Tribal Forest Protection Act/638 Project Authority

Tongass National Forest–Keex’Kwaan Community
Keex'Kwaan Community Forest Partnership
The Keex'Kwaan Community Forest Partnership is a landscape scale, multi-stakeholder, community forest approach to plan and implement projects to restore and promote forest access, healthy habitats, climate resilience, food security, and local economic diversification. Funding for this tribal project will support cooperative work between Organized Village of Kake and Forest Service that has been identified by Keex'Kwaan Community Forest Partnership on Kuiu Island. This work will create jobs, restore and promote resilient ecosystems, provide food security, and strengthen relations by working together on shared interests.

National Forests in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico–Ute Tribes, Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, and 18 Northern New Mexico Pueblos
Funds will be added to the existing agreement to support 24 participating tribes from CO, NM, and AZ.

Ouachita and Ozark-St Francis National Forests–United Keetoowah Band of the Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma
Enhancing collaboration with Indian Tribes is a priority of the Ouachita and Ozark-St Francis National Forests in AR and OK. This effort will provide an outstanding opportunity to build capacity in support of restoring ecological health and resilience on national forests and grasslands as well as foster effective partnerships.  

Ouachita National Forest–Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma
The Forest Service has collaborated with the Choctaw Nation over several years utilizing a prescribed fire module to assist with the reintroduction of fire on the landscape for ecosystem benefit. In addition to this continued work with the tribal fire module, this new opportunity of working with the Choctaw Nation provides capacity for heritage surveys will result in an increased pace and scale of restoration activities on national forests and grasslands in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Sequoia National Forest–Tule Tribe Tule River Tribe Co-stewardship for Fire Recovery and Ecological Restoration on the Sequoia National Forest
These funds address post fire restoration of the Windy Fire within the watershed of the Tule River Tribe. The project will be on Forest Service land near the border of the reservation and will include hazardous fuels removal, meadow restoration and site prep for reforestation.

Medicine Bow National Forest–Oglala Sioux, Rosebud Sioux, and Standing Rock Sioux Tribes
The intent of this project is to design a collaborative project between tribal partners and the Medicine Bow National Forest and Thunder Basin National Grassland. The project includes opportunities for tribal members and youth to harvest trees for tipi poles, and to build an understanding of traditional knowledge through the exchange of biological, ecological, and archeological information. Indigenous knowledge will help inform the forest and grassland on traditional uses and places with the intent to incorporate it during vegetation project planning and implementation. The effort includes traveling with Kiowa youth and teaching traditional ways of locating and harvesting poles. The project will provide access to traditional resources, strengthen relations between tribal partners and the forest and grassland, and establish a foundation to enhance adaptive land and resource management.

San Juan, Grand Mesa Uncompahgre and Gunnison, Rio Grande, White River, Pike San Isabel National Forests–Southern Ute Tribe
Half of these funds would be placed in a new Tribal Forest Protection Act agreement with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. This proposal requests funding to support a three-year compliance and consultation position for the Southern Ute Indian Tribe to meet Forest Service NEPA requirements. This position would provide review of all landscape and vegetation management projects on national forests and grasslands in CO.

Santa Fe, Carson, San Juan & Rio Grande National Fs–Santa Clara Pueblo
The Rio Chama project funding will support Santa Clara Pueblo capacity to expand fuels, watershed, and reforestation programs implement restoration treatments in the Rio Chama Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project by Santa Clara Pueblo saw and restoration labor crews.

Nez Perce Clearwater National Forest–Nez Perce Tribe
This project is centered around restoring natural resources and cultural practices in the Musselshell Meadows area. It includes use of fire to improve first foods and restore a practice that the Nez Perce Tribe had done since time immemorial. It incorporates some road relocation to reduce impacts to the critical fisheries while providing elder access to this important area. This will also incorporate other traditional practices as determined by the ongoing ethnographic surveys of the Musselshell traditional cultural property such as other traditional restoration practices to improve the vigor of the camas. Musselshell Meadows is the largest remaining camas meadow on public land near the reservation, and therefore is critical importance to continuing many Nez Perce cultural practices, including burning, gathering and fishing.

Hiawatha National Forest–Bay Mills Indian Community
The Bay Mills Indian Community is partnering with the Hiawatha National Forest to complete forest health and ecosystem restoration work. An existing Good Neighbor Agreement will allow work to be completed by the Bay Mill Indian Community Fire crew members to implement restoration activities.

Hiawatha National Forest–Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians
The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and Hiawatha National Forest have made exponential progress toward the development of adaptive management frameworks that seek to build ecological resilience in important and at-risk forest systems. The Advancing Co-Stewardship of Federal Lands and Demonstrating Relational Engagement in Remnant Boreal Forests. The project will focus on collaborative approaches to adaptive management and effective co-stewardship of federal lands from Anishinaabe and western science frameworks.

National Forests of North Carolina–Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
This funding will advance a multi-year agreement with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians by providing additional capacity for projects to restore, manage, and protect culturally significant forest resources. Projects include on-the-ground, active management for watershed and forest restoration including a focus on the health and abundance of white oak trees, limiting the impact of invasive plants, reducing wildfire fuels and supporting native, fire-adapted ecosystems. This funding will also expand on opportunities to build on the foundation of co-stewardship developed through these agreements by tapping into traditional ecological knowledge from Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians members. Tribal youth will participate in the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Young Ambassadors program and participate in decision-making processes for their traditional homelands.

Fremont Winema National Forest–Klamath Tribes
This funding will be used by the Klamath tribes to reduce wildfire risk to the Chiloquin wildland urban interface through mechanical treatments, prescribed fire and cultural burning.

Ochoco & Deschutes National Forests and Crooked River National Grassland–Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Burns Paiute Tribe, Klamath Tribes
This funding will finance an agreement with the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers to support tribal 106 consultation with the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Burns Paiute Tribe, and Klamath Tribes on Traditional Cultural Property inventory, evaluation, and mitigation activities under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.

Umatilla, Wallowa-Whitman and Malheur National Forests–Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
This funding will be used by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation to implement the National Native Seed Strategy with a specific emphasis on tribal interest. It will focus on seed collection, seed increase, container stock, and outreach and education.

Umpqua and Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forests–Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians
This funding will be used by the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians to implement the National Native Seed Strategy with specific emphasis on tribal interest as they pertain to gathering native plants for cultural use. It will focus on seed collection, seed increase, native plant nursery work, and outreach and education.

Wallowa-Whitman National Forest–Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Nez Perce Tribe
This funding will make possible the creation of a restoration strategy that is based upon Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation First Foods. It will provide support to forestry and botanical staffing for full tribal engagement as equal partners with the Forest Service.

Wallowa-Whitman National Forest–Nez Perce Tribe
This funding will be used by the Nez Perce Tribe to support the Forest Service in capturing the traditional use history of places on Wallowa-Whitman National Forest with a goal of enhancing cultural and treaty rights. This project would contribute to land use management activities that support long term use in a sustainable way for Nez Perce people.

Fort Pierre National Grassland–Lower Brule Sioux Tribe
The primary purpose of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe and Fort Pierre Ranger District Conservation Partnership is to restore degraded prairie and riparian habitats on the Fort Pierre National Grassland. This partnership builds on decades of collaboration between the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe and the Forest Service and is part of our co-stewardship relationship. This project will replace dilapidated pasture fences, control noxious weeds, and funding tribal departments to conduct cultural and wildlife surveys.  We will also initiate new native forb seedings, retrofit pasture fences to facilitate pronghorn passage, and conduct environmental education.

Black Hills National Forest–Sioux Nation
This project will use Tribal crews to accomplish fuels reduction and timber stand improvement work on the Forest. This collaboration in co-management provides jobs for tribes working in their sacred Black Hills and implements vital work to reduce fuels and thin dense stands of saplings for timber stand improvement.

National Forests and Grasslands in Texas–Jena Band of Choctaw Indians
The Southern Region has collaborated with the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians for years. This agreement and effort will build on successful relationships between the forest and Tribe and will include forest, rangeland and watershed restoration services.

Okanogan Wenatchee National Forest–Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation
This project will support planning and implementation capacity of Wildfire Crisis Strategy objectives. It focuses on increasing tribal capacity to become more involved and assist the forest in complying with cultural and natural resource goals.

Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest–Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians
The Lac Vieux Desert Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa in collaboration with the forest are working to address lake water quality, habitat, access, food sovereignty and preservation of tribal culture. This project will improve wild rice habitat to support tribal food sovereignty by replacing road stream crossing on the Wisconsin River.