How the Northwest Forest Plan may reshape management of our woods: Part 1 of 2

THE NORTHWEST — In March 1989, environmental activists from Earth First! chained themselves to trees and buried themselves under rocks, unsuccessfully preventing the North Roaring Devil timber sale in Breintenbush Hot Springs, Oregon. Dubbed the “Easter Massacre,” it ignited the Timber Wars, a years-long slew of protests, academic disputes and legal battles fixated on protecting mature, old-growth forests and the endangered northern spotted owl, ultimately culminating in the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP).

Passed in 1994, the NWFP is a land management strategy that governs more than 24 million acres of federal forests across Oregon, Washington and Northern California — balancing conservation and ecological resilience with a logging economy that many small, rural communities depend on. Now, it’s getting amended, and much has changed over the past three decades.

For one, the population of northern spotted owls has precipitously declined. One study examined 11 sites within the NWFP area and found that owl populations decreased anywhere from 65% to 85% between 1995 and 2017.

As a result of fire suppression and climate change, the amount of acreage burned, the length of the fire season and the severity of wildfires have also all increased, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. More communities are at risk too. From 1990 to 2010, homes located within the wildland-urban interface, the transitional zone between unoccupied land and human development, rose by 41%, making it the fastest-growing land-use type in the nation.

What hasn’t changed, however, is the cultural and historical significance of these lands to more than 80 Tribes since time immemorial, not to mention their legal right. Indigenous peoples were excluded from crafting and implementing the first NWFP, from taking care their own forests, but this time could look different.

The 20-person Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) responsible for assisting the United States Forest (USFS) in amending the plan published its recommendations this July. Out of 192 total recommendations, 113 focused on developing meaningful Tribal inclusion and co-stewardship.

The USFS intends to release its draft plan on Nov. 6. While the agency isn’t required to adopt any of the FAC’s recommendations, incorporating just some may reshape how the Northwest’s forests are managed.

Cultivating co-stewardship

“It felt surreal,” said Ryan Reed, an FAC member. “To bring something of this magnitude to a place that had zero in in the first place is definitely something that shouldn’t be left unacknowledged.” He’s from the Karuk, Hupa and Yurok Tribe in Northern California; a wildland firefighter; and the co-founder of FireGen, an organization aiming to enhance Indigenous and youth participation in wildfire decision-making.

“But it’s unfortunate that it took until 2024,” said Reed. “Until my communities are able to sovereign themselves, until the issues of my communities are alleviated — not erased but alleviated — that’s when I’ll feel more proud about it. I think this is the first step into something substantial.”

The FAC advised USFS to create systems for active, reciprocal co-stewardship and forest management, respect Tribal sovereignty and treaty rights, and recognize the value of Indigenous knowledge. They also asked USFS to acknowledge cultural burning, intentional fire used to enhance First Foods and medicines, assist with hunting and for ceremonies, as an inherent Tribal right, and seek to protect cultural resources.

But cultivating true co-stewardship is easier said than done. Fundamentally, it requires merging two largely incompatible ways of knowing: Western and Indigenous science or knowledge. While Western science is increasingly studying Indigenous burning practices, Reed explained that Indigenous science is less rigid, less focused on quantification since it depends on place-based, spiritual perspectives.

It also requires rebuilding lost trust since USFS intentionally discredited, downplayed and erased Indigenous knowing for decades by perpetuating fire suppression, the idea that all fire is bad, unhealthy for forests and must be snuffed out. For Reed and other Indigenous peoples, settler colonialism and fire suppression are inextricably intertwined. The USFS must rectify that history and educate employees, along with the public, on how Indigenous peoples foster their land for co-stewardship to exist.

Arguably the biggest obstacle, though, comes down to control. “There needs to be a transition and a transformation of power and authority, which the Forest Service is not ready for,” said Reed.

When asked what was missing from the FAC’s recommendations on Tribal inclusion, Reed replied with two words.

“Land back,” he said.

Warming up to beneficial fire

Apart from excluding Tribes, the first NWFP also made no reference to fire as an effective, vital forest management strategy — further perpetuating fire suppression. Similar to Tribal inclusion, the FAC’s recommendations on beneficial fire represent a potential paradigm shift.

They explicitly state that beneficial fire, like prescribed burning, has “not occurred at the necessary pace and scale needed to reduce the risk of uncharacteristic wildfires.” According to growing scientific evidence, fire occurred more frequently than previously thought in the wetter, higher-elevation forests west of the Cascades, not just on the eastern slope mainly dominated by ponderosa pines.

Tim Ingalsbee is a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and the co-founder of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology. He also became a wildland fire ecologist after protesting in the Timber Wars, and he spoke about how groundbreaking this change could be.

“That goes contrary to their genetic code, the very origins of the Forest Service,” said Ingalsbee. “They taught the American people what forest conservation means: fighting fires so more trees can grow and be cut, planted and cut, endlessly.

“One of the biggest barriers is just risk-averse managers. There’s this double standard,” continued Ingalsbee. “They can light up an entire mountainside in a huge backfire, fighting the fire and celebrated as heroes. But if they try to light a prescribed fire and things go wrong, it could cost their career.”

Ingalsbee doesn’t blame the managers, rather a system that sets up strong disincentives to do what’s ecologically right for the land. He called the FAC’s recommendations “visionary,” but didn’t think they solved root problems like risk aversion, or that there’s very limited capacity and funding for prescribed burning.

In theory, meaningful Tribal inclusion and co-stewardship could help solve the capacity issue by allowing for more Indigenous practitioners to put fire back on the landscape. But authorizing co-stewardship and cultural burning isn’t the same as funding it.

“Tribal communities, as a very general statement, are resource-poor,” said Ingalsbee. “It’s one thing for the Forest Service to say, to give lip service, ‘We welcome Tribes as partners in co-management.’ But if they lack the resources and personnel to be actual partners, it’s for naught.”

What to expect

While many structural barriers impede true Tribal inclusion and lighting more beneficial fire, these changes in language are significant because they stray so far from the status quo. Now, it all depends on the USFS, who could accept, change or jettison all of the FAC’s recommendations, and their draft environmental impact statement for the revised NWFP coming on Nov. 6.

Both Reed and Ingalsbee feel cautiously optimistic. Reed said the USFS has been receptive, taking care to clarify misunderstandings with the FAC’s recommendations, and during all his years working in forest management, Ingalsbee reported that he’s never seen a committee “with as much empowered respect.”

“If they get it right here, the Northwest Forest Plan could and should ripple through the rest of the system, because the National Forest System is wrong about Tribal co-management, wrong about its suppression fire management,” said Ingalsbee.

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This is the first of a two-part series examining the potential successes, failures and implications of the pending Northwest Forest Plan. Part II will dive into the FAC’s specific forest stewardship provisions, and what that means for small, rural communities dependent on logging and run in next Wednesday’s edition