Menominee Forest Background

The Menominee Tribe has inhabited Northeast Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula for generations, where ancestral tribal lands encompassed over 10 million acres. Following several treaties and land cessions, in 1854 the Menominee people were confined to their current Reservation lands, totaling 235,000 acres. The Menominee Forest has survived as an island of timber in an ocean of cleared land. It is representative of the Lake States boreal forest that existed prior to clearing for farming by settlers and timber barons.

The Tribe recognized that their future depended on the forest and embarked on a course of sustained yield management to avoid forest exploitation and preserve Tribal existence. In order to survive off of this limited land base, the Tribe decided that it must harvest timber, but must maintain and perpetuate the forest resources for future generations. The basic concept used was to harvest timber from one end of the reservation to the other in such a manner that when done, the first areas cut would be ready for cutting again.

This has been the driving force for forest management for the past 140 years. It has been successful, there is more standing saw timber volume (1.7 billion board feet) now, than there was in 1854 (estimated at 1.2 billion board feet). During this same period, over 2.25 billion board feet have been harvested from the same acreage.

The backbone to the Tribal economy has been its forest product industry. The Tribal Enterprise has its origins back in 1908 when the sawmill was built in Neopit. Since the Tribal Enterprise is not federally subsidized, the success of the sawmill depends on the steady flow of timber from forest to market. The Enterprise employs approximately 125 which are mostly tribal members, plus 180 more woods workers.

The Menominee forest is recognized as one of the finest examples of forest management in the Lake States. Some reasons:

• Rigid sustained yield procedures developed over decades. The Tribe uses a CFI system to monitor the growth and health of the forest and uses a harvest control based on silvicultural prescriptions versus predicted growth estimates.
• "Open door" policy of technical exchange with federal, state, university, and industrial forestry professionals, resulting in implementation of "cutting edge" forestry practices.
• Forestry staff time is devoted primarily to field operations vs. extensive office time.
• "What's best for the forest?" philosophy. Agency provincialism has been replaced with cooperation forestry staff's of  MTE, DNR, and BIA are consolidated under one office complex.
• Menominee does not have written prescriptions for non-consumptive uses of the forest. The tribe has come to the understanding that good state-of-the-art forestry, including diversity, produces good wildlife habitat, water quality, and aesthetics.
• Aesthetics is Menominee's untold story. Their forests and rivers are some of the most pristine looking in the Lake States.
• Approximately 75,000 cords of pulpwood and 14 million board feet of saw timber are harvested annually.