Tribal Self-Governance and Forest Management at the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, Humboldt County, California

INTRODUCTION Indian Country in the United States contains substantial commercial forest resources. The sixteen million forested acres on 214 reservations in twenty-three states generated over $465 million in revenue and supported forty thousand jobs in 1991, primarily through timber harvesting. Management of these resources is performed by three types of organizations: on- and off-reservation United States Department of the Interior-Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) forestry programs; joint BIA and tribal forestry programs that share responsibilities; and completely tribal forestry programs. Joint BIA-tribal programs are enabled by the “Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act of 1975,” P.L. 93-638, through which tribes can contract with the BIA to do part or all of the forest management work. So-called 638 contracts are constrained, however, at the same funding level as a solely BIA program and, further, by BIA rules and regulations. Totally tribal programs, permitted under the “Indian Self-Determination Act Amendments of 1988,” P.L. 100-472, may appear to be an attractive alternative to BIA or joint programs because self governance allows a tribe to design a program it chooses, pursue funding independent of ordinary BIA budgeting procedures, and seek waivers from regulations that are inappropriate. A tribe seeking greater control over its forest resources may ask, Is self governance a better way to do forest resource management