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• 1. [Article] Policy Conundrum: Restoring Wild Salmon to the Pacific Northwest

  Restoring wild salmon runs to the Pacific Northwest is technically challenging, politically nasty, and socially divisive. Pa st restoration efforts have been largely unsuccessful. Society’s failure to ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Policy Conundrum: Restoring Wild Salmon to the Pacific Northwest Author: Lackey, Robert T. Year: 2001 Restoring wild salmon runs to the Pacific Northwest is technically challenging, politically nasty, and socially divisive. Pa st restoration efforts have been largely unsuccessful. Society’s failure to reverse the continuing decline of wild salmon has the characteristics of a policy conundrum: nearly everyone supports, abstractly at least, restoring salmon runs; considerable public and private resources have been devoted to their restoration; but society collectively remains evidently unwilling to make the painful decisions clearly necessary to arrest their decline. The salmon policy conundrum is characterized by competing societal priorities being adjudicated in a political environment where few are willing to acknowledge publicly the future consequences of prior de facto policy choices. Decisions already made have greatly circumscribed the status of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest through at least the next several decades. Barring a near wholesale reversal of many of society’s previous decisions (and apparent priorities), and allowing for considerable year-to-year and decade-to-decade variation in run size due in part to oscillations in climate and oceanic conditions, I conclude that through the twenty-first century, many, perhaps most, stocks of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest likely will remain at their current low levels or continue to decline in spite of current protection and restoration efforts. Title: Policy Conundrum: Restoring Wild Salmon to the Pacific Northwest Author: Lackey, Robert T. Year: 2001 Restoring wild salmon runs to the Pacific Northwest is technically challenging, politically nasty, and socially divisive. Pa st restoration efforts have been largely unsuccessful. Society’s failure to reverse the continuing decline of wild salmon has the characteristics of a policy conundrum: nearly everyone supports, abstractly at least, restoring salmon runs; considerable public and private resources have been devoted to their restoration; but society collectively remains evidently unwilling to make the painful decisions clearly necessary to arrest their decline. The salmon policy conundrum is characterized by competing societal priorities being adjudicated in a political environment where few are willing to acknowledge publicly the future consequences of prior de facto policy choices. Decisions already made have greatly circumscribed the status of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest through at least the next several decades. Barring a near wholesale reversal of many of society’s previous decisions (and apparent priorities), and allowing for considerable year-to-year and decade-to-decade variation in run size due in part to oscillations in climate and oceanic conditions, I conclude that through the twenty-first century, many, perhaps most, stocks of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest likely will remain at their current low levels or continue to decline in spite of current protection and restoration efforts. Close

• 2. [Article] Species Extinction and Cultural Arrogance: The Perils of Ignoring History

  For more than a century, politicians, newspaper editors, tate and federal fisheries managers, and their various constituencies with an interest in salmon have complained,lobbied and petitioned, sought ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Species Extinction and Cultural Arrogance: The Perils of Ignoring History Author: Robbins, William G. Year: 2001 For more than a century, politicians, newspaper editors, tate and federal fisheries managers, and their various constituencies with an interest in salmon have complained,lobbied and petitioned, sought legislative relief, and studied to near extinction the declining runs of the Pacific Northwest’s anadromous fish runs. All to no avail, of course. Management efforts have failed; the attempt to the establish reliable, predictive models has failed; massive federal expenditures to rescue crashing stocks have failed; and endeavors to achieve consensus about future policymaking have failed. And today one can add to the now familiar story of extinct and endangered salmon, similar tales about ocean groundfish, newly impoverished fishing communities, reductions in fleet size, and more federal bailouts. What is fascinating in the unveiling of this most recent story is the sense of history repeating itself as commercial fishers shift from one species to the next. Title: Species Extinction and Cultural Arrogance: The Perils of Ignoring History Author: Robbins, William G. Year: 2001 For more than a century, politicians, newspaper editors, tate and federal fisheries managers, and their various constituencies with an interest in salmon have complained,lobbied and petitioned, sought legislative relief, and studied to near extinction the declining runs of the Pacific Northwest’s anadromous fish runs. All to no avail, of course. Management efforts have failed; the attempt to the establish reliable, predictive models has failed; massive federal expenditures to rescue crashing stocks have failed; and endeavors to achieve consensus about future policymaking have failed. And today one can add to the now familiar story of extinct and endangered salmon, similar tales about ocean groundfish, newly impoverished fishing communities, reductions in fleet size, and more federal bailouts. What is fascinating in the unveiling of this most recent story is the sense of history repeating itself as commercial fishers shift from one species to the next. Close