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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. .
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