The Tribal Forest Protection Act Public Law 108-278, signed July 22, 2004, authorizes the secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to give special consideration to tribally proposed stewardship contracting or other projects on Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management land bordering or adjacent to Indian trust lands.

   The Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement requires taxpayers to purchase 90,000 acres of forested land for the exclusive economic benefit of the Klamath Tribes. If acquired, the Tribes’ influence over forest management on tens of thousands of acres of adjacent federal lands would be significantly expanded by this act.

   Our forests lie dead and dying. We should be demanding that the federal land managers rapidly increase the number of timber sales to reduce wildfire risk, improve forest health, and provide a reliable and stable source of funding.  

   While creating good jobs, timber sales on federal lands also return 25 percent of gross revenues to the counties they occur in.

   Stewardship projects generally exchange “goods for services” and are not managed like regular timber sales. Tribal stewardship of federal lands, resulting from the purchase of the Mazama Tree Farm, coupled with Public Law 108-278, is likely to result in a devastating loss of forest products revenue for non-tribal residents of Klamath County as under tribal contracting the required sharing of funds with the County is highly unlikely to occur.

   The KBRA as promoted by the environmentalists, government agencies, and Tribes is truly unprecedented in seeking to grab control of our natural resources and our future. The loss of forest revenue is just one of the many ways in which it seeks to destroy our agriculture-based economy.

   I urge you to vote yes on Measure 18-80.

   Recommend the county no longer help facilitate the demise of our local economy.

   John Kite

   Keno