A public hearing today heard testimony for and against allowing the Coquille Tribe to manage almost 60,000 acres of BLM land with significant amounts of remaining mature and old-growth forest habitat. Brett Kenney, lawyer for the tribe, discussed the proposals from a legislative perspective pointing out there is no precedence for turning over federal timber property to a county government. Kenney also defended charges made against the tribe regarding the waiver of sovereign rights with respect to contractual agreements and other complaints made about its forest management practices. (pictures of a recent sale can be found here).

Kenney argued that the tribe is about to receive certification from the Forest Stewardship Council which is generally regarded as being one of the better third party certification systems, although it was developed for commercial not public timber lands. Just last week, Randi Spivak, VP Government Affairs at the Geos Institute wrote the certifier, Bureau Veritas Certification North America, Inc., FSC and the tribe to request the certification process be re-opened to include all relevant stakeholders. According to the letter, Geos Institute, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands, Coast Range Association, Klamath Siskiyou Wildands Center, Soda Mountain Wilderness Council, The Larch Company and Umpqua Watersheds were never notified of the Coquille Tribe’s application for FSC certification.

We were extremely disappointed to see that our groups, which should have been offered stakeholder status, were never notified of the Coquille Tribe’s application for FSC certification. We therefore believe the stakeholder consultation process is inadequate. Each of our organizations works on forest issues in Oregon and throughout the region to ensure that they are managed responsibly to protect clean water, fish and wildlife habitat that myriad species depend on.

As the Coquille Tribe is quite familiar with our organizations in other forest policy contexts, it is even more perplexing that we were not even notified of the application for FSC certification.

The Coquille Tribal Forest contains important low-elevation mature and old-growth forest habitat for the federally threatened northern spotted owl, for which a recovery plan is now being finalized. Critical habitat designation for the species will also be proposed this year. The Coquille Tribal Forest is essential to achievement of owl recovery in that these lands also provide critical links and demographic support for owl populations between larger blocks of federal habitat in the Coast Range, the Cascade Range, and the Klamath Mountains. For these and other reasons, it is our view that the Coquille Tribal Forest contains High Conservation Value forests of regional significance and that these forests in particular need to be conserved under FSC’s Principle 9 as representative set asides (criteria 6.4).

While the groups are supportive of the Coquille Tribe wanting to receive FSC certification for the Coquille Tribal Forest they believe their concerns relating to Principal 9 should be addressed first and may file an official protest of the FSC-audit if an amiable resolution isn’t found.

9 Principle #9: Maintenance of high conservation value forests³ Management activities in high conservation value forests shall maintain or enhance the attributes which define such forests. Decisions regarding high conservation value forests shall always be considered in the context of a precautionary approach.

According to state and federal officials paying attention to this issue it is highly unlikely that management of the lands will be given over to either the tribe or the county. One official speaking of the hearing today and who preferred to remain anonymous said, “they are meeting just to hear themselves talk”.

The other tribal proposal is to engage in another pilot program. In a letter to Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, Cascadia Wildlands argues against additional new pilot projects.

The Tribe has requested, a third secretarial pilot project in moist forests on the Coos Bay District. This new pilot would be in addition to two existing pilots in the Roseburg and Medford BLM Districts. As the Coos Bay BLM District has met 150% of their Potential Sale Quantity over the last 4 years, we do not see any need for an additional pilot project in that District. The pilot for the Roseburg District will already be addressing moist forest types. The Tribe is as free to participate in the Roseburg Pilot as it is free to conduct the experimental prescriptions recommended by Drs. Johnson and Franklin on the 5,000 acres of forestland they already control.