I agree. But I believe point that BrianM is making is that the economic conditions of the Tribes has increased considerably since the 1980's. And with the development of casinos, and the economic benefits that accrue (more and better housing, better schools, secondary economic development, etc), the Tribes may have already achieved the 'moderate living standard' in the absence of lots of salmon. So, if the 'moderate living standard' has already been achieved, has this eroded the Treaty right?

This is particularly important in the context of the need for enough fish to sustain an economically viable commercial salmon harvest. So, in light of that standard, does the Treaty right to enough salmon for a 'moderate living standard' still apply to the Tribes who are, say, millionaires?

I'm NOT saying the Tribes are millionaires. Clearly, they're not. I'm just wondering whether the Treaty right to enough salmon for a 'moderate living standard' still exists, even if they were.

(Again, this does not address the issue of ceremonial, subsistence, and religious use of salmon by the Tribes.)

That could open an interesting can of worms. Boldt initially decided that 50:50 sharing was for off-reservation commercial catch. I believe it was the second review by the Supremes that folded in C&S and on-reservation. I think before one goes too far down the road of "moderate living" it would be good to look at what the actual (as best as we can determine) catch on the Fraser is by the purely C&S fishing tribes/bands and perhaps what other tribes are harvesting just for C&S.

I don't think the Tribes' current economic standing enters into the conversation. I absolutely agree that the game has changed, but because the treaty interpretation doesn't make mention of the right being conditional, it probably wouldn't be treated as conditional by the courts.

I do think the question of how Tribal development has degraded habitat over time is pertinent and should be addressed.

It could get interesting as the tribes get more wealth. I was just looking at some aerial photos of the Carbando/Wilkeson area, and one can see thousands of clear cut land, much of it owned by the Muckleshoot tribe. You can clearly see where the federal forest starts, as it is much more forested. I think with the development of the amphitheater, large casino and current forest holdings, they would have a hard time saying they are not currently part of the problem. They certainly have less impact due to their limited size, but currently can not claim to be much different. If they keep buying land, they may end up holding as much problem land within their treaty watershed, in terms of volume, as non-treaty owners.

This would be, conceptually, easy to do. First, you start with an agreed-to production of a watershed in the absence of humans of any kind. Then, you'll estimate the return for a given year, based on the historic production. Based on the management goal, all the rest is harvestable and divided 50:50. Under what are called prior interceptions would be "development harvest" based on the proportion or Treaty/non-Treaty land in the watershed. Wilderness areas would be exempted. Then, the relationship by population would take its "share". At this point, reasonably "live" fish would be left for harvest.

Carcassman,
Non-treaty vs. Treaty land would have to be also adjusted to take into account how the current development impacts or helps the current tribe. In other words, what percentage of hospitals, roads, stores, schools or other development are beneficial to the tribes current or past standing. This can become quite burdensome, because the current levels of population are obviously being exploited by the tribes through their economic enterprises. With no population here, there would be very limited use for the timber they are harvesting, there would be no one to visit the casinos, no roads to take fish to harvest, no need for gas stations. Economic standing of the tribe must be taken into account in the current situation, as it is clearly related to the development that has impacted their fisheries. If you take away the development both on and off reservation and add the resulting fish, you then can start reducing their overall economic standing.

Yes, the continuing decline of habitat, exceeding the pace of habitat restoration, is exactly what Treaty Rights at Risk is about. The tribes are on this. I seriously do not get why the non-Indian fishing communities are not on this as well, demanding better stewardship of salmon habitat. The first step is to demand that local governments make land use decisions based on the needs of salmon, or at least by taking the needs of salmon into account. The state and the feds should be pressuring the local governments to do that, but they won't touch the issue until significant numbers of their constituents demand that they do.

I do not agree that reducing human population is the only way to save habitat and salmon. If you've travelled around the world much you've seen that most places have much higher population density than we have here. We are going to have to accommodate MORE people with LESS impact on salmon. That means living a lot differently than we do now, which is the real inconvenient truth that no politician dares to talk about.

Also, the information presented at the culvert trial documented fairly substantial losses in production due to improperly designed culverts. While it is true that the case did not hinge on the exact amount of the production lost, there is a large potential gain from opening habitat above culverts. I often wonder why more people who are interested in salmon do not spread the word about salmon habitat needs to the larger public. There is so much arguing about who gets to catch the few fish available now that people forget to talk about what we need to do to gt back some of the production we have lost.

One of the reasons why folks are not behind habitat improvement is that there is no benefit to them. Local landowner in R6 asked just how many more fish he would see spawning in his restored/improved habitat. Answer was none, as the additional fish would be caught.

In the middle of reading a look at what a century of human impact has done to the avifauna of western NA. Significant reductions in top predators (birds) due to variety of reasons, with fishing being in the mix. Salmon are a critical part of the habitat; Jeff Cederholm used to say that "salmon are habitat". This piecemeal approach will not work.

Conservation of resources so we can add more people can only go so far.

Each person needs X water to survive. Our streams are already over-appropriated. We can save water by "conserving" but at some point use at X still sums up to more than we use now. Food has to be grown somewhere, wood fiber too, we need to mine metals for all those computers, and the list goes on.

Habitat-wise we can certainly do better but at some point we will still hit the wall where it is fish or humans. Europe and eastern NA have denser human populations and where are their salmon, bears, deer, elk, or other megafauna? Africa and Asia, where individual consumption is less than here are not sharing the planet with animals very well.

One of the reasons, I believe, why the "general public" doesn't see the need for habitat protection is because they don't see that their individual action is either hurting salmon or helping. Why should I, for example, reduce my water use by 10 gallons a day when that reduction will have no detectable benefit? "Somebody else" can reduce.

Like salmon fishing. AK needs to cut back, BC needs to cut back. So I cargo fishing..

And the next words were " I quit " and John had fenced off not only his property but also convinced his neighbors to do the same. This was not a feel good effort but a major fencing / set back / crossing and was a poster child for how to save a creek. That is the " Big Lie " as in most circumstances any gains made from habitat restoration over minimum MSY escapement will go to harvest.

CM/Rivrguy-

Whether the escapement goal is increased or not there are some very real benefits from habitat restoration/improvements that benefit both the fish and society. Significant habitat improvement by its very definition results in improvement in both the productivity and capacity of the stream to produce salmonids.

In the short term that means that at any escapement point (current escapement goals??) larger run sizes will be produced at given survival conditions. Those larger runs means that catches/value of the population increases. However that is secondary to what may be the most significant populations/society benefit of habitat improvements. Currently for many of the regions salmonid populations the productivity of the populations have been so compromised that there is little resiliency left in the population to recovery from any of many potential population disasters. Historically when populations where reduced to low levels (say by a major flood) population productivity was high enough that the population bounced back quickly; often in as little as a single generation. At day's productivity that bounce back may stretch over decades (multiple fish generations). This has the dual effect of greatly increasing the likelihood of extinction and increase the time interval until there would once again be fishable numbers for the fishers.

One can not over look the fact that many of the region's salmonid fisheries are based on individual populations exploitation rates. Within the constrains of management break points those exploitation rates increasing the productivity of the base habitat (habitat restoration/improvement) will result in increased runs which in turn will provide both larger escapements and larger escapements.

So yes there are real benefits from habitat improvements!

Curt

Those benefits accrue if you put more fish on the grounds. More spawners means more genes in the system which means more resilience and so on. The current practice of taking out a barrier and keeping the same goal puts less fish per unit area out there.

And, less fish on the grounds continues the myopic view that the ecosystem exists for the fish but the fish do not support the ecosystem. Plus, we need to take the holistic view and make sure that the food base is there for the fish to eat.

Plus, if we want to restore (say) grizzlies or resident Killer Whales we need to provide them with food. They're not going to be successful going vegan.

The culvert replacements will open a lot of smaller waters to salmon and steelhead. But we have to acknowledge that in some cases its a lost cause. We are spending billions on restoration and yet as has been said, we are still destroying much more habitat than is being restored. And what is the point of planting trees along a creek if downstream if flows thru shopping centers and developments with the associated runoff pretty much ensuring that very little is able to survive in those streams.

The state conservation office enthusiastically throws money at these projects and I am not convinced somebody is looking at the big picture before signing the checks. Its just a way to say, we are doing something. We really need to decide which waters are too far gone to waste another dime and which waters will give us more bang for the buck.

The soos creek plateau is just one example. The developers are going gangbusters and yet we still spend money on these little creeks which really don't have a chance. Yes, there were salmon in there many years ago. But that was before we all had children and they had children and everyone needs a place to live.

The green river will never be what it once was. We are not going to move the cities of Auburn, Kent, and Tukwilla along with all the floodplain that is now miles of industrial parks. There is virtually no estuary and the lower river is just a large channeled ditch.

Replacing a culvert on soos creek or little soos creek is just a feel good operation but will not put anymore fish in the system.

We are required by the ESA to make an effort. At some point, reasonable people need to talk about this and put an end to efforts that we all know will not amount to anything.

A lot of folks have written about triage; essentially put the money where there is a real chance of restoring naturally reproducing wild fish. That concept gains little traction for a variety of reasons:

King County, for example, would probably not want to spend "their" salmon recovery money in Pacific County.

Folks want to work locally.

It is easier to get money for mitigation from a dam operator than a taxpayer.

In order to protect the watersheds for wild fish it will be necessary to significantly constrain population and economic growth in those watersheds. Which means that the rest of the state will have to pay the folks who live there.

Essentially, we would have to adopt a strong socialist government to force such actions.