630 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



the present unsatisfactory situation on Indian lands in the face of 

 which sound management plans can hardly be evolved and carried 

 out is the instability of land ownership. 



The discontinuance of the practice of allotting forest and range land 

 should immediately be accomplished by means of legislation pro- 

 hibiting further allotments of land of this character. 



Repeated efforts have been made since 1910 to obtain legislation 

 necessary to insure the stability of ownership of large areas of Indian 

 forest land of such character that it should unquestionably be per- 

 manently maintained in consolidated ownership for forest production 

 and water-conservation purposes. The act of May 18, 1916 (39 

 Stat. 137), creating the Red Lake Indian Forest of approximately 

 110,000 acres has been the only legislation so far obtained, although 

 similar bills pertaining to the Colville, Klamath, Warm Springs, and 

 Yakima Reservations were introduced in the second session of the 

 Seventy-first Congress. Legislation of like character is needed for 

 the Flathead, Fort Belknap, and Tongue River Reservations in 

 Montana; the Neah Bay and Spokane in Washington; the Fort Hall 

 in Idaho; the Hoopa Valley in California; the Shoshone in Wyoming; 

 the Mescalero in New Mexico; the Navajo, Fort Apache, San Carlos, 

 and Truxton Canyon in Arizona; and possibly for several smaller 

 areas. 



Bills covering these reservations should be introduced in the next 

 session of the Congress. With the realization that the establishment 

 of a permanent status for Indian forest lands is essential to their 

 highest economic use for the Indians themselves, and is also the most 

 desirable policy for the Nation at large, these bills should be actively 

 supported by all who believe that the present forest situation in the 

 United States calls for the adoption and carrying out of a conservative 

 national policy. 



The United States Government should restore, insofar as is prac- 

 ticable, the former unified tribal status of Indian forest and range 

 lands, and should maintain in a tribal status these restored lands 

 as well as the present area of tribal forest and range lands, should 

 adequately protect them from fire, and fully preserve their protective 

 character and improve their productive value. 



Just as the act of February 26, 1927, authorizing the cancelation 

 of fee patents on Indian allotments, was intended to correct insofar 

 as possible a mistaken land policy, legislation to restore to Indian 

 tribal ownership those parts of possible working units of forest land 

 which have been alienated and are now in varied ownership which 

 precludes their proper protection and economic use should be enacted. 



This act should provide for the establishment of tribal forests in 

 units of sufficient size to be managed economically and for the buying 

 back and inclusion in such tribal forest land that was originally 

 Indian tribal land but which is now owned by individual Indians or 

 by whites. The price per acre should not be in excess of the going 

 price of nonagricultural cut-over timberland in the immediate neigh- 

 borhood and should be limited in the enabling act. Where possible 

 tribal funds derived from the sale of timber should be used for this 

 purpose, and where these funds are not sufficient gratuity appropria- 

 tions should be made available. 



That the regulations and policies of the forestry branch of the 

 Indian Service, originally approved in 1911, were basically sound 



