on the cover / By Malcolm Terence

Klamath: Direct Action!

In addition, it requests that many promised documents, actual timber volumes and maps that complainants say have been withheld still need to be shared.

In mid-December, Kelley issued a press release acknowledging that there had been discussion during the collaboration of “the type of equipment we would use to harvest these culturally sensitive areas, and it is unfortunate this didn’t make it into the contract.”

In a press release a week later, Kelley said, “We have not forgotten our commitment to work with the Tribe and the community collaborative group in good faith in the development and implementation of the OCFR.” Specifically, he said the purchaser of the logs had agreed to a contract suspension while issues are resolved, a multi-party monitoring plan was being finalized and any felled hardwoods would be left for community wood gathering.

Kelley declined to respond to questions for this article and referred all queries to Nolan Colegrove, the newly hired District Ranger in Orleans. Colegrove was a timber manager for the Hoopa Reservation until he switched to the US Forest Service last fall.

Perhaps because of these roots, he is viewed more generously by the multi-tribal KJC than Forest Supervisor Kelley or Colegrove’s predecessor Bill Rice. Leaf Hillman explains, “This Ranger [Colegrove] understands when we say the trail is a spiritual trail. He doesn’t say, ‘Why don’t you just move it?’ If some hardwoods are destroyed, he gets why hardwoods are important.”

Colegrove said there was a way to incorporate into the logging contract the features in the original environmental documents. He said any modifications would require agreement between the USFS and Timber Products, the purchaser.

“I wasn’t here to see what happened during the [three years of OCFR planning],” Colegrove said, but he offered several paths for remedy. These included a tribal representative to monitor cultural resources; a method to resolve disagreements between this monitor and the Forest Service; additional review by a USFS archaeologist; working with the tribe to repair any damage already done to cultural areas; and a pre-work review of each logging unit between the agency, the collaborative monitor, the purchaser and a tribal rep.

Colegrove said he hoped that these measures, coupled with working together, would help the situation and added, “Building trust is going to take time, but we feel that from here forward our actions will help us get there.”

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