From High Country News (9/2/02) Closing the Loop: From Trees to Hogans CAMERON, Ariz. -- In an old shed on the Navajo Nation 60 miles east of Flagstaff, two well-muscled Navajos pull and prod small diameter ponderosa pines out of a 1954 Chevy truck and onto a fast-moving conveyor belt. The conveyor takes the "yellow bellies" into the torpedo-shaped, thumping log-peeling machine's maw, popping them out minutes later as sleek, naked logs destined for use in traditional Navajo houses, or hogans. This prototype plant is at least a first step toward solving a massive problem on the nearby Coconino National Forest: fire-prone, overgrown stands of ponderosa pine. At least 250,000 of the Coconino's 1.8 million acres are in need of thinning and restoration, according to the Forest Service. However, one of the biggest challenges has been to create a way to turn the thinned trees into marketable wood products rather than simply cutting and burning them. "Burning the wood, rather than sending it down the road to make new products is a type of insanity," says Coconino Forest chief Jim Golden. In providing a market for the wood, this hogan project may also create living wage jobs and new housing on the Navajo Nation where unemployment rates hover between 40 and 50 percent and housing conditions are poor. Most hogans on the 17 million-acre Navajo reservation have been put together with whatever materials could be salvaged and foraged. The other choice has been government-built housing, much of which is falling apart and costly to heat. Now, say tribal authorities, there is need for 30,000 new homes on the reservation. Traditional comeback The Cameron Project is the brainchild of a non-profit organization called Indigenous Community Enterprises (ICE), sponsored by the Northern Arizona University School of Forestry. Funding has come from the Forest Service and a number of foundations, such as the Arizona Community Foundation, and various regional non-profits. Three years ago, Mae Franklin, the tribe's liaison to the Forest Service, the late Shawn Muldoon, a timber sales officer with the Kaibab National Forest, and the late Ella Big Horse, the coordinator of one of the Navajo Chapters, came up with the idea to use small diameter wood for a variety of projects on the Navajo Reservation -- corrals, fences, ramadas. Housing rose to the top of their priority list because of the tribal need and the prospect that it could pay for itself over time. They took their idea to the Grand Canyon Forests Foundation, created by the Grand Canyon Trust and the Coconino National Forest, which were working to reduce fire danger in the Coconino (HCN, 3/1/99). There they met Bret KenCairn, who was staff director, and together they took the idea to NAU School of Forestry. ICE was born. " Two years ago, we were just a bunch of dreamers with big ideas and a few drawings of log hogans," says KenCairn, now ICE's executive director. Now, he says, "We are on our way toward creating a synthesis that restores the land and the native community at the same time." Adds Tony Skrelunas, recently a top official in the Navajo Tribal Government, and an ICE board member, "This is the first big effort on the Navajo Nation's part. Until now, a variety of cultural traditions discouraged organized business efforts like this. Attitudes among the elders are changing." ICE officials had hoped to be in full production here nine months ago, but they ran into problems with funding and code compliance. ICE had to go through dozens of different designs before coming up with one which was not only structurally but also cost-effective and easy enough to build so that people with varying skills- from contractors to novices- could erect them. " We had to do a lot of R & D and a lot of coordination between federal and tribal agencies," says KenCairn. And, he adds, "We had to beg and borrow and wheedle to get $350,000 in in-kind support." Now, however, the program is rolling. Two prototype hogans have been built; one of which now stands outside the Navajo Community Chapter House here in Cameron and is used as an office by Mae Franklin for Forest Service activities. The other stands on the grounds of the Leupp Elementary School in the southwest corner of the reservation. Four more prototypes have been purchased by the Navajo housing authority for Elders in extreme need. KenCairn says that ICE now gets several inquiries a day from interested purchasers, and although final production plans are now being finalized, ICE hopes to be building four to five hogans a month by September. Navajo Nation President Kelsey Begay has already invited ICE to establish another manufacturing plant in the Fort Defiance area. Over the past 11 months, ICE has hired eleven Navajos at wages ranging from $8 to $15 an hour. In addition, four Navajo contractors employing eight workers were hired. In all, the project's payroll is $90,000. Home economics As the program expands, it could also help make forest restoration more economically viable. KenCairn believes that with more manufacturing plants and new, more valuable uses for wood byproducts, the current cost of forest restoration could be lowered from an average of $800 per acre to $50-$100 per acre. But will that open logging's Pandora's box of profit motive again by tying forest restoration treatments to selling trees? " The key issue is scale," says KenCairn, adding that larger-scale plants like paper mills, plywood plants or wood-fired powerplants -- which consume hundreds of millions of board feet of thinnings -- may not be sustainable over their 20 to 30 year lifespan. "People who invest the kind of money these plants take -- 200-500 million bucks -- are going to have a strong financial interest in making sure the wood fiber keeps flowing." " We're taking a different approach," he continues. "We think smaller scale, community-based enterprises are a more responsive and practical solution." KenCairn says that ICE's small, locally-owned and controlled $1-4 million plants are more flexible and adaptive to available materials and better fit the scope of a conservative restoration program. The next challenge will be making the hogans affordable. The cost of a hogan kit ranges between $13,000 and $25,000; construction costs for an 800 square-foot dwelling with a septic system run between $50,000 and $75,000. Average income per capita on the reservation is $6,400. "Some of the elders," says Franklin, "are suffering sticker shock." Still, the hogans cost less than Housing and Urban Development houses, which run $126,000 for a one-bedroom house, $133,000 for two bedrooms. And ICE topsiders and Navajo officials are working on a number of ways for Navajos to own the new hogans. The tribe will provide economic assistance for the very low-income elders. And the tribal government, which builds homes with HUD money, and rented them now plans to sell them will redirect such funds to hogan plants and to ICE. Meantime, ICE has applied for a HUD grant, too. ICE AND the Navajo Housing Authority are also working with banks like Wells Fargo and Bank One to make mortgage money available. While the economic challenges are real, Mae Franklin thinks that local support for the project is already starting to show momentum." The Chapters are coming around; reality is setting in," she says. "This is going to happen." -- James Bishop, Jr.