During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing before the congressional recess, Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR) questioned experts about biochar projects.
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00:00You get to go first.
00:01Thank you, Chairman Tiffany, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
00:05Very important subject that we're having this hearing on.
00:09And, Mr. Vrandenberg, I appreciated your testimony, discussion about how tribes approach forest management.
00:18I've always said that there is no such thing as no action in forest management.
00:23A decision not to manage is a management decision.
00:26And we've seen the results of those bad management decisions across the country.
00:33Can you talk a little bit further about how this isn't a mutually exclusive proposition that you either have good environmental stewardship or you have a healthy economy,
00:45but how actually having environmental conservation stewardship plays into having a better economy and how that plays out on tribal lands?
00:56What a relief you didn't ask me to calculate the basal area.
01:01We can talk about that if you want.
01:03Tribes manage, tribal management is more outcome-based.
01:14The, you know, yes, it is, the management does produce revenue,
01:22and the revenue is important for essential government services for the tribe.
01:25But, but the approach is very different, as I mentioned, from a traditional conservation approach.
01:35Indigenous conservation approaches are managing four values rather than excluding management.
01:41The, you know, the outcome, for example, at Cow Creek, our water quality standard is clean, cold water leaving the reservation.
01:51It doesn't matter what, what the protection buffer width should be if, if it's not getting that done.
01:59And, and so in, in the case of Cow Creek, that outcome has to happen, and there's no compromise.
02:07So, and I see that across Indian country when we visit other tribes.
02:11And I know you testified on the Senate hearing on the Fix Our Forest Act
02:15and had some suggestions on how to improve some of the provisions in the Fix Our Forest Act.
02:22Would you care to explain on those ideas and how FOFA is actually complementary to the authorities in the Forest Act?
02:29Yeah, there's just, you know, the, all right, the Forest Service has, has really talented, smart, caring people.
02:39But the, the, the bureaucracy has grown over the years to, to a, a crippling tipping point.
02:48That it, it now, it now takes years to accomplish a, a categorical exclusion.
02:55And, and, and, those small categorical exclusions don't allow us to, to address the mountains of problems that, that need,
03:05that we're facing to address the wildfire crisis.
03:08Mm-hmm.
03:09Mr. Desertel, good to, good to see you.
03:11Thank you for being here again.
03:13The Forest Act contains provision that expands pallets for tribal biomass and tribal biochar projects.
03:22What, what, what environmental and economic benefits would there be for tribes for increasing the use of biomass and biochar?
03:30Thank you, Chairman Westerman, great to see you again.
03:33I think there's two opportunities there.
03:35One from a, a risk management perspective by finding and developing markets for those two products.
03:42It gives an economically viable way to get that material out of the woods.
03:46It reduces fuel loadings that would reduce the future impacts of fires.
03:49In addition to that, on the economic side, it, it, by providing an economic value for that product,
03:57it gives us the ability to do more work, more restoration work on the landscape through time.
04:02That much of the work we do is, is funding limited.
04:05So, if we can generate revenue from those forest products, it allows us to accomplish those land management goals and objectives faster.
04:12Yeah, and this, Ms. Clark, had, had I been here to give my opening statement, which I apologize for,
04:19where I would have talked about how for millennia tribes managed, managed the forest and they were in great shape
04:27until European settlers came along and overcut and stopped burning and really messed things up to, to put it in a, in a nice way.
04:40And now we have forests that are overstocked and unhealthy and, you know, tribes are bearing the brunt of the poor management.
04:48But let's talk about how we can get back to, to better management and how the forest act can help return safe and beneficial thinning and burning to our forest.
04:59Thank you for the question.
05:01Um, I agree.
05:02And for me, the main provision in the forest act that I think would do that is section two, which allows for this designation of federally administered lands as, um, Indian, for Indian lands.
05:14And that would allow tribes to step in and use their traditional ecological knowledge in the planning and management of forest activities.
05:21And I think as you alluded to, so much of what we see on our landscape today is because we've had the exclusion of those practices.
05:27And we're applying, um, systems of knowledge that don't work with the ecosystems.
05:31And the forest act, I think would really encourage tribes to step into a leadership role.
05:37A lot more questions, but not enough time.
05:39I yield back.
05:40Gentlemen, time has expired now.
05:43Hurt now no now.