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the negotiator 205association assessed that “on average each American uses threepounds of wood products per day”—the timber industry wreakedhavoc on salmon habitat. Felled trees muddied rivers and stole shadesalmon need to thrive. Thinking they were assisting salmon on thepath of their migration, timber crews were required to remove logsfrom streams and rivers. But the effort backfired. The removal disturbedgravel beds and spawning places for the fish.The tribes pushed for more protection of streams through bufferzones, selected areas that would remain off limits to logging andfarming. Billy struck up a friendship with Stu Bledsoe, the man at thehelm of the Washington Forest Protection Association (wfpa). Stuliked Billy. Billy still played tough. “They were drawn into the roomby Billy’s organizing the state’s largest tribes and the Alaskan Nativecorporations to threaten withdrawal of money from the banks inWashington State if they continued to oppose Indian rights andmanagement goals in relating to timber, water, wildlife,” says HankAdams. Communication was key. But the boundaries were clear.Bledsoe, a former legislator and familiar figure in agriculturecircles, continued to be impressed by the Nisqually Indian. “He wasvery confident that he could trust Billy, and he wasn’t sure aboutme,” Wilkerson laughs. “Billy and Stu had a really rock solid relationship.I was the least solid, because I knew him the least. So, Billy Iwould call him truly the glue on that one.”Billy also worked toward a compromise with Joe DeLaCruz. Aschairman of the Quinault Indian Nation, DeLaCruz valued bothtimber and fish. With a vested interest in timber harvest, however, heopposed exceptionally restrictive practices in the industry. “He andBilly sat down,” Wilkerson recalls. “They were negotiating with eachother about what was OK and what wasn’t OK. Those two guysclosed the deal from the tribal standpoint, Billy and Joe. Billy acceptedthe fact that we would be the regulator, but wanted to be at the table.”In July 1986, again at Port Ludlow, representatives of the timberindustry, tribes, environmentalists, and governmental agencies foundmiddle ground. Six months and sixty meetings later, the Timber,