Forest Service scientists engage in research partnerships with American Indian Tribes, Alaska Native Corporations, tribal colleges, intertribal Organizations, and other Indigenous groups. The goal of research partnerships are to support tribal values and Indigenous lifeways, to encourage shared learning, and to advance stewardship within both tribally controlled lands and areas that are now managed as national forests and grasslands.

Currently the U.S. Government has recognized the sovereignty of 574 Tribes and tribal entities in the contiguous United States and Alaska. All federal agencies are obligated to respect tribal sovereignty and self-governance, consult with tribes on policy matters, and fulfill federal trust and treaty responsibilities to tribes to protect tribal treaty rights, lands, assets, and resources. Many tribes have treaty rights to harvest resources that extend beyond the current boundaries of tribal land. Researchers, particularly in the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry, also work with Indigenous communities in the Hawai’i and Pacific Island territories. Indigenous communities depend strongly on bounty of the lands, waters, and natural resources around them for sustenance and cultural integrity. These collaborative research efforts advance our shared interests in conserving and restoring our Nation’s biological and cultural diversity and heritage.

Research and Development has collaboratively developed a Tribal Engagement Roadmap that features goals and objectives of tribal research and provides many examples of collaborations. Focal areas of research that focus on tribal interests and engagement include:

• Forest Service research provides science-based guidance to National Forests for land and resource management planning on topics that are important to tribes and Indigenous communities, including areas of tribal importance, traditional tribal knowledge or Traditional Ecological Knowledge held by Indigenous communities.
• Forest Service research also has important roles in overseeing research within a network of long-term experimental areas. The most recent experimental forest to be established was the Héen Latinee Experimental Forest (meaning “River Watcher” in the Tlingit language), which has a goal of understanding climate change impacts and supporting engagement of tribal youth and elders in research.
• Indigenous stewardship practices, including cultural burning, carried out by generations of Native Americans helped maintain a balanced relationship with the critical ecological process of fire. Forest Service research is helping to shed light on the many benefits of those stewardship practices and how to support and integrate traditional knowledge and practices into broader land management.
• Changes in land use, severe wildfires, and other disturbances have displaced native trees important to Tribes, and Forest Service scientists are supporting tribal initiatives to replant Emory oaks and native riparian trees in Southwest.
• Climate change, invasive species, and other stressors are threatening iconic tree species and tribal communities that depend on them, including majestic cedar trees in the Pacific Northwest used for totem poles, black ash used for traditional basketmaking in the Great Lakes region, and iconic maple trees tapped for food in the Northeast.

Tribal-Related Partners

• Intertribal Timber Council Research Subcommittee
• American Indian Higher Education Consortium
• National Congress of American Indians
• IUFRO Research Group on Forest History and Traditional Knowledge
• College of Menominee National Sustainable Development Institute
• University of Oregon Tribal Climate Change Project
• Native American Fish and Wildlife Society
• The Wildlife Society
• USGS National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers