system of well-managed forests in the East, the South, and the Great Lakes region—along with case studies that consider some of the key challenges facing eastern forests today. The book begins by looking at destructive practices widely used by the timber industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s, including extensive clearcutting followed by forest fire that devastated entire landscapes. The authors explain how this led to the birth of a new conservation movement that began simultaneously in the Southern Appalachians and New England, and describe the subsequent protection of forests in New England (New Hampshire and the White Mountains); the Great Lakes region (Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota), and the Southern Appalachians. Following this historical background, the authors offer eight case studies that examine critical issues facing the eastern national forests today, including timber harvesting, the use of fire, wilderness protection, endangered wildlife, oil shale drilling, invasive species, and development surrounding national park borders. Forests for the People is the only book to fully describe the history of the Weeks Act and the creation of the eastern national forests and to use case studies to illustrate current management issues facing these treasured landscapes. It is an important new work for anyone interested in the past or future of forests and forestry in the United States.

A common stereotype about American Indians is that for centuries they lived in static harmony with nature, in a pristine wilderness that remained unchanged until European colonization. Omer C. Stewart was one of the first anthropologists to recognize that Native Americans made significant impact across a wide range of environments. Most important, they regularly used fire to manage plant communities and associated animal species through varied and localized habitat burning. In Forgotten Fires, editors Henry T. Lewis and M. Kat Anderson present Stewart's original research and insights, written in the 1950s yet still provocative today. Significant portions of Stewart's text have not been available until now, and Lewis and Anderson set Stewart's findings in the context of current knowledge about Native hunter-gatherers and their uses of fire.

Sustainable forest management (SFM) has become a prominent goal of current forest management approaches within the Unites [sic] States. A growing body of literature offers support for incorporating traditional and local knowledge (TEK) with current SFM methods in an effort to improve management planning and policies. By seeking Native American perspectives and incorporating traditional knowledge into current forest management methods, U.S. forest managers have the potential to increase their understanding of relationships between human, non-human, and the physical environment, thereby increasing their ability to manage our nation’s forests more effectively for all stakeholders involved. Using the qualitative data obtained from in-depth interviews and focus groups conducted with two Native American communities, this study examines the absent perspectives of Native American voices in the dialogue on sustainable forest management. This study argues that bringing in Native American viewpoints into sustainable forest management will add key missing perspectives to the national and global discussion. Results suggest that the abilities to maintain and manage natural resources are central to the survival of Native American communities, their spiritual beliefs, and their cultural practices, and that the human element in ecosystem functions is an essential factor in sustainable forest management from a Native American perspective.

Though not as well known as the U.S. military campaigns against the Apache, the ethnic warfare conducted against indigenous people of the Colorado River basin was equally devastating. In less than twenty-five years after first encountering Anglos, the Hualapais had lost more than half their population and nearly all their land and found themselves consigned to a reservation. This book focuses on the historical construction of the Hualapai Nation in the face of modern American colonialism. Drawing on archival research, interviews, and participant observation, Jeffrey Shepherd describes how thirteen bands of extended families known as The Pai confronted American colonialism and in the process recast themselves as a modern Indigenous nation. Shepherd shows that Hualapai nation-building was a complex process shaped by band identities, competing visions of the past, creative reactions to modernity, and resistance to state power. He analyzes how the Hualapais transformed an externally imposed tribal identity through nationalist discourses of protecting aboriginal territory; and he examines how that discourse strengthened the HualapaisÕ claim to land and water while simultaneously reifying a politicized version of their own history. Along the way, he sheds new light on familiar topicsÑIndianÐwhite conflict, the creation of tribal government, wage labor, federal policy, and Native activismÑby applying theories of race, space, historical memory, and decolonization. Drawing on recent work in American Indian history and Native American studies, Shepherd shows how the Hualapai have strived to reclaim a distinct identity and culture in the face of ongoing colonialism. We Are an Indian Nation is grounded in Hualapai voices and agendas while simultaneously situating their history in the larger tapestry of Native peoplesÕ confrontations with colonialism and modernity.

This paper synthesizes the existing literature about traditional and local ecological knowledge relating to biodiversity in Pacific Northwest forests in order to assess what is needed to apply this knowledge to forest biodiversity conservation efforts. We address four topics: (1) views and values people have relating to biodiversity, (2) the resource use and management practices of local forest users and their effects on biodiversity, (3) methods and models for integrating traditional and local ecological knowledge into biodiversity conservation on public and private lands, and (4) challenges to applying traditional and local ecological knowledge for biodiversity conservation. We focus on the ecological knowledge of three groups who inhabit the region: American Indians, family forest owners, and commercial nontimber forest product (NTFP) harvesters. Integrating traditional and local ecological knowledge into forest biodiversity conservation is most likely to be successful if the knowledge holders are directly engaged with forest managers and western scientists in on-the-ground projects in which interaction and knowledge sharing occur. Three things important to the success of such efforts are understanding the communication styles of knowledge holders, establishing a foundation of trust to work from, and identifying mutual benefits from knowledge sharing that create an incentive to collaborate for biodiversity conservation. Although several promising models exist for how to integrate traditional and local ecological knowledge into forest management, a number of social, economic, and policy constraints have prevented this knowledge from flourishing and being applied. These constraints should be addressed alongside any strategy for knowledge integration.

"United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region"

Land reborn -- The privileged and the dispossessed -- Fallen indians -- "A game country without rival in America" -- The saga of the seventy-mile kid -- Bob Marshall's Alaska -- The lost tribe -- "We Eskimos would like to join the Sierra Club"