Frank K. Lake USFS-Corvallis Forestry Sciences Lab/Intertribal Program Office, OSU

1. The Integration of Traditional Ecological Knowledge with Western Science for Sustainable Forest Management Frank K. Lake USFS-Corvallis Forestry Sciences Lab/Intertribal Program Office, OSU Environmental Science, Graduate Ph.D program Raised in NW California Fisheries and Fire Ecology Traditional Ecological Knowledge

2. Traditional Ecological Knowledge • “A cumulative body of knowledge, practice, and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings (including humans) with one another and with the environment…is both cumulative and dynamic, building on experience and adapting to changes” • (Berkes 1999:8 in Sacred Ecology).

3. TEK and Cultural Environmental Management Practices • Work with the “Natural” conditions of the local environment across many different habitats • Often mimics natural processes observed in nature to increase biodiversity locally and/or regionally • Refinement of TEK and CEMP through time lead to the maintenance and/or enhancement of ecosystem productivity • Effects vary in intensity, spatially and temporally across the landscape

4. Cultural Environmental Management Practices • Mimics natural physical and biological disturbance processes • Fire (seasonality and location may differ) • Animals (extent and duration may differ) • Buffer against extreme ranges of natural variability • Fosters biodiversity and productivity • Learning to read and understand Nature

5. The Development of Native Peoples’ Ecological Literacy • Traditional Ecological Knowledge • Cultural Environmental Management Practices • Fostering of Community • Ethics of Sustainability

6. Expanding and developing further than environmental education Leaning to “Read” and understand ecological processes and explain phenomena of Nature Integrate TEK and Western Scientific Knowledge Accumulates inter-generationally by individuals and community Defined: The ability of an individual or community to observed, understand, and predict ecological processes and phenomena of Nature. Ecological Literacy

7. Evolution of TEK and CEMP

8. Humans? Lertzman, Spies, and Swanson 1997

9. Sustainable forest management-What is it any way? • … “is the process of managing forest to achieve one or more clearly specified objectives of management with regard to the production of a continuous flow of desired forest products and services without undue reduction of its inherent values and future productivity and without undue undesirable effects on the physical and social environment” –ITTO

10. Criteria and Indicators: Cultural vs. Western-Should they differ? • Tribal governments and communities have the unique ability to set the stage and lead by example what sustainable forest management can be and is. • Criteria and indicators can reflect multiple knowledge systems and include a broader definition of forest productivity or “goods and services” provided by the land base.

11. Integrated Resource Management Plans and Forest Management Plans • These documents provide an opportunity for tribal governments and communities to a have functional role in the world timber market and retain their unique eco-cultural values and a modest quality of life. • These documents also often reflect a strong place based commitment that accounts for social-ecological processes and interactions that are not often reflected in other non-Native management plans.

12. Forest Productivity – A tribal definition ? • Sustainable supply of timber and other forest products • Preservation of water quality and quantity • Preservation of fish and wildlife habitat • Good quantity and quality of food, medicinal, and material resources • Preservation of spiritual-cultural resources • Maintenance of a sense of place: self and community identity

13. Timber harvesting practices that account for multiple values

14. Harvesting practices that account for productive basket material patches • Over story-canopy conditions: basal area and species preferences • Light and nutrient requirements • Low intensity fires

15. Harvesting practices that account for productive berry and herb patches • Over story-canopy conditions: basal area and species preferences • Light and nutrient requirements • Harvesting and fire sensitivity of tree and understory species to management

16. Forest Restoration: Fuel Reduction and Prescribed Burning • Understand how Native peoples used fire in the past • Landscape level effects • Lighting vs. Anthropogenic • Fire Adapted Ecosystems • Overstory vs. understory Photo: Curtis, Klamath Indian

17. Oak woodland and savanna restoration: Reinstating Indigenous land use practices. • Harvesting of conifers and hardwoods • Prescribed burning • Establishment Study: Culturally significant plants • Camas, Lilies, Brodiaea, Wyethia, Lomatium, etc.

18. Sacred places/prayer spots Pacific giant salamander Water and food processing sites Burning Clear vegetation Water yield Water Quantity and Quality Aquatic-Headwater Springs

19. Closing Ideas and Questions? • How realistic is the integration of TEK with western science for sustainable forest management? • Can tribal IRMPs and FMPs serve as templates for other governments or companies if such divergent eco-cultural values of forest resources exist between western and tribal communities? • What current tribal forest management examples are available as case studies or of successful adaptive management?