The op-ed by Ed Johnstone, commissioner for the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission is titled, “Salmon recovery will take more than money.” I couldn’t agree more. In the last 30 years since most of our salmon and steelhead populations have been listed, there has essentially been no recovery while our society at all levels has spent billions in dollars but also a huge cost in other resources. Yet, we continue fishing for salmon in the usual and accustomed manner knowingly excusing the killing of hundreds of thousands of listed salmon and steelhead in directed fisheries from Alaska to California.
Considering the brutal subjugation of the tribal nations that accompanied the European occupation of North America, including our region, I offer the following suggestion with the utmost respect and understanding. Moralizing to the tribal people about saving the fish, would seem to be tone deaf to say the least, but having said that, the tribal nations are the single group that has the power to change the trajectory of this environmental disaster.
If we are to ever see recovery, it is going to require the tribal nations demanding the various management agencies, federal and state, to reduce if not completely eliminate many of the current fisheries, particularly those fisheries that occur on the ocean targeting juvenile salmon in mixed stocks. The tribal nations alone have a lawful right to these fish, as they should, but they have not been willing so far to use their guaranteed treaty rights to demand that actual harvest reform occurs. If we review the history of the major salmon fisheries in the ocean, bays, and rivers of our region, the major fisheries that occurred 30 years ago are still being conducted unabated, with no regard for the endangered fish that are being killed.
The tribal nations have the ability to demand and cause real change. However, even they have been willing to parrot concerns with recovery while they continue to prosecute tribal fisheries as usual. The tribal nations have the power to force the states and federal government to actually make meaningful change in the harvest and exploitation of the fish. Yes, the tribal nations will have to restrict their own fisheries, but in the end, they will be the winners if they can rebuild the salmon populations. We will all be winners.
All of the money and resources we have expended on attempting to recover salmon and steelhead will have been wasted until and unless we quit killing salmon before they can come home. Yes, it will take more than money. It will require leadership but also humility. I respectfully ask the tribal nations to show us the way.
Ed Wickersham,
Ridgefield
