State of timber-Culture, fire play roles in CSKT forest plan
Editor’s note: Today, the Missoulian presents the third in a four-part series on the past, present and future of timber cutting in Montana.
RONAN - In 2000, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes adopted a new forest management plan that immediately cut the annual timber harvest on tribal lands on the Flathead Reservation almost in half, from 32 million board feet a year to 18.1 million.
What changed?
For one thing, a plan that spoke of cultural and spiritual values in the same breath as economic ones.
For another, a plan whose intent was to use logging in an attempt to mimic the role wildfire played in a forest’s ecosystem prior to the major fire suppression efforts of the last century.
“The forest management plan is based on the natural process of fire,”James Durglo, head of CSKT’s forestry department, says. “I don’t think many have been developed that way.” … [more]