Citation:

LACKEY, R. T., D. H. LACH, AND S. L. DUNCAN. POLICY OPTIONS TO REVERSE THE DECLINE OF WILD PACIFIC SALMON. FISHERIES. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, MD, 31(7):344-351, (2006).

Impact/Purpose:

to identify practical options that have a high probability of maintaining biologically significant, sustainable populations of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest and California.

Description:

The primary goal of the Salmon 2100 Project was to identify practical options that have a high probability of maintaining biologically significant, sustainable populations of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest and California. Wild salmon recovery efforts in western North America (especially those in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and southern British Columbia), as earnest, expensive, and socially disruptive as they currently are, do not appear likely to sustain biologically significant populations of wild salmon through this century. Long-term sustainability, although broadly supported by the public in the abstract, remains elusive in reality. The Project does not support or advocate any particular policy or class of policies. Rather, the overarching theme is providing information that will help policy makers and the public evaluate long-term policy alternatives. The Project provides a diverse set of independent, practical policy prescriptions that would have a high probability of restoring wild salmon runs to significant levels over the long-term. To accomplish its goal, the Project has enlisted thirty fisheries scientists, policy analysts, and policy advocates, each of whom is well versed and experienced in salmon science and policy. The policy prescriptions offered by Project participants are universally candid, sometimes uncomfortably radical, and occasionally sobering. Most Project participants conclude that current recovery efforts have a low probability of successfully restoring or even sustaining wild salmon runs through this century in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and southern British Columbia through 2100. There were, however, many policy prescriptions developed by the participants that would restore and sustain wild runs. Most of these fell into one of four general categories: (1) extensive technological intervention often accompanied by a recalibration of the notion or definition of what is a “wild” salmon; (2) some form of policy or ecological triage that would focus recovery efforts in areas of most likely success; (3) changes in bureaucratic institutional structures and/or eliminating the currently pervasive “symbolic politics” that surrounds salmon policy; and (4) changes in individual and societal behavior. None of the proposed policy options involve easy or inexpensive choices, but there are options that could likely restore wild salmon to substantial levels, although much less than those of the 1850s.

Record Details: