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Thought Leadership
The White Mountain Apache Tribe is working to restore forests; protect their sacred mountains; promote protection of culturally important species, including medicinal plants; and reduce wildfire risks. With funding in part from a capacity support grant through First Nations’ Community Navigator project, the tribe is identifying areas on the eastern part of the Fort Apache Reservation to reintroduce beneficial fire to restore aspen trees and wet meadows while reducing the risk of extreme fires.
The Fort Apache Reservation, home to the White Mountain Apache Tribe, encompasses 1.67 million acres in east-central Arizona. The diverse landscape ranges in elevation from 2,600 feet – at its lowest point in the Salt River Canyon – to 11,400 feet at its highest point on the top of Mount Baldy. Composed primarily of forested lands, with the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest to the north and east and the San Carlos Apache Reservation to the south, the Fort Apache Reservation is prone to wildfire risk.
Recent wildfire events, including the 2011 Wallow Fire and the 2022 Rodeo-Chediski Fire – two of the largest wildfires in Arizona history – burned approximately one million acres of forested, tribal, and private lands and watersheds in east-central Arizona and western New Mexico.
These events have heightened extreme concerns expressed by elders, tribal leaders, and natural resource managers and the potential for wildfire risk to the sacred Mount Baldy area.
Sean Parker, Water Quality Officer for the White Mountain Apache Tribe, shares that Mount Baldy is culturally significant to the White Mountain Apache Tribe. “It is one of our four sacred mountain ranges. There are a lot of medicines up there, and it is spirituality where people will take trips for prayers, and it’s at risk of catastrophic wildfire.”
The Black River watershed in east-central Arizona originates in the White Mountains. It ranges from high elevation forests where fires occurred infrequently, to low elevation pine forests where historically, low-intensity fires maintained open forests, reduced fuel loads, and supported healthy watersheds, explains Parker.
A view of Mount Baldy from Green Peak
“Fires in higher elevation forests were less frequent and likely more severe, and because of wildfire suppression and intensifying drought and warming, those forests have become overgrown with an excessive amount of dead and stressed trees,” he says.
In the 1960s, federal managers cut thousands of trees in clearcuts as part of a program to increase water runoff to non-tribal irrigators downstream in the Salt River. Consequently, in the 1970s and 1980s, tribal leaders passed resolutions to halt all forest management activity in those areas. It was only a year ago, in April 2025, that the White Mountain Apache Tribe passed a resolution to allow the reauthorization of forest management activity to occur within a protected area on Mount Baldy, but not without immense effort.
According to Javis Davis, hydrologist for the tribe’s Water Resources Program, “It took time, leadership change, revising old resolutions, and educating our community” to understand the need for active forest management and treatments to transpire.
Today, the tribe is working to reestablish fire as a tool for stewardship, guided by both Native knowledge and contemporary science. Parker adds, “Fire does not know boundaries, so we need to work together to protect our home.”
Central to this work is the tribe’s Water Resources Program, through which they are coordinating with the Bureau of Indian Affairs Wildland Fire Program and collaborating with partners, including retired U.S. Forest Service scientist and former tribal employee, Jonathan Long.
The lower elevation forests have experienced fire as part of regular prescribed burning, as well as backburning to control the Wallow Fire. However, Long explains, determining how to bring back fire appropriately in the high elevation forests is a major challenge facing not only the tribes, but also other land managers throughout the West. “It’s particularly important for the tribe because of all the eco-cultural values that Mount Baldy sustains,” he says.
The headwaters of the Black River watershed begin at Mount Baldy on the eastern part of the Reservation. Several of its major forks converge on the Apache National Forest and along the southern boundary of the Fort Apache Reservation and San Carlos Reservation before flowing into the Salt River.
Parker describes Black River as more than a location – it is filled with stories, ancestral lineage, medicines, and ceremonies. “The way we see water, it’s part of our blood and our veins. It’s part of who we are. It’s a living entity,” he says.
The significance of this watershed is evident not only in stories, but in the rare and culturally important species that reside there, including the Clematis vine, Apache trout (Oncorhynchus apache), Arizona willow (Salix arizonica), Mogollon clover (Trifolium neurophyllum), and medicinal plants such as Osha (haich’ige in White Mountain Apache). High-severity wildfires like the Wallow Fire followed by monsoon floods significantly impact these culturally important species through massive erosion and soil degradation, which ultimately threatens water quality.
State Forester Jon Orona and the specialized forestry team
collect data for silviculture prescriptions
Based on this, Cheryl Palizote, program director for the Water Resources Program, asserts that it is imperative for the tribe to evaluate policy and assess priority forest management areas near the headwaters of the White River and Black River to ensure continued access and clean water for tribal members and recreational visitors.
Moving forward, the White Mountain Apache Tribe is providing opportunities through internships, scholarships, and week-long natural resource camps to prepare the next generation of natural resource leaders. In addition, the tribe’s Water Resources Program is building on the strengths of their staff by providing training and workshop opportunities to enhance their skills in Geographic Information Systems, chainsaw use, forest insect and disease identification and management, and more.
“Here, we have a holistic approach and provide education on how everything is connected, how water connects to forest health, silviculture, timber sales, fire regimes, climate change and how it affects Apache trout,” says Parker. “We have to bring up the next generation to be stewards of the land, to protect it.”
First Nations is honored to support efforts like those led by the White Mountain Apache Tribe, where traditional knowledge, community leadership, and stewardship practices are guiding the protection of lands, waters, animals, and plants. These efforts create shared benefits across Native and non-Native communities.
Leiloni Begaye (Diné)
Associate Director, Stewarding Native Lands
