A TREATY RIGHT TO HEALTHY FORESTS? USING TRIBAL FISHING RIGHTS TO CHALLENGE TIMBER SALES.

Tribes in the Pacific Northwest have faced persistent obstacles to their exercise of treaty fishing rights, most prominently illegal regulation of off-reservation fishing by state governments. As salmon decline, a new frontier is emerging for treaty right violations: environmental degradation. A recent court victory ruled that a series of culverts owned and operated by the state of Washington violated tribal treaty rights to fish for salmonids at their "usual and accustomed" places. This Article adapts that "Culverts Case" framework to timber harvest applications and sale of timber on public lands, underscoring the tools and arguments available when making environmental degradation treaty rights claims and applying them to past timber sales and to current, contested timber sales. It identifies challenges such a lawsuit would face, and how these localized, small-scale cases relate to climate change mitigation and adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]