It is said of the Menominee people that the sacredness of the land is their very body, the values of the culture are their very soul, and the water is their very blood. It is obvious, then, that the forest and its living creatures can be viewed as food for their existence.

The decision of whether and how to develop natural resources is a subject of great debate in Indian communities, with Menominee being no exception. Indian people hold various and conflicting opinions concerning the effect of resource development on a tribe's social structure and deeply held traditional, religious and environmental values. There is broad agreement, however, that natural resource development must be approached as a part of a larger plan of social and economic development rather than as an end in itself. The Menominee people have confronted the singular concept of long term sustained yield forest management versus the shorter term diverse consideration of community stability and economic development. Their story is one of successful equilibrium between harvest and utilization of only what the land can provide and maximization of the jobs and other economic benefits which flow from sustained yield harvest.

The Menominee Nation, a woodland people, originally hunted, fished and gathered wild rice (Menominee is derived from their native language "Mano ' min ini'niwuk" meaning wild rice men) in a culture adapted to and harmonious with the environment.

Their ancestral home extended from the Escanaba River (upper peninsula of Michigan) in the north to the Milwaukee River (Wisconsin) in the south to the Mississippi River in the west. In the early 17th century, white fur traders began contact with the tribe and started the transition from solely hunting and gathering to a trading economy. As the region populated and influence switched from French to English to American control, traditional Menominee lands fell to "higher" uses developed by settling whites. Following a series of treaties and land cessions, the current Menominee Indian Reservation (10 townships in northeastern Wisconsin) was created by the treaty of May 12, 1854.

Sustained yield management through selective harvest was conceptualized by the Menominee leaders following establishment of the Reservation. Modest harvest by the Tribe was initiated in 1854 for logs, planks, fuel, pickets and fence rails. At the same time, greedy lumber interests attempted to secure the vast Menominee white pine holdings through fraud, bribery and outright theft. The Menominee chiefs, however, steadfastly protected (through lobbies and petitions to Washington) their forest resource from outside liquidation. In 1887, the Indian Agent in Green Bay reported that the Menominee carefully utilized their lumber money and never willfully destroyed the green timber. On June 12, 1890 legislation was passed permitting Menominee's to cut twenty million feet of timber annually. This historic legislation marked the beginning of the commercial logging enterprise of the Menominee Indian Tribe and was one of the very first attempts in this country to cut within a calculated allowable level.

The sustained yield concept, Tribal harvest and manufacture of its own timber resource and the recognition of community development as an attainable policy became further established with the passage of the Lafollette Act, March 28, 1908. Senator Robert LaFollette, familiar with the Menominee land ethic, argued for the development of a modern sawmill to allow the Menominee to gain income from both the labor of timber harvest and lumber manufacture. Senator LaFollette, in his argument for his bill, addressed fellow senators, stating "The forest is the natural home of these men. They are what is known as 'Timber Indians.' Their every instinct teaches them to seek a livelihood from within the forest. The care, the preservation, of these forests should be the Indian's interest and his work. What the white man has in other places destroyed, the Indian should be taught to preserve. This does not mean that the forest shall be permitted to remain in its wild state and contribute nothing of economic value to our country. It does mean that the harvest of the forest perpetuate itself; that it shall remain as a rich heritage to these people from which, through their own labor, they may derive their own support, and that, too, without ruthless destruction. Under the bill as proposed...these Indians shall be made a factor in our industrial life. In this way they will become self-reliant, learn to know the value of their heritage, and master the best methods for its preservation."

The 1908 Act created a sawmill which became the nucleus for the town of Neopit. The steam powered mill represented the most current technology of the time, with two band saws, a horizontal resaw, edger's, trimmers, a lathe, and a shingle and picket machine. A community sprang from the forest, which employed over two hundred men, creating support businesses, modern housing with electricity, a town government and major railroad service. Eighty years later, the town of Neopit continues to thrive, still the lumber manufacturing center of the Menominee and the Tribe's major employer.

Timber harvest and manufacturing continued and, by 1955, the United States Treasury held over $10.4 million in the special trust account created by the 1908 Act. Interest from this account and additional annual proceeds from the sawmill funded the entire federal agency budget (salaries, travel and support) and the cost of Reservation wide community services including tribal operations, medical services and law and order.

During this period, various agents of the federal government urged the Tribe to divide the Tribal lands into allotments under the 1887 Allotment Act, which the federal government viewed as a solution to the Indian "problem." The Tribe, however, historically opposed allotment, eventually prevailing in retaining Tribal lands under collective ownership. This decision by the Menominee leaders ultimately proved to be the single biggest reason the land and forest remain in a perpetually productive state, as many Indian reservations today are only shells of their former size, victimized by the ultimate sale of allotments to outside interests or liquidation of resource assets for short term profit.

The success of the Menominee sawmill ultimately led to a dark chapter of Menominee history. Indian policy of the 1950's was to assimilate the culture into mainstream America, and economic success was the measure of this goal. Scrutiny of the Menominee trust account, the sawmill operation and the community services they supported without federal appropriations was "proof" of the Menominee's readiness for assimilation. The Tribe was terminated from federal protection in 1961 after several years of federal urging, coercion and unfortunately subterfuge. The Menominee Indian Reservation became a county, supported almost entirely by the sawmill as a tax base. The trust account, the interest of which is a major source of budget revenue to the Tribe, was gone as Congress dispersed the fund to the entire membership in the form of a per capita payment to solicit tribal support for the termination plan. While the Social fabric of the Tribe was torn by this process, the need for a sustained yield of forest products became essential.

The Termination Act, among other things, created Menominee County, Wisconsin and transferred Tribal forest land to Menominee Enterprises, Inc., with the stipulation that the lands be managed under sustained yield principles. The State enacted legislation, entitled the Valuation and Assessment of Sustained-Yield Forest Lands, which represented the final step (with respect to forestry) in the termination process.

This Act, administered by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, provided the system for harvesting timber under sustained yield forestry principles. It required a Forest Management Plan containing a timber inventory showing the volume of the forest by species, size class and acreage, the average annual growth and annual cut by species, as well as the cutting cycle and silvicultural prescriptions to be used to harvest the timber. A sustained yield monitoring system emerged, which was based on the Continuous Forest Inventory or CFI. The system was incorporated into the Forest Management Plan and strictly applied. MEI could harvest only those species and volumes scheduled or available under the Forest Management Plan following approval by the State. Any deviation from the cutting schedule or the silvicultural prescriptions contained in the Plan, without DNR approval, was prohibited. Termination, therefore, did not liquidate or devalue (high grade) the Menominee forest. It codified the Tribal land ethic into a regulatory system to ensure the continued flow of logs to the mill and to guarantee employment (and a tax base) within the County.

By 1973, Congress realized the termination policy of the 1950's was flawed and that the Menominee experiment had failed. Passage of the Menominee Restoration Act (December 22, 1973) transferred Tribal Forest lands from Menominee Enterprise. Inc., to the Secretary of the Interior to be held in trust. Congress restored those privileged and benefits which the Menominee Nation enjoyed prior to termination. Congress also recognized that the Menominee people did not need or desire daily federal supervision over Tribal programs. Restoration Act documents clearly defined the need "...for Federal protection but not Federal domination... and maximum self-determination. "

The Menominee Restoration Act included the mandate for sustained yield forest operations and required that all Menominee forest land be managed according to the Forest Management Plan which included, under State law, the sustained yield monitoring procedures. The Restoration Act defined the role of the Tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (with respect to forest management), with sustained yield practices and trust monitoring criteria prescribed. The Tribe is responsible for initiating all forest management functions within the scope of the Forest Management Plan while the Bureau must monitor and approve those activities to ensure compliance with sustained yield principles, i.e., exercise of the trust responsibility.

Sustained yield forest management on the Menominee is a unique blend of history, agencies, and legislation which has shaped tribal attitudes toward the forest. The forest survived because the Menominee people mandated its survival. Clearly, the strong convictions of the people dictated that technical methods be developed to match their convictions, not the reverse.

The very backbone of the Menominee forestry program has been the installation and maintenance of its Continuous Forest Inventory. This inventory system critical to sustained yield monitoring, provides the basic standard to measure change on the forest and help determine the positive or negative impact of forest management policy. The Menominee CFI is especially unique in that it is used by both the MTE and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to meet their respective responsibilities. The CFI volume, growth, and quality information has allowed MTE to make very important management decisions ranging from silvicultural treatments to log grade/lumber recovery for the sawmill. The sustained yield monitoring system, developed during the termination period and carried into restoration, accounts for all saw log volume harvested, and compares it to the CFI annual allowable cut calculation.

Forest inventory requires field measurements to determine area, timber volume, growth, tree condition and quality as well as variable data for management planning. This is obtained on Menominee by visiting permanent plots in the forest. This type of inventory represents the forest manager's benchmark for gauging the development of the future forest based on the impact of current and past management practices.

Under the Forest Management Plan, all lands under intensive management are designated as sustained yield acreage. This totals 220,000 acres of forest land which provides the base for the Menominee Tribal Enterprises sawmill. By virtue of geographical location, the Menominee forest contains 14 of the 16 major forest cover types which occur in the Lake States region. A silvicultural prescription for each of these cover types is contained in the Forest Management Plan which narrowly provides the cutting or management treatments which must be applied to maximize the stand volume and quality production. This strict application of silvicultural prescription includes the minimum stocking level which must be present before any harvest of green, standing timber occurs. As a result, approximately 138,000 acres out of 220,000 acres are considered fully stocked and available for harvest. The remaining under stocked acreage is allowed to grow and develop for future harvest, pending its reaching a stocking level above the silviculturally prescribed minimum.

With the silvicultural prescription constraints firmly established, the Menominee annual allowable cut calculation follows. The annual cost is determined through the Continuous Forest Inventory (1/5 acre permanent plots evenly stratified through the forest) which incorporates a cut/leave determination for each plot. The species/cover type harvest prescription is applied on each plot to determine the forest-wide removal, based only on the excess stocking of fully stocked stands, not on the net growth of all stands. The reason for this, of course, is to prevent the inclusion of net growth of under stocked acres, which by prescription is not available, into this annual cut calculation.

Our inventory has not remained static since the inception of the permanent plot inventory. The need for a stand exam inventory, particularly in even-aged stands, was recognized and initiated. The CFI only told us the total volume available for harvest, not where the individual stands were located. By 1974, our stand exam inventory system was started, based on area control, to increase efficiency in scheduling, harvesting, and marketing. It involved identification, location, and mapping of individual stand units, delineated by common silvicultural, ecological, and operational site characteristics. The stand exam process enhanced our inventory system.

The Menominee Reservation Forest has been divided into 109 compartments, with acreages varying depending on growing stock volume. Compartment management activities are based on a 15-year cutting cycle for timber types subject to the all-aged system; this would pertain to approximately 65% of the Forest acreage. The remaining cover types come under one of the various forms of even-aged management, and are treated as closely as practicable with the compartment cutting schedule. The compartment is the smallest management unit in the cutting schedule, and is always the primary cutting unit control.

Determining the compartment cutting schedule was initially accomplished by examining the harvest history in specific areas, and combining these into roughly equivalent units of volume and/or acreage. An attempt was also made to balance areas of dominant species composition throughout the 15-year cycle, e.g., white pine, northern hardwood, or eastern hemlock. As additional CFI and Stand Exam information is compiled, the compartment cutting schedule may be revised.

Circumstances of weather, insects/disease, market disruptions, or attainment of the annual allowable cut before completing the scheduled acreage may preclude complete adherence to the pre-determined harvest schedule. The Forest Management Plan makes some allowance for these circumstances, without sacrificing the concept of sustained yield management. At the end of each fiscal year, the total cut shall not exceed the annual allowable cut for that period by more than 3%. The total cut for the entire 15-year cutting period shall not exceed the allowable cut for that period by more than 2%.

Considering the Tribe's history and events that occurred and yet the Menominee Forest remains an island of green timber in an ocean of cleared land speaks eloquently for the wisdom of those who first set the course, and through the years who have maintained it. Sustained yield forest management on the Menominee is a unique blend of history, agencies, and legislation which shaped Tribal attitudes toward the forest. This strong conviction of the people dictated technical methods be developed to match their convictions. When the present Menominee Reservation was established in 1854, there was an estimated 1.5 billion board feet of saw timber. When harvested volumes were first recorded in 1865 to 1988, there has been over 2.0 billion board feet of saw timber harvested. Our most recent inventory of volumes indicate that our saw timber stocking still remains at 1.5 billion board feet, after 135 years of harvesting on this same acreage!

In this day of debating whether or not we can sustain our forest resource, Menominee stands as an example that long term forest management can provide many of the things people are debating today, of which the forest should deliver and provide. I believe the reason that Indian people accept these long term policies (sustained yield management) is because they believe that they do not inherit the resource from their ancestors, but borrow it from their children, and thus are truly stewards of the land.