Utilizing funding awarded by the America the Beautiful Challenge competitive grant program for ecological restoration and cultural preservation, the Tule River Indian Tribe is undertaking actions to restore, revitalize, and increase resiliency of the Parker Peak Giant Sequoia Grove and other Tribal lands and waterways severely impacted by the 2021 Windy Fire.  

California – The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) announced the America the Beautiful Challenge (ATBC) in 2022, establishing five years of grant funding to support state, territory, and Tribally-led ecosystem restoration. One of twenty-one Tribes awarded FY23 funding, the Tule River Indian Tribe (TRIT) is utilizing ATBC funding to implement a broad suite of actions that will jumpstart recovery of old-growth giant sequoia stands and other Tribal forests and the waterways that pass through them after a catastrophic wildfire in 2021. These activities will also begin to reverse impacts of a history of fire suppression contributing to conditions favorable for uncontrollable and damaging fires.  

In August of 2024, the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society (NAFWS) ATBC Field Liaison, Andy Edwards joined Ian Cummins, Tule River Tribal Forester, Assistant Forester Larry DeSoto Jr., and Deputy Natural Resources Director Ed Montoya to get a tour of the project area and a firsthand look at how the ATBC program is supporting their Tribal conservation efforts. Joining the group was Sydney Godbey, Program Manager | National Programs at NFWF. 

Tule River Indian Tribe Natural Resources Department 

The Natural Resources Department is charged with stewarding the vegetation, water, air, soil, wildlife, fisheries, and cultural/archaeological resources of the Tule River Indian Reservation. The Forestry Program is a key component of their team. The program’s vision for forest resources on the Reservation is to have: 

• A healthy and vigorously growing forest that is accessible to the Tribal community. 

• A forest capable of resisting internal and external threats. 

•  A forest containing multiple sizes of native trees, plentiful with giant sequoia wherever suited. 

• A forest that provides clean water, diverse wildlife habitat, cultural and recreational opportunities, and a sustainable supply of forest products. 

Achieving this vision requires significant time, energy, and financial resources – and ATBC funding is providing support in a big way with an influx of funds to bring additional capacity to the program at a time when it is greatly needed. 

Funding will support a variety of actions to carry out restoration, reforestation, and resiliency efforts following the 2021 Windy fire that severely burned large swaths of forest in the Reservation’s upper elevations. Many areas of conifer forest were nearly completely burned, depleting the natural seedbank and leaving a barren landscape that now threatens to send large amounts of sediment downstream into the Tule River.

The Forestry program is taking a multipronged approach in dealing with this challenge, contracting with local logging companies to harvest what trees are reachable and salvageable to get them into the timber and biomass markets. Dead trees that can’t be salvaged become part of the restoration strategy as hand crews will use techniques like directional tree felling and piling of slash to help slow waterflow across the bare ground, retaining water and stabilizing slopes while reducing downslope impacts of sediment. Crews will also collect seeds from remaining giant sequoias, sugar pines, and other species to aid in replanting efforts that will require considerable follow-up to hand treat other vegetation around the seedlings (the TRIT prefers to avoid herbicide as much as possible) until they are well established.  

Forester Ian Cummins explains use of beaver dam analog techniques and its benefits.

Forestry crews will also utilize downed trees to create beaver dam analogs – essentially manmade attempts to recreate beaver dams – in suitable locations within high elevation tributaries. This work, along with some judicious removal of encroaching streamside conifers and occasional low-intensity burns, will help establish wet meadow areas that also retain water, slow flows, and provide diverse habitat for a variety of wildlife while helping protect water quality. Such sites may ultimately become locations used in the Tribe’s ongoing efforts to return beaver to the landscape as well.

The Tule River Reservation is home to 5 giant sequoia groves. The ~2,500-acre Parker Peak grove contains 600-700 old growth sequoias (300-3,000 years old!) and sustained varying degrees of damage from the Windy fire. In some areas fire damage, particularly where it was able to crown (reach the canopy) resulted in outright death of the trees, while in others it caused severe damage to the base of the trees, leaving them stressed and susceptible to other mortality factors like bark beetles and windthrow in the years following the fire. Ironically, giant sequoias are adapted to fire (their cones actually rely on heat from periodic fires to make them open and release seeds); however, the varying intensity of this fire completely wiped out some areas of natural regeneration, while in other parts of the stand a lush carpet of new seedlings resulted. In some cases the regeneration is too lush, requiring intervention to thin the area for better growth and survival of the young trees. Within this grove, crews will remove hazardous trees, salvage what timber they can from fire damaged specimens, collect and plant seeds, thin the understory, and remove ladder fuels (undergrowth that can help fire reach canopies) in an effort increase resiliency of this amazing giant sequoia stand to future wildfire events.

Supporting Tribal Conservation 

In 2022 and 2023, Tribal Nations requested about $500 million through the America the Beautiful Challenge. NFWF and the agencies have committed to providing at least 10% of annual funds to Tribes. Thus far the quality of Tribal proposals has been rewarded with over a third of funds going to Tribal Nations! In the first two years NFWF has awarded 35 projects, to Tribal Nations, totaling about $76 million. While this amount is significant, the disparity between requested and awarded funding demonstrates the need for long-term, sustainable funding for Tribal conservation and restoration.

“We all know Tribal natural resources programs carry out a lot of excellent work, often with a small staff working across multiple disciplines and with barebones funding. Increasingly often these programs, like the one here at Tule River, are being faced with large challenges from issues like climate change or the cumulative effects from decades of development and poorly chosen or implemented landscape or wildlife management strategies. In this particular case, a catastrophic wildfire stemming from several of these problems, left the Tule River program with the question of where to best focus their time and energy. Fortunately, the America the Beautiful Challenge funding can provide a huge shot in the arm to Tribal programs, providing funding and capacity that allows them to successfully address not only their daily responsibilities, but step up to the plate and take a big swing at the other challenges so frequently headed their way.” 

– Andy Edwards, NAFWS ATBC Field Liaison

About Us

NAFWS is the only national Tribal organization with a specific focus on Tribal fish and wildlife resources. As a unique membership organization with 227 Support Member Tribes in 7 regions, NAFWS strives to meet the needs of its Individual Members and Member Tribes through conferences, trainings, youth education, and by participating with innovative projects and initiatives in Indian Country.

Disclaimer: This project is made possible through a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.