Tribal Forest Assets Protection

Dave Nenna, Tribal Administrator
Tule River Tribal Council
P.O. Box 589 Phone (559) 781-4271 Fax (559) 781-4610
Porterville, California 93258 E-mail administrator@tulerivertribe-nsn.gov

Chairman, Honorable members, It is an honor and privilege to be able to provide Testimony to you in behalf of my Tribal Government. I would like to thank the Committee for exercising its leadership and knowing the importance of providing a tool In the first step of protecting Tribal forestlands.

For many years the Tribe has had to stand by and watch as thousands of acres of forest burned around us, and being helpless to do any thing other than provide fuel breaks and reduce fuel loading on Tribal land in an attempt to protect our resources. Every year we pray we are not the victims of catastrophic stand replacing fire, such as the devastation in Southern California.

The Tribe has known for years that, the only way to try to preserve and protect our forests, is to take a proactive approach in sound forest management, and to use state of the art tools and fuels treatment necessary to reduce backlog and activity generated fuels but, the Tribe is limited in what it can do, when you can look across our boundary at the forest backlog and live fuels that continue to build on Federal lands. What this Bill will do is allow us to finally address long-standing concerns in helping to preserve, protect, and enhance our natural resource.

Since the Executive Order in 1873, establishing Tule River Indian Reservation, one of four original reservations to be created in California, the Tule River Tribe has proven many years prior to that to be good stewards of the lands. The entire area that is know known as Sequoia National Forest and the Giant Sequoia National Monument, was the ancestral lands of the Tule River people.

Fire was a tool used by the Tribes when they left the areas now known as the Sierra Nevada range to winter it out in the San Joaquin Valley. The dry grasses were burned in order to generate new growth for healthier vegetation and forest through low intensity fire. Both people and wildlife benefited from this type of management. It will be many years of fuels reduction work before fire can be introduced into the forest. Fire in the adjacent Forest, accidental or natural will produce devastating results. No longer is the concern just timber assets, Giant Sequoias, we have a wildland urban interface we need to contend with also. As you can see, the issues at stake become more complicated.

The Committee must be commended for taking a common sense approach by laying the groundwork to attack the problem at he root. By streamlining mandates and requirements, we will be able to address and provide treatment to areas of highest concern, and not have to be reactive to what is presently immanent danger.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak about some of many concerns the Tribe has, and we would strongly urge our leaders to pass this legislation so we do not have to go another year waiting for the inevitable to happen.

The Tule River Tribe is working diligently with the U.S. Forest Service, the California Department of Forestry, and our local fire agencies to determine the number of Fire Management Units in our areas of responsibility. This will better help to determine the needs and levels of funding. This will also address modifications to our agreements already in place.

This Bill will help make clear and identify our areas of responsibility and also raise the level of cooperation with all agencies involved. The strategy for protecting forest assets continues to evolve as we speak. This Bill will also validate the sense of urgency and importance of working cooperatively with our Federal counterparts.

Again, I would like to thank the committee in my Tribes behalf for being able to present some of our concerns and strong support for this legislation.