Murkowski introduces legislation amending the Tribal Forest Protection Act to work better

Senator Lisa Murkowski, Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, introduced Senate Bill 4370, the Tribal Forest Protection Act (TFPA) Amendments Act of 2024, to promote greater indigenous stewardship of Federal and Indian forest and rangelands.

The TFPA was originally enacted in 2004 as the Tribal companion bill to the Healthy Forest Restoration Act. The TFPA was most recently amended in the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, to provide authority to the Forest Service to execute “638 agreements” to carry out TFPA projects. Senator Murkowski crafted the amendments in this bill based on direct feedback from Alaska Native leaders and stakeholders, given during multiple hearings and roundtables led by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

The TFPA allows Tribes to perform forest management activities on federal lands within their territories, including prescribed thinning, burning, and restoration projects to enhance forest health and resilience. It also seeks to promote economic development and create new jobs within tribal communities through sustainable forest management practices.

The 2004 TFPA law was intended to protect Indian forest lands and resources from various threats, including wildfires, by allowing Tribes to enter into agreements with the Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management to carry out forest management activities on federal lands that are “bordering or adjacent to” lands under tribal jurisdiction. In practical terms, the “bordering or adjacent to” requirement has proved too restrictive as it does not adequately capture the sites, features, cultural landscapes, sacred places or objects with cultural value to Native peoples that may be located on federal land that does not border Indian land.

The law has also prevented Alaska Native Corporations, who received over 44 million acres of land from the federal government from participating in the TFPA program entirely.

“The TFPA was meant to empower Tribes to take an active role to facilitate treatment and collaboration between the federal land management agencies and Indian Tribes to improve forest health. But the law was so narrowly written it excluded Alaska from fully participating and prevented Tribes across the country from being able to protect ancestral resources simply because they did not border tribal trust lands or resources. These are inequities that Congress has a responsibility to correct,” said Senator Murkowski.

The proposed legislation corrects the oversight and expands the original language, so that this program works better for all Indian Tribes as they work to combat threats to and restore land and resources.

“It is time Alaska Tribes and Native Corporations have the opportunity to protect land and resources important to them, along with other Tribes across the country, regardless of whether those lands are in trust status or not or border a federal forest or rangeland. Wildfires and other threats do not care about land classifications or geographic connections like borders. My bill provides straightforward, meaningful changes that will go a long way to improve this program to work better for all.”

“There are literally thousands of years of wisdom in these amendments. Sealaska maintained title to a tiny fraction of our aboriginal territory, but our relationship with the entirety of the Tongass is ancient," said Joe Nelson, Sealaska Chairman. "We are grateful for Senator Murkowski’s deep understanding of, and advocacy for, Aas Kwáani (the tree people). We appreciate the fact that she also knows this place as home.”