Oregon is a world-renowned haven for outdoor enthusiasts. And no wonder -- Oregon is blessed with a spectacular array of dramatic landscapes: thousands of acres of pristine virgin forests, hundreds of lakes bordered by old growth forests, miles of rugged little-explored coastline and majestic snow covered peaks.

Oregon has a proud tradition of conservationists. Efforts to preserve native forests in Oregon go back much farther than efforts to exploit these valuable places. Native Americans were able to survive for thousands of years in the Pacific Northwest, developing a lifestyle that utilized resources of the forest sustainably. For centuries salmon were depended upon by indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest for sustenance and were smoked to set aside for times of need.

In addition, native tribes used parts of the salmon for natural materials and tools. Other forest resources were used for homes, tools, clothing, basketry, cookware, medicines, food, and art. Native American cultures in Oregon continue to place great value on protecting native salmon populations. Several tribes are working to restore native salmon runs.

Native Americans and their connection to the forest

From early human societies, trees have been viewed as having souls and spirits. Trees have long been believed to possess natural powers, including a wide range of natural forces such as making the rain fall and the sun shine, ensuring abundant harvests, helping flocks and herds to multiply, ensuring the fertility of woman and easing childbirth.¹

Some indigenous people have referred to humans as "walking trees," whose spine is the tree's trunk, whose pelvis enfolds the roots and whose brain is contained in the branches.² Like the trees, we are rooted in the earth, and our arms, like the branches, are spreading upward and outward towards the sky.

This similarity of posture may have been one of the factors that drew people instinctively to trees and led many early humans to consider trees as our natural friends and allies. They provide shelter and serve as a natural cooling system; some, like maples, oaks, and walnuts, provide food for humans and animals. We now understand that trees also filter carbon dioxide from our air and prevent soil erosion.

Our early ancestors' conscious dependency on trees, rivers, and animals for food, protection, healing shelter, and other forms of sustenance led our early ancestors to possess a deep awareness of their environment.

The belief that trees are the homes of the gods can be found in nearly every culture where trees play a vital role in community life. It has led to both respect and reverence for trees, which are often protected from cutting or dismemberment. Whenever it is necessary to fell trees for a worthwhile purpose, special prayers are made to the tree's indwelling god or angelic being. The trees are respected for their practical material value and also for their importance in the community's spiritual life. (When the explorers Lewis and Clark needed to cut a tree to make a canoe, the chief allowed them to cut one tree that he selected.)

Destruction of forests equals loss of spirit

Modern industrial culture has lost this conscious reverence for the trees, mountains, rivers, and animals that make up the natural environment. In modern industrial culture, humans exploit nature for economic considerations. Indeed, trees are commonly harvested not in numbers of trees, but in the economic term "board feet" - how the tree is sold as lumber (a board foot is one foot by one foot by one inch). One might say industrialists "can only see the forest for the trees."

The health of the ecosystem is inseparable from the religion of several Native American nations. For generations, survival was based on a simple lifestyle that demanded respect for nature and an understanding of the direct relationship people had with the air, water, fire, soil, plants, and animals with which they shared the earth. Plants were used for a variety of medicinal uses. Nature was embraced as a benefactor, to be treated as a generous parent and friend. As one Native American elder from the Northwest said, "How could nature ever be angry with us when we get everything we have from nature - our food, material for our dwellings and clothing - everything given by nature?"3

At the time of the first European explorers, 68 different Native American language groups lived among the Western coastal rainforests, with an estimated population of 234,000. These coastal rainforest people included 16 groups in California, 15 in Oregon, 16 in Washington, 18 in British Columbia, and three in Alaska. Of these, 26 languages are extinct; 18 are spoken by less than 10% of the remaining group.⁴

After a century and a half of industrial development, Native American populations in the Pacific Northwest are a fraction of their former size, the native forests are much fragmented, and the non-native people number in the millions. At least 106 major populations of salmon and steelhead are already extinct. Scores of species of native fish are threatened with extinction. Dozens of species of wildlife may also be forced into extinction.

For thousands of years, Native Americans lived sustainably in the Northwest. European settlers displaced or destroyed many tribes and in most cases severely altered the way of life of those who survived.

Logging, manufacturing, roadbuilding, livestock raising, and hunting all took their toll on the natural world Native Americans depended on for sustenance. With industrial development came pollution of the air, soil, and water. A vast array of ecological relationships have been disrupted. Pockets of undisturbed places remain, yet restoration of some places will take decades, if not hundreds of years - if they are allowed to recover at all.

Native American efforts to restore the land

A number of tribes are working to reclaim and restore lands. Bill Oberteuffer recently visited the land of the Yakima Indian tribe in eastern Washington. Oberteuffer, an award-winning forester and leader in the ecoforestry movement, gave huge praise to the Yakima's efforts. Not only have the Yakima foresters put in place ecological practices for forestry, they have generated millions of dollars from forest products for helping in the tribe's efforts to be self-sustaining.⁵

Now that salmon runs have plummeted, several tribes in Oregon are working to protect tribal resources and restore lands they lost to European settlers. For example, the Klamath Tribe, which used to inhabit the entire southeastern Cascade Range, is working to protect sacred ancestral lands that have been used historically for gatherings, ceremonies, and vision quests. In May 1996, President Clinton signed an Executive Order directing the Forest Service and BLM to "accommodate access to and ceremonial use of Indian sacred sites." Whether the government is complying is in dispute among Native Americans. In 1985, they won tribal reinstatement from the U.S. government. 6 The Umatilla Indian Reservation, near Pendleton, has tried to prevent logging plans that could affect deteriorating stocks of Spring chinook salmon.7

In 1855, the U.S. government signed a treaty giving the Nez Perce of eastern Oregon permanent rights to their existing lands. But the government reneged on the treaty, and in 1877, the Nez Perce were driven out of the Valley of the Winding Waters in Wallowa Valley. The Nez perce - who had come to the aid of Lewis and Clark and guided Oregon Trail Pioneers - were banished, by the U.S. Army, to three separate reservations in Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. They were forbidden to ever return home.8

Nez Perce return to their homeland

For years, the Nez Perce tried unsuccessfully to return to live in the Wallowa Valley, using government appeals. They are now succeeding in reclaiming their land and culture. A group of Wallowa citizens used their own money and designated state funds to buy 160 acres overlooking the Wallowa River. They plan to use the land for annual pow-wow ceremonies, a longhouse and a cultural and interpretive center.

The Nez Perce will manage the land and cultural center through a nonprofit coalition. Many Native Americans have been surprised by this group effort. "This has been healing," said Armand Minthorn, who is on the board of trustees of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, near Pendleton, which includes descendants of the Wallowa Valley Nez Perce tribe. "We have always known what this valley meant to us, but before, the general public never shared this concept with us."

"We've been in exile from our homeland for 120 years," said Soy Redthunder, a member of the Chief Joseph band of the Nez Perce on the Colville Reservation in Washington state. "Like any other civilization, to go back to your homeland is of utmost importance."⁹

In 1996, the Nez Perce tribe took an even more major step forward when they acquired a 10,300 acre ranch in northeastern Oregon, bordering the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area and the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. The $2.5 million used for the purchase came from BPA funds won by the tribe as part of legal compensation to the tribe for wildlife habitat lost when the four lower Snake River dams were built in the 1960s and 1970s. Tribal members will restore the land to increase the elk, salmon, native grasses, roots, and berries that once sustained their culture.

The land acquired by the tribe is largely unspoiled and very good habitat for wildlife. The Nez Perce tribe will preserve and restore the land as a wildlife reserve. The land is primarily bunchgrass prarie at the lower elevations with isolated tracks of Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir at the higher elevations. The tribe is now looking to spend the remaining $2 million from BPA to acquire an additional 6,000 acres of land to add to the holding.¹⁰

References and notes

¹ Nathaniel Altman, Sacred Trees, Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1994. back

² Ibid. back

³ Ibid. back

⁴ Ecotrust, Rain Forests of Home: An Atlas of People and Place, Pacific GIS and Conservation International, 1995. back

⁵ from the editor's correspondence with Bill Oberteuffer, December 1997. back

⁶ See Letter Lobby Bulletin, Number 123. back

⁷ Richard Cockle, "Forester concerned about dangers of fire near elk research site," The Oregonian, December 2, 1991, p. E4. back

⁸ Alice Tallmadge, "Of Community Concern," Eugene Weekly, September 4, 1996, p. 8. back

⁹ Lyric Wallwork Winik, Parade magazine, June 15, 1997. back

¹⁰ "The Nez Perce's return," The Oregonian, editorial page, November 23, 1996. back

Copyright (c) 1997-98 OLIFE -- Oregonians for Labor Intensive Forest Economics. All rights reserved.