CALIFORNIA – USDA Forest Service Ecologist Dr. Frank Kanawha Lake and Regional Tribal Relations Specialist Rowena Yeahquo earned USDA’s distinguished Nation to Nation Tribal Innovation Awards for their outstanding work with tribal communities. Both helped form and currently serve on the Indigenous Advisory Committee, for which they received the Pacific Southwest Research Station’s Innovation and Service in Research Award.

Members of the Western Klamath Restoration Partnership nominated Lake for the innovation award for his research on indigenous knowledge and tribal data sovereignty. He is facilitating ways the Karuk Tribe could share their knowledge, perspectives and values with federal agencies and partners on actions that affect their lands in Northern California and southern Oregon. “If we’re preserving a big pine or oak tree, we must consider what that tree means to tribes. We also need to consider how the growth rings of a tree reveal an area’s fire history, including tribal uses of fire in the past and present.”

Like Lake, Yeahquo has knocked down barriers and built bridges. Spearheading the Pacific Southwest Region’s Tribal Relations Strategic Plan, she has led a team “to prioritize our work with tribes, increase staff skills, emphasize tribal sovereignty in shared stewardship programs and expand our capacity to redeem our responsibilities to tribes.” 

Yeahquo is a member of the Kiowa Tribe and Comanche Nation. Lake is a descendant of the Karuk Tribe with Yurok family. As tribal people and federal employees, Lake and Yeahquo cross vastly different worlds, giving them a unique perspective on restoring ecosystems and managing wildfires.

Yeahquo, Lake and others are working to foster a more inclusive relationship between tribes and the Forest Service. “It’s important to acknowledge that, at times, the Forest Service has not approved tribal homestead applications on ancestral villages,” Lake emphasized. Yeahquo noted that “many people don’t know the ancestral lands within our national forests.”

Federal laws require the Forest Service and other agencies recognize the sovereignty of tribes and work closely with them. Lake believes those same mandates could give tribes sovereignty over Forest Service data that relates to their ancestral lands. If tribes share their Indigenous Knowledge with researchers, Lake feels the Forest Service should recognize them as equal partners. “A brief acknowledgement of their contributions in a scientific publication is inadequate. Tribal co-authorship is more inclusive and respectful.”

“Rather than hiring contractors to do forest management work, we could hire tribal members as our partners and collaborators,” Lake added. Yeahquo reaffirmed the need for tribes to be active participants, rather than passive contributors in the management of our national forests. She feels now is an exciting time to work for the federal government with tribal members holding high-level positions, such as Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland.

Yeahquo and colleagues have worked closely with academic institutions and other partners to recruit tribes for federal employment. “Having tribal members as federal employees is essential to not only start to build trust but to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace.”

Understanding tribal perspectives, means looking at a forest as a sacred landscape rather than an extractive resource. According to Karuk and Yurok teachings, Lake thinks of the trees and animals in a forest as part of his family as does Yeahquo. “The agency sees them as resources whereas the tribes see the forest as relatives,” she explained.

Incorporating tribal perspectives in decision making can be mutually beneficial. Yeahquo points to the example of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s decision to remove four dams along the Klamath River. “Removing these dams helps salmon populations rebound, which are integral to several tribes’ way of life.” Part of an interagency partnership, Yeahquo provided key input on the dam removals, for which she and her team earned the Wild and Scenic Rivers National Award. She added that a colleague, excitedly, told her the dam removal decision was the first project she ever reviewed that had positive environmental impacts.

Integrating both tribal perspectives and Western science, as in the case of the Klamath River, can benefit the environment. Lake believes that this comprehensive approach is vital to understand how ecosystems and tribal culture function. “I take young tribal members out to the forest and point out certain birds, explaining their cultural significance and unique lifecycles. Both are important to the health of our forests.”