Event Coverage of the Northwest Forest Conference in Oregon

And the human species, and I just want to wish you all of of the cooperation, and all of the help from all of the people at this table, to bring about a solution, to what has become a regular logjam. Thank you for asking me to participate. [New Speaker] Mr. President. . . Mr. President, can you If I could just ask the mayor a question, did they open her comments by saying that it was too late for her city? Well, as the mayor of a town which has lost its principal industry, what comes next for you? How do you fashion alternatives? Part of this discussion for the rest of the day will probably be looking at alternatives - tourism, and how can the federal government assist you in developing these alternatives? [Mayor] Tourism is something we have been working on, even before this hit. And by the way, I would certainly like to thank you again for your appearance in our city, we appreciate it very much. And we are working on tourism, and we're doing everything we can to diversify, but our biggest problem with diversification is that I have, that we have no

industrial park. We have no warehouses... I don't know how many times we get inquiries for warehouse space. All we have to market is an empty log truck and a rusty fireplug. In... the Industry? Our county has been 85 percent, timber, and it just has never been necessary to have the kinds of things you need to diversify. We are working very hard to work toward that, we are seeking all of the help from the federal and state government that we can get. And we know we have to diversify, We know that and I hope that I never ever see a six hundred and fifty employer... employee mill, again, in my city. Because every time they sneeze, we all get colds. I would much much rather have a series of smaller mills, and just in smaller businesses, and a variety of businesses. But this is not going to be an easy turnaround for our area, because we are not equipped for it.

[President Clinton] I'd like to,... We're pretty much on time, we may have to run over a little bit, but I'd like to give Margaret Howe a chance to make a comment and then share, and then I will go back you know. for questions [Margaret Powell] Well thank you Mr. President and Vice President, I'm a member of the Hupa Valley Indian Tribe in California, and it's an honor for my tribe and me to be invited to participate in this kind of summit. I'm not an eloquent speaker, like many of these people are, and I'm very nervous. When I was first invited to participate in this, I sat down for about a week and put some thoughts on paper. In an essence of time, I've got it not quite a bit, but I'll be really submitting it in its entirety on paper. As a resident of the small remote community, a former member of the tribal council, and owner of a small lumber mill, I'm aware of the hardships faced by the lumbering industry.

I also served as a member of the tribe's Integrated Resources Management Committee. It seems ironic, that we are required to manage within the parameters of a complex, federal, legal and regulatory management schemes that are intended to protect the environment, when in reality, we have practiced the principles of conservation for thousands of years. In fact, even before the present day, environmental regulations on timber, and related development, our tribe imposed similar restrictions on ourselves, as a matter of tribal law. It is interesting to see, that while located in the heart of two U.S. Forest Service districts, the Hupa Tribe continues to sell timber today, in compliance with federal regulations, while the U.S. Forest Service, just beyond our borders, does not. What makes the situation even more interesting, is that because our reservation is predominantly old growth, [Unintelligible ???] timber, more spotted owls have relocated from other federal and private

lands to our reservation, because of previously poor off reservation timber management. We have integrated sophisticated computerized mapping and data collection systems within our camber and other land management programs. Our Integrated Resource Management Committee, also utilizes our broad expertise, within our forestry, fishery, environmental, and other land management programs in our comprehensive manner, to evaluate the impact of our management decisions on our resources. Our internal planning and decision making process, provides for our staff experts to participate on an interdisciplinary team, that makes recommendations to our tribal council on resource management issues. When we first heard the rumblings of endangered species issues, and other environmental issues, we immediately began to learn and understand what limitations could be imposed on us, and we began to

manage for them, and instead of simply allowing them to control us because of our inaction. Unfortunately, this is a process that is virtually nonexistent in the federal management and regulatory management scheme. Federal agencies have made attempts to achieve the same result. However, they have been plagued by multiple levels of decision making and overly bureaucratic and fractionated approval procedures. Generally speaking, the timber industry has come a long way from logging practices of previous decades. Indian forest programs have also made great strides in developing model management programs and systems. Unfortunately, at the same time, trying to recover from decades of neglect, mismanagement, and inadequate funding. Indian Reservation timberlands throughout the country are also going through a healing process. It should be clearly understood that while there has been tremendous focus put on management practices of public lands, Indian

lands, protected under principles of federal trust responsibility, have not received a comparable funding as have federal agencies. Just as the a cumulative destruction of past management did not simply happen overnight, it will take a cooperative effort on the part of the part of the management agencies, the timber industry and environmental groups to achieve the balance that everyone is striving to achieve. It will not be acceptable for one group or agency to stop the work or efforts of the others. We have seen some very productive and constructive models develop between previously opposing groups when reasonable people sit down to develop reasonable solutions. Mr. President, I respectfully submit, that Indian tribes such as the Hupa may serve as useful models for the problems confronting this conference. Thank you. [Vice President Al Gore] I'd like to follow up on that briefly, because your last comment, I think, really

hits the nail right on the head. If the federal government has all these different departments and agencies, taking different positions on the same issue and arguing against each other, then obviously, there's going to be gridlock. But what you're saying is that, in your tribe, the various points of view, and the parts of your tribal economy, have a process by which a consensus is developed, and all of the parts move together in the same direction. Is that right? The other thing that was interesting to me, is what you said about the owl population going up while you were proceeding on this, could...[Margaret Powell] Well It's interesting to note that the owl, to the native American, is usually a bringer of bad news, and certainly weighs in. [General laughter]

So that when the Hupa Tribe, realized that we were going to have to do these owl surveys, we had difficulty finding our Indian people who would do it. And so we had to [General laughter] bring in non-Indian people who did our surveys for it us. We have had to change our way of logging, timber management, all of our land management, and natural resources, the way we did it before. So that we followed the federal regulations and we have done that. We cut our timber on a sustained yield, and we have a very successful program, and I think it can be done, in the new national forest lands. [Vice President Gore] Well, if we learn nothing else, here it is obvious that all of the various elements interrelate with each

other, and whatever is done, has to be done on a very broad base, long term basis in recognition of those of those interconnections. Very interesting. [Margaret Powell] I might also add, Hupa is not the only tribe that has an integrated resource management system. Most of the all of the timber drives in United States have been there, and are going in that direction. [New Speaker] Thank you Mr. President and Mr. Vice President and thank you both for bringing to the country and to the northwest an administration which is willing to confront and grapple with these issues as stewards of our public lands rather than as litigants in court. And Mr. President you have inherited a heck of a mess from an administration, from administrations, which for 12 years preached law and order in our streets and practiced lawlessness on our public lands. I have for six years now represented dozens of local environmental groups, people like Diana

Wales and Nico [Unintelligible], local fishing groups, sport and recreational, as well as commercial fishermen trying to save salmon and national organizations whose tens of thousands of members in the northwest and millions of numbers around the country are all terribly concerned about the future of this region and of the ancient forests. We've been in court because for the last 12 years we could find no other level playing field where the issues of biology and economics and federal law could be debated and decided in an objective setting and the record from that. . .[tape jumps] deliberate and political in nature. I want to make four points about this experience: first, the laws are good laws. They are this nation's commitment to the future and a covenant with the people that we will not squander our resources in this generation and deprive future generations and not violate our trust responsibilities to the other species with which we share the

planet. Second, the breaches of laws that we have seen over the past decade have had concrete real world terrible effects. They have resulted in an imminent ecological crisis. You know in our public lands they have consistently allowed over cutting of those lands and they have misled workers in timber dependent communities into believing that that way of life could continue and it can't. Fourth or third rather, gutting the laws or weakening the laws is not the answer. In fact that is the failed approach of the last administrations. Nine times between 1984 or 1989 Congress passed laws that specifically directed at the northwest which closed the courthouse doors to citizens. And the result has been to encourage agency lawlessness to exacerbate ecological crisis and to continue to refuse to deal with the very real problems of a region and economy in transition and that cannot

continue. The fourth point is especially is one that I especially want to make based on the conversation that I've been listening to today, and that is that you must bring to your agencies the same rigor in economic analysis that the scientists have started to bring to the biological issues. Contrary to some of the things that you've heard today the industry problems are not unanticipated. Industry was predicting this a long time ago in 1986 George Weyerhauser gave a speech in Longview, Washington in which he said that we are weathering a revolutionary restructuring that is shaking the forest products industry in the Pacific Northwest. Production for man hours increase significantly forest. . .[tape jump] the industry that hasn't worked in the past and it wont work in the future. [President Clinton] We need to wrap up. Archbishop you began, would you like to say anything? based what this you've heard [New Speaker] again Mr. President, Vice President. [Tape jump]

[President Clinton] Mr. Espy and I are neighbors, and we share a border of the Mississippi River. For almost all the history of this country our two states were the poorest states in America. When agriculture collapsed there. . .