Keshena to host national tribal forestry symposium in June

Keshena will become a national gathering place for tribal forestry in June, with the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and the Stockbridge-Munsee Community hosting a sold-out symposium that puts Menominee County’s forest management model in front of tribal leaders, policymakers and resource professionals from across Indian Country.

The 49th Annual National Indian Timber Symposium is scheduled for June 8-11 at the Menominee Casino Resort and the College of the Menominee Nation in Keshena. That venue split places two of the community’s most visible institutions at the center of the week’s activity, and the full registration means the event is likely to bring a noticeable wave of visitors, hotel demand and local spending into the reservation community.

The theme, Forestry in a Changing Environment, reaches beyond climate change alone. Organizers say the symposium will take up the policy, economic and technological pressures reshaping tribal forestry, including tribal sovereignty, legislative advocacy, self-determination contracts, biomass, carbon sequestration and technical forestry training. The agenda also includes a tribal forest tour, local cultural activities, the Shake the Timbers golf tournament and an awards banquet, making the week both a technical forum and a community event.

For Menominee County, the setting is not symbolic. The Menominee Forest has been sustainably managed by the tribe for more than 150 years, and Menominee Tribal Enterprises describes it as a world-class model of forest stewardship. In December 2023 testimony, Michael Skenadore said the Menominee reservation covers 235,000 acres and is 93 percent forest, with a sustained-yield approach in which annual harvest does not exceed annual forest growth. That is the kind of record many tribal foresters will come to study in Keshena.

The College of the Menominee Nation also gives the symposium local weight. The college says its main campus is in Keshena, that it is a tribal land-grant college chartered by the Menominee People and that its Sustainable Development Institute was created by tribal leaders rooted in the Menominee tradition of sustainable forestry. Its sustainability model spans six dimensions: land and sovereignty, natural environment, institutions, technology, economy, and human behavior. That framework matches the symposium’s larger message that forest management is inseparable from governance, education and economic development.

The 2026 meeting also continues a long national tradition. The Intertribal Timber Council says it has held the Annual National Indian Timber Symposium every year since 1977, with recent gatherings in Missoula, Montana, in 2025, Cherokee, North Carolina, in 2024 and Walker, Minnesota, in 2023. The council also says its IFMAT-IV assessment of Indian forest lands was completed in 2023, giving this year’s discussions a policy backdrop that could shape tribal forest management decisions long after the June sessions end.