This file was created by scanning the printed publication. Errors identified by the software have been corrected; however, some errors may remain. Community Based Pinon-Juniper Woodland Resource Management Planning for the N ahat' a' DziilChapter Usha Little and Denver Hospodarsky1 Abstract.-The Navajo Nation's New Lands Nahat'a' Dziil chapter located near Sanders Arizona covers 350,000 acres of pinon-juniper woodland and is divided into 17 Range Management Units. The Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation currently manages these as functionally independent units emphasizing clustered residential development, livestock grazing, wildlife habitat improvement, and management of woodland resources for sustainable economic growth. Research in other counties suggests that community based resource management planning based on community forestry principles is a feasible option for the long-term sustainability of natural resources in the rural communities. The purpose of this on-going study is to evaluate the applicability of community forestry programs for the management of New Lands' woodland resources. The fundamental concepts of community forestry are to allow residents' needs and desires to define future conditions, and to incorporate community residents' rights and responsibilities of woodland resources stewardship into a management plan. The study has attempted to evaluate: (1) residents' recommendations regarding uses and allocations of woodland resources, (2) their willingness in assuming responsibility of developing community based plans and projects, and (3) feasibility of achieving mutual goals between resource managers and residents through community forestry approach. Informational efforts were -initiated to promote awareness of the community forestry concepts through presentations, small group discussions, and a small-scale community vegetation restoration project. Community input was satisfied through interviews of small planning groups of grazing permitees and residents from each Range Unit. A series of meetings and communications were maintained to achieve coordination among residents, elected officials, community planners, and the resource managers. Some results and conclusion are discussed. INTRODUCTION with the goal to improve environmental and economic conditions for rural people. Recent -expressions of concern for rural community stability and rural resource development by federal land management agencies may be interpreted to suggest maturing appreciation for the community approach, at least among public land manage!s. Such recent developments seemingly contradict long standing statutory expressions of concern for resource dependent communities in In recent years a community based approach to addressing forest management issues has gained momentum in the United States. Long established abroad, the community based approach has been slow to gain acceptance domestically, however. As a result, the forestry profession in this country has only begun to realize the benefits of forest resource decision making conducted at the community level 1Native American Forestry Program, School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ. 160 and management of forest resources by local people who use forest resources for dOlnestic purposes, as an integral part of traditional living (Fisher and Gilmour 1990). Community forestry projects address issues beyond lumber and fuelwood including the management of forest related products important to the community, such as fabric dyes, herbs, medicines, honey, fodder, nuts, and wildlife hunting. Community forestry incorporates an indigenous system of management, which allows the incorporation of traditional values into the formulation and approval of resource management policies that formally empower community groups. Under the comn"lunity forestry model, woodland management plans must consider technical forestry data in conjunction with knowledge of community social structure and cultural values as they relate to the woodland resource uses. The community forestry approach allows incorporation of local residents' knowledge, needs, and desires in defining future conditions, by incorporating residents' rights and responsibilities for woodland resources stewardship into a management plan providing empowerment to local people. the United States beginning as early as 1944 under the Sustained Yield Act and continuing with the National Forest Management Act of 1976. Despite some recent developments in this country in support of community based forest ll"lana ge me nt, community forestry as it is formally practiced abroad has remained largely a conceptual exercise with few applied examples to draw from. As a result of the paucity of examples, any proposals to apply community forestry principles to North American land management must necessarily draw from conceptual origins within the foreign experience, while incorporating the unique traits of the dOll"lestic community under study. As the practice of community forestry develops in the United States, each new attempt to implement the community approach will require an initial assessment of its appropriateness for the specific population and resources in question. The need for empirically based community forestry principles are especially acute in our culturally diverse society whose individual communities reflect a multitude of needs, problems, and aspirations regarding the forest resource. This paper reports on one attempt to determine the applicability of community forestry principles and methods, in this case pinon-juniper woodland management planning in New Lands comn"lunities of the Navajo Nation, Arizona. PLANNING AREA Historical Background of the New Lands COMMUNITY FORESTRY In 1983, the Navajo Nation acquired 352,000 acres of Tribal Trust land, known as the New Lands, for the purpose of providing settlement to the families affected by the Navajo Hopi Settlell"lent Act (Public Law 93-531) of 1974. The New Lands provides a settlement option to any certified relocatee and their extended families who do not wish to be relocated off reservation and who do not qualify or wish to acquire a homesite lease in the main reservation, but wish to maintain the traditional Navajo lifestyle based on livestock grazing and large extended families. The Office of the Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation (ONHIR) has responsibility for managing the land and resources, while it continues additional development and relocation activities on the New Lands. The New Lands is located 40 miles east of Holbrook along Interstate 40 near Sanders in Northeast Arizona. The topography of the New Lands includes flat grassy plains, gently sloping benches and steep broken ground with the elevation varying from 5,500 to 6,900 feet. About 30 percent of the New Lands is considered wooded area covered with pinon-juniper woodlands. The entire New Lands is divided into 17 range Community forestry has been defined by Fisher et al.(1989) as a forest management practice that includes protection, utilization, and distribution of forest products, and the institutional and organizational arrangements by which the management prescriptions are carried out. In community forestry the concern with institutional and organizational arrangements involves a shift from the technical-driven classical top-down approach with its focus on forest productivity to a peoplecentered, bottom-up approach that emphasizes helping communities to manage the forest upon which traditional livelihood and culture may depend. Both the classical and community approaches to forest management share the same universal questions of production, protection, distribution, and management control. The community forestry approach, however, offers the opportunity to integrate local peoples' desires and knowledge, which has been largely constrained in the practice of traditional forestry (Burch 1988). Contemporary definitions of community forestry focus on the control 161 are three general approaches in defining community. One approach may be to define community as locality, a human settlement with fixed and bounded territory. This definition is a favorite of economists who analyze locational areas based on where people live and work Another approach defines community as a local social system involving interrelationship among people living in the same geographic area. This definition does not define clear geographic areas and lacks definitions of content and quality of social interactions and interrelationships. A third approach defines community as a type of relationship, especially a sense of shared identity without any geographic boundary, such as the environmental community (Lee et al. 1990). With the purposes of this study to assess the viability of communities for the community based woodland resource management planning approach, community is defined for our purposes here by integrating some elements from all the above three definitions. In this study community refers to a human settlement delineated by geographical boundary and represented by locally organized political and social groups, which maintain formal social interactions, while engaged in activities to fulfill the needs and desires of the people holding common shared cultural values towards the land and pinon-juniper woodland resources. management units, 11 of which have already been developed with clustered homesites and grazing management cells for livestock The clustered homesites are provided for the families with livestock grazing permits and permitees immediate relatives. Families without grazing permits are offered one acre lot homesite leases within the rural community sub-divisions of New Lands (ONHIR Plan Update 1990). All Navajo families relocated either into the range units or into the rural community sub-division have equal access to the woodland resources of the New Lands including firewood, pifton nuts, medicinal plants, scenic views, wildlife, and access to the religious sites. COMMUNITY FORESTRY ON THE NEW LANDS There are five reasons for selecting New Lands for community based woodland resource planning. First, New Lands currently does not have a sustainable management plan acceptable to community resource users. Second, New Lands' communities are recently established and community residents are fairly receptive to new ideas regarding resource management that are outside the classical forest management model practiced elsewhere on the Navajo Nation. Third, the residents of the New Lands communities include Navajo people who use adjacent pifton-juniper woodlands as an integral part of traditional living. Fourth, many New Lands residents desire innovative, but culturally appropriate, options for employment and income opportunities from woodland resources, in addition to more traditional uses. And finally, New Lands people express substantial concerns for the welfare of the land, resources, and people after the ONHIR support discontinues in completion of the relocation activities. The above situation presented an opportunity to study the applicability of the community forestry approach on New Lands. OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study is to determine the applicability of community forestry principles in the management of pinon-juniper woodlands in the New Lands communities. To evaluate the applicability of the community forestry approach, three research elements were identified as fundamental to community based woodland planning. These elements were 1) delineation of operational communities within the New Lands, to serve as the unit of analysis in resource planning research and plan implementation and analysis of existing institutional structure and capability of communities to accommodate the community approach, 2) identification of local peoples' needs for, attitudes toward, and determination to manage woodland resources. This paper describes how each of these elements may be integrated into a community based approach to pifton-juniper management planning for the New Lands. DEFINING COMMUNITIES A primary step toward a community based woodland management planning approach is defining and delineating the community as the operational unit of social organization within which to undertake community forestry activities. There 162 SUPPORTING RESEARCH FOR COMMUNITY BASED PLANNING With the main objective of the study to determine the applicability of the community forestry approach to pifton-juniper management planning for New Lands, three different kinds of research methods were used to meet planning information needs: 1. Formal interviews of community residents designed to determine a) types, quantities and frequencies of woodland resources use by the residents, b) community attitudes, opinions, and preferences towards present and future woodland management planning goals and activities, and c) who or which community group should involved in woodland resource management planning. 2. Direct observation of community activities and interactions obtained during personal visits. Direct observation methods were used to determine a) willingness of the management agency and chapter officials to coordinate woodland resource related community activities, b) both residents and chapter officials' willingness to take active participation in vegetation restoration activities. 3. Secondary data including community demographics, existing livestock grazing activities, and woodland inventory information pertinent to multiresource woodland resource management objectives. Successful application of the community forestry approach requires adequate knowledge of the affected population and their relationship to woodland resources. Prior to conducting interviews of New Lands residents, careful consideration was given to the population's relationship with pifton-juniper woodlands, according to various ethnohistories commencing both before and following the arrival of anglo-Europeans. In addition, the sensitive nature of relocation activities was carefully considered in developing survey questionnaires and in identifying effective methods for approaching residents for interviews. It is vital for the community forestry researcher or planner to understand and respect. community social norms, religion, and traditional values before embarking upon planning for woodland resource issues. Besides knowing about the Navajo people, participating in community social activities, and interacting with the people as a friendly help instead of authoritative figure is essential. It is necessary to create a spirit of mutual trust and respect for the success of this study or any other successful community forestry enterprise. The community based process of managing pifton-juniper woodlands described in this paper is built upon a profound appreciation for evaluating Navajo culture and traditional values, as these values were used in identifying pertinent community forestry variables and interpreting study results. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS Personal interviews of New Lands residents indicate that the woodland resource is subject to both traditional and non-traditional demands. Traditional demands condoned by most residents include harvesting fuelwood and postwood for the personal uses, collecting juniper seeds and leaves for ceremonies, pifton nuts, and medicinal plants. Non-traditional demands include residents' desires for economic development activities through retailing fuelwood, postwood, and other marketable woodland resources. When asked whether New Lands juniper should be harvested as fuelwood to create jobs and income for the New Lands resi. dents, 59 percent responded affirmatively and 39 percent said no. The survey data indicated a community based forestry approach is desired by the majority of the New Lands residents and elected officials. More than 50 percent of the interviewed residents expressed willingness to work with a management agency in developing plans that incorporate their opinions into the planning process ..Among interview respondents, 28 percent mentioned that final decisions about woodland resources should ·be made only by community people; while 22 percent said that Navajo Forestry Department should work with local planners, chapter officials, and community people in the planning process. The survey results indicated, woodland resources are important to the New Lands people in their everyday life and that both New Lands elected officials and the residents prefer. residents' . opinions and needs be honored in the decision making process. The majority of those interviewed responded favorably to a locally developed plan that empowers local people. When asked if they were willing to organize a community group to work on developing woodland management 163 planning, 60 percent of those community residents interviewed responded favorably, while 20 percent were not willing and 14 percent responded that they are too busy to organize such group. Community forestry in practice must be based on clear delineation of what and where the subject community is, in order that forestry program comprehensively address the resource needs and desires of community residents, while considering the abundance and sustainability of woodlands within the community resource area. What practice requires is an operational definition of community that insures the community forestry program will proceed efficiently towards the mutually agreed upon goals of community residents and resource management agencies with stewardship responsibility for community resources. Four levels of existing social organization offer promise as the basis for delineating operational communities in the New Lands. In descending order of organizational complexity these are: the Nahat' a' Dziil Chapter, Planning Board, range units, and grazing committees. The Nahat'a' Dziil Chapter and Planning Board are recognized as political organizations whose representatives are elected by Chapter residents. Chapter officials consist of a President, Vice President, and Secretary Treasurer. A monthly chapter meeting is held in which New Lands residents are encouraged to participate. The Planning Board includes two representatives from each range unit. Representatives are approved the residents of. the respective range units to represent range unit issues to Chapter officials. The Planning Board's operational organization is unique to the New Lands; other Chapters of the Navajo Nation may not include such an organizational structure. Range units are characterized by groups of families living within the geographic boundary of prescribed range units. Grazing committees comprised of members from within individual range units, are recognized as a traditional social organization of Navajo culture. Grazing committees are comprised of families who have inherited livestock grazing rights to the land. There are various advantages and disadvantages associated in recognizing each of these social units as a basis for delineating operational communities within which to initiate community based woodland management planning approach. These advantages and disadvantages can be summarized as follows: Chapter Government as Community Basis The operational comnlunity organized around the Chapter can provide advantages such as the unity and strength displayed within the Chapter as .whole, political authority for implementation of projects, monitoring, and widespread distribution of benefits. However, there are several disadvantages of using the Chapter level of organization as a basis for delineating community, such as residents' mistrust of Chapter authority, since the Chapter may hold political motives as a result of its direct ties to Tribal government. Chapter officials change every four year and priorities given by Chapter officials in defining community needs may changed depending on the personalities of the elected officials. Chapter officials have many responsibilities and may not find enough time to talk with people and subsequently address woodland issues relevant to the people. Chapter government may also experience conflicts of interest in resolving problems regarding woodland issues among range units of which they are and are not a part. The Planning Committee as Community Basis The 'Nahat'a' Dziil Planning Board', which consists of two elected representatives from each range unit, and they meet with Chapter officials once a month to discuss issues and concerns from their constituent range units. Currently the planning board's activities are subsidized by the ONHIR which retains an influential role in the chapter level decision making process. The planners invest their time on community affairs because they receive financial compensation. Some planners may not wish to assume additional responsibilities for developing a woodland management plan. The Planning Board members may be capable of coordinating activities with resource managers in developing woodland policies but implementing and Inonitoring a project is difficult for planners to under-take alone. Some planners also have indicated difficulties in communicating and working with local residents. Range Units as Community Basis A major concern with using range unit residents as a basis for community delineation is the unequal number of homes, population, and 164 amount of woodland resource distributed among the residents of the 13 developed range units. A range unit with excess resources for community needs may wish to market surplus woodland products for income, while an adjoining range unit may not contain sufficient resources for subsistence activities. The uneven distribution of resources among range units may lead to conflict among range unit residents in the future. To mitigate this problem, management agencies need to define the amount of resources that could be harvested foreither personal or commercial purposes based on biophysical condition of the each range unit. The present livestock grazing program that is organized according to range units is a positive example of cooperation to carry out woodland projects. An extension forester working with range unit residents on woodland issues, could facilitate other planning activities as well. includes: set geographic boundaries of the range units, social and family ties facilitated by the clustered homes and neighborhood structure, existing range management program and established grazing committees for the range units, and most importantly, range units include planners, permitees, Chapter officials, all community people. Using range units as a community basis from which to initiate a community based management planning approach will necessarily include management concerns expressed by the existing organizations, while allowing community residents' input regardless of their affiliation with existing organization. However, this effort to be successful will require an extension forester to live in the New Lands and work closely with the each range units' residents in establishing a woodland resource committee. Formulation of a range unit level committee will improve the residents' communication abilities and will also enhance the planners' relationships with residents. This exemplifies an ideal grass-roots, bottom-up management planning approach. Information needed to evaluate the management agency's capability in restructuring institutional and organizational arrangements to initiate a community based approach was observed on the New Lands based on the support and cooperation provided by the ONHIR, Navajo Tribe Forestry Department, and Chapter Officials. The present management agency, the ONHIR, is willing and capable of implementing community based woodland projects. The Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation were active participants during meetings and interviews with the residents. New Lands is a part of the Navajo Nation and it is important for ONHIR to coordinate with the Navajo Forestry Department's woodland policies to assure compatibility. Several attempts were initiated as part of this research to establish cooperation between residents and the Navajo Forestry Department staff. Lack of familiarity with the procedures required for a community based approach among traditional foresters and policy makers possibly resulted in some hesitation in consulting with residents management recommendations. Livestock Grazing Permit Holders as Community Basis The grazing committee made up of grazing permitees is a traditional unit of social organization recognized by the Tribal and Federal rangeland management agencies. Families with grazing permits play an important role in maintaining Navajo tradition, family ties, and legal rights to land and resources. The livelihoods of permitees are directly affected by range management decisions. Consequently, grazing committee members actively participate in meetings. Since the condition of the range resource is directly affected by any woodland management prescription, the active role of the grazing committees in resource stewardship suggests permitees as a viable community focus in taking a community based approach to woodland management. However, the community forestry literature is clear in its tenets that community based forestry programs are to improve the lives of all rural people, especially the poor. Authorizing grazing committee for woodland management may add more influence to the permitees and not enough to the other residents. Non-permitee residents should receive equal opportunity to use woodland resources and their desires and needs should be equally considered in the planning process. Evaluation of the four levels of social organization to serve as a basis for community forestry programs suggests range units are viable community group with which to .work with towards community based woodland management planning. Some of the reasons for this conclusion RECOMMENDATIONS The community based woodland management approach requires time, money, and a devoted extension forester willing to learn about community residents and their interaction with woodland re165 sources. Classically trained forestry professionals, especially those working for rural indigenous communities, must understand and embrace the philosophy behind community based approach. The extension forester's management agency needs to mandate a policy and develop an administrative structure by which the extension forester can acknowledge community resident's unique relationship with the environment and bridge the gap between management agency and the community. The extension forester's task should include not only providing technical support regarding biophysical concerns, but also include activities to increase community empowerment such as moral building, participation, cooperation, and basic education in woodland ecosystems. The community based approach requires foresters and land managers to assume a community supporting role, which may be a new experience for many field foresters. Working directly with local leaders and woodland users can be stressful because the field staff must give up their technocratic, authoritarian roles in the community in favor of a role as advisor and facilitator. Agencies need to establish programs to train field foresters in dealing with local people according to ecologically and culturally appropriate modes of behavior. The effectiveness of care for land and woodland resources by users is proportional to their sense of ownership and dependency on the resource. For ~ community based management approach to be successful, the people must be secure in the belief they will benefit from their investment as resource decision make~s. The community based approach described in this paper is a benefit based approach where community people are helped to visualized the results of their efforts, thereby providing incentives for their involvement and effort. The management agency needs to evaluate the biophysical data and explain to the community prospective benefits associated with various management alternatives. Communities that use pmonjuniper woodland resources as an integral part of their traditional living can provide significant assistance to the sustainable management planning and monitoring activities conducted of the technical management organization. In this mutual arrangement between community and agency, both should agree how management task and benefits are to be shared by p~rticipants in the planning process. This study attempts to describe some of the principles and methods of community forestry applicable to communities in the United States. The community based approach to managing the New 166 Lands pmon-juniper woodlands of the Navajo Nation appears desirable to the people living there and appears feasible to implement as well. The key to the success of community based woodland management approach, however remains in the hands of management agencies currently with oversight responsibility for New Lands resources. The management agencies working with New Lands communities would be well served to recognize the significance of the community based approach for the long-term sustainability of the pmon-juniper woodlands of the Southwest. . REFERENCES Burch, R. William Jr. 1988. The Uses of Social Science in the Training of Professional Social Foresters. J. of World Forest Resource Management. 88 (3) No 2, 73109 Cernea, Michael M. 1991. 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