URL: https://grist.org/indigenous/the-u-s-government-stole-the-black-hills-now-its-clearcutting-them/
Ponderosa pines, the dominant trees here, produce their most viable seeds when they are 60 years or older. That means overcutting, combined with climate change, can permanently change the landscape. In recent decades, the 1.5 million acres of forest sprawling across western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming have weathered a historic beetle infestation and a giant fire, both tied to a warming climate.
...most recently, in April, came an “emergency” directive from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fast-track logging on nearly 60 percent of the Black Hills.
...it mislabels millions of forest acres nationwide, including land that falls within reservation boundaries in many states. It also threatens at least 25 endangered species nationwide, like the gray wolf, which has been spotted in the Black Hills, while potentially reducing the carbon storage capacity of the forest.
The Lakota named the area Pahá Sápa — ”hills that are black” — for the looming, dark ponderosa pines that have been recorded to live as long as 700 years.
“Fire is natural, and the colonial mindset that it should adjust to human activity instead of the other way around is not correct,” said Gunhammer.
A mountain pine beetle infestation between the mid-1990s and the mid-2010s eventually impacted 435,000 acres of the 1.5 million acres of forest.
The forest now under threat doesn’t belong to the timber industry nor to the federal government. The Lakota won a 1980 Supreme Court case recognizing the theft of this unceded land. The court granted monetary damages, which now amount, with interest, to around $2 billion, but the nation hasn’t touched the money, instead insisting the government return the land.
“Our lifetime is shorter than the life of a forest,” said Zimmerman. “It’s spoken of as a renewable resource, but it’s such a long-term thing that in some ways, it’s not.”