25 U.S.C. § 3103 — Definitions

For this chapter: (1) “Alaska Native” means Native as defined in 43 U.S.C. § 1602(b). (2) “Forest” means an ecosystem of at least 1 acre, including timberland and woodland, with a more or less dense and extensive tree cover, at least 10 percent tree-crown cover now or formerly, and no development or plan for exclusive nonforest use. (3) “Indian forest land” means Indian land, including commercial and noncommercial timberland and woodland, chiefly valuable for forest products or for watershed or other values improved by forest cover, whether or not formally inspected and classified. (4) “Forest land management activities” means all activities managing Indian forest lands, including: (A) administration and executive direction—policy and operating procedures, oversight and evaluation, legal assistance and matters, budget, finance and personnel, and needed databases and reports; (B) developing and revising inventories and management plans, including aerial photographs, maps, field inventories and reinventories, analysis, growth studies, allowable annual-cut calculations, environmental assessment, and forest history, consistent with tribal integrated resource plans; (C) forest development, including planting, thinning, tree improvement, and silvicultural treatments to restore or increase growth and yield to the forest environment’s full productive capacity; (D) wildfire protection, including firefighting equipment and detection systems, firebreaks, hazard reduction, prescribed burning, and cooperative agreements; (E) insect and disease protection, including detection and evaluation, funded project proposals with descriptions, environmental assessments and statements, and cost-benefit analyses, field suppression, and reporting; (F) assessing damage from forest trespass, infestation, or fire, including field examination, surveys, appraisal, investigation help, and preparing reports, demand letters, and testimony; (G) preparing, administering, and supervising timber-sale contracts, paid and free-use permits, and other harvest-sale documents, including cruising, marking, silvicultural prescriptions, appraisal, harvest supervision, marketing assistance, including evaluating marketing and development opportunities related to Indian forest products and consulting with and advising tribes, tribal enterprises, and Indian enterprises on maximizing returns from forest products, archaeological, historical, environmental, and other land-management reviews, clearances, and analyses, advertising and supervising contracts, marking and scaling timber, and collecting, recording, and distributing sale receipts; (H) financial assistance for Indians enrolled in accredited postsecondary or postgraduate forestry and forestry-related programs, including scholarships, internships, relocation help, and other educational-expense help; (I) helping develop and carry out tribal integrated resource plans and coordinate present and future multiple uses; (J) improving and maintaining extended-season primary and secondary Indian forest roads; and (K) research to improve the basis for choosing management measures. (5) “Forest management plan” means the Secretary^*-approved principal document, consistent with a tribal integrated resource plan, regulating detailed multiple-use operation so the land stays continuously productive while meeting tribal objectives. It must include funding and staffing standards, with current levels reported, and measurable standards for evaluating performance against the plan’s objectives. (6) “Forest product” means timber; timber products such as lumber, lath, crating, ties, bolts, logs, pulpwood, fuelwood, posts, poles, and split products; bark; Christmas trees, stays, branches, firewood, berries, mosses, pinyon nuts, roots, acorns, syrups, wild rice, and herbs; other marketable material; and gravel extracted from and used on Indian forest lands. (7) “Forest resources” means all benefits from Indian forest lands, including products, soil productivity, water, fisheries, wildlife, recreation, and aesthetic or other traditional values. (8) “Forest trespass” means illegally removing forest products from forest land or illegally damaging products on it. (9) “Indian” means a member of an Indian tribe^*. (10) “Indian land” means land titled in the United States in trust for an Indian, a person of Indian or Alaska Native ancestry who is not a federally recognized tribal member, or an Indian tribe, or land titled in such a person or tribe subject to a United States restriction on alienation. (11) “Indian tribe” or “tribe” means an Indian tribe, band, nation, Pueblo, or other organized group or community recognized as eligible for special United States Indian programs and services, and, when appropriate, the recognized government of its reservation. (12) “Reservation” includes reservations established by treaty, Act of Congress, or Executive order, public-domain Indian allotments, and former Oklahoma reservations. (13) “Secretary” means the Secretary of the Interior. (14) “Sustained yield” means the forest-product yield a forest can continuously produce at a given management intensity. (15) “Tribal integrated resource management plan” means a document approved by an Indian tribe and the Secretary that coordinates comprehensive management of the tribe’s natural resources.