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ENVS 295: Environmental Engagement

Lewis & Clark College | Spring 2020

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Fish For Thought

Cole Jacobs, Cam Sylla, Isabella Lopez Dion | April 28, 2020
Filed Under: Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission


General

Components

Progress

General Project Information

Overview
Partner
Goals
Status
Overview

Our main goal in our partnership with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission is to assist in creating a regularly occurring forum that allows for a productive conversation towards the betterment of salmon populations in the Columbia River Drainage Basin. CRITFC serves to protect the rights of the native Yakama, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Warm Springs tribes, and salmon have always been an integral part of tribal culture, as they provide wealth, food, and a way of life. Unfortunately, salmon populations in the Columbia have declined for several reasons since the 1800s and have only recently started to slightly rebound. One reason has remained at the forefront of the salmon debate, which is the issue of dams, as they impede salmon migration resulting in declining numbers as well as habitat degradation. It is incredibly important that this conversation be among CRITFC, stakeholders with opposing interests, and also the general public in order to achieve a recovered salmon population.

Partner

Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission

Goals

Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission’s mission is ensure the rights of the native tribes are protected. They generally keep their practices within their organization, which is why our goal is to broaden their outreach and create a more open conversation regarding the salmon controversy in the Columbia. By creating an open and understanding environment that is conductive to conversation, we hope to:

  1. Create a more contemporary dialogic model of communication, which could be improved through monthly public forums where all opinions are shared and discussed. We hope to spark conversation between a diverse group of stakeholders surrounding the Columbia River, especially those who aren’t normally incorporated in CRITFC’s organization, allowing for a more unified voice in the salmon debate.
  2. Better communication about the importance of salmon to the tribes surrounding the Columbia River to local fishers and residents surrounding the Columbia River area.
  3. Encourage the consideration of tribal fishers when local residents are voting on laws and policies through education about tribal fishing to overall create a local public that is more understanding of the issues that tribes face regarding fishing.

Status

Proposed

Project Components

What (Issue)
Who (People)
How (Engagement)
Cited References
What (Issue)

The Columbia Inter-Tribal Fish Commission serves the Yakama, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Warm Springs tribe by ensuring that salmon populations rebound, providing fisher services, sharing salmon culture, and protecting treaty rights; CRITFC’s first goal is specifically to “Put Fish Back in the Rivers and Protect Watersheds Where Fish Live.”

Salmon are a keystone species that over a hundred other species depend on (Hocking and Reimchen, 2002). Unfortunately, ever since the start of commercial fishing in the 1800s salmon populations have dwindled considerably, especially since the construction of hundreds of small dams before 1900 (Ferguson et al., 2011).

While dams produce enough electricity per year to power eight cities the size of Seattle, and provide jobs for many people in the region (Northwest Power and Conservation Council, n.d), they are a considerable threat to salmon. After spending up to seven years in the ocean, salmon swim upstream for hundreds of miles to spawn, and they transfer many important marine nutrients into terrestrial habitats during this migration (Hocking and Reimchen, 2002). However, this upstream migration is obstructed by dams (Ferguson et al., 2011). Dams not only serve as a direct obstacle, but they also inundate spawning grounds for salmon (Ferguson et al., 2011; U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, n.d). This inundation of spawning grounds, as well as the altered water flow and temperature created by dams has also lead to habitat degradation (Northwest Power and Conservation Council, n.d). Additionally, dams cause sediment to accumulate in their reservoirs and further degrade salmon habitat as coarse sediment is necessary for gravels that salmon need to spawn (Kondolf et al., 2014).

While the introduction of hatchery salmon has been thought to help rebound salmon populations, this has been based on a simplistic assumption that salmon “would increase in direct proportion to the number of eggs that survived a controlled environment” (Ferguson et al., 2011: p: 148). This is not true, as hatchery salmon and their wild-born descendants have much lower reproductive fitness, and they lose this fitness quickly (Ferguson et al., 2011). Ultimately, the interbreeding of wild and hatchery salmon can “dilute the gene pool of the remaining wild fish, even though the brood fish are carefully selected from indigenous stocks” (Northwest Power and Conservation Council, n.d).

Dam removal has been shown to be effective. After the removal of the Condit Dam in the Pacific Northwest, Pacific lamprey (an anadromous species similar to salmon) that were not present upstream of the dam before removal were shown to naturally recolonize the upstream river basin after the dam removal (Jolley et al., 2017). Dam removal can allow Pacific lamprey populations to reverse their population declines (Jolley et al., 2017), which is why their removal is important to not only help Pacific lamprey, but salmon as well.

Who (People)

Our project works to bring together stakeholders within and outside of CRITFC’s organization, to allow for an open and effective conversation regarding fishing in the Columbia River. Within the organization there are four tribes Nez Perce Tribe, Confederate Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederate Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon and the Confederate Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, all working together to maintain the treaties that have promised them rights to fishing along the Columbia River. These four tribes also work with lawmakers, lawyers and policy analysts to protect their rights to continue fishing. CRITFC’s organization also is composed of enforcement officers that regulate fishing in the Columbia and their Fish Science Department, who do hatchery science and work to maintain healthy fish populations.

CRITFC has a diverse group of individuals that make up their organization, but our goal is to create a dialogue where opinions that may not normally be heard can be expressed. We believe that because fishing can be a sensitive topic in which there are many different views and many of them oppose that of CRITFC, it has been a hard subject to discuss and this has hindered creating an open conversation. To accomplish the goal of creating conversation, we want to bring the ‘divided who‘ into the conversation. Some neglected stakeholders we would like to incorporate are individuals from hydroelectric plants, such as those from the Bonneville or McNary dams. Since hydroelectric energy plants can both benefit and harm different stakeholders, we believe that it has proven to be a highly disputed topic surrounding management of the Columbia River and would be a useful dilemma to discuss. We would like to bring to the conversation more fish scientists that have experience with sustainable fishing along the Columbia River, who could give insight on how to increase the livelihood of fish and better monitor the harvesting rates of fishing in the Columbia River. We believe that by educating and including the local public in the conversation it would not only help gain support for CRITFC’s mission, but can also incentivize other key stakeholders to come to our forums knowing that they can share their views to a voting public audience.

We would love to include anyone that wants to join the conversation regarding fishing and who have a stake in the Columbia River because it allows for all perspectives and experiences to be heard and by gaining better insight, management can only be improved  in the Columbia River.

How (Engagement)

In CRITFC’s settings of engagement, they would benefit from upholding a contemporary dialogue model of communication, as opposed to the framing model. The contemporary model promotes two-way communication, which CRITFC would benefit from because currently they have a one-way flow of information. CRITFC will be able to make productive progress if they interact with and listen to other parties more. 

CRITFC would largely benefit from more discussion with other stakeholders that have opposing goals of CRITFC, along with other parties who may have no affiliation with CRITFC or it’s goals but want to learn more. To make this happen, they will have open-discussion forums on a monthly basis, at the beginning of each month. They will be open to the general public. CRITFC commissioners can organize and lead these forums, and will plan out talking points for each meeting, and ensure plenty of time for open discussion and questions. They will then conduct surveys after each meeting to assess if they are making progress from other participants’ perspectives. CRITFC commissioners can also then assess at the end of each month if they find progress being made for CRITFC’s personal interests, and help plan for effective forums in the future. 

This essentially creates a safe space for conversation towards action to occur, and broadens the outreach CRITFC already conducts. I think if CRITFC held these monthly forums, and incorporated elements of the deep canvassing technique and Narrative 4’s story exchange method, two engagement methods we studied in lecture, then they will be more productive as a commission, and will build a stronger sense of community (Broockman and Kalla, 2016, Narrative 4, 2019). CRITFC would benefit from emulating something similar to Mt. Hood National Forests’ advisory committee or “Stew Crew”. Participants claimed that their meetings yielded more widespread likable decisions.

Cited References
  • Broockman, D., and J. Kalla. July 2016. “Durably Reducing Transphobia: A Field Experiment on Door-to-Door Canvassing.” Science. 352, no. 6282: 220–24.https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad9713.
  • Ferguson, John W., Michael Healey, Patrick Dugan, and Chris Barlow. January 1, 2011. “Potential Effects of Dams on Migratory Fish in the Mekong River: Lessons from Salmon in the Fraser and Columbia Rivers.” Environmental Management, Vol 47, no. 1: 141–59. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-010-9563-6.
  • Hocking, M.D. and Thomas E. Reimchen. 2002. “Salmon-derived nitrogen in terrestrial invertebrates from coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest.” BMC Ecology, Vol 2, No 4. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6785-2-4
  • Jolley, J.c., G.s. Silver, J.e. Harris, and T.a. Whitesel. October 6, 2017. “Pacific Lamprey Recolonization of a Pacific Northwest River Following Dam Removal.” River Research and Applications, Vol 34, no. 1: 44–51. https://doi.org/10.1002/rra.3221.
  • Kondolf, G. Mathias et al. April 4, 2014. “Sustainable sediment management in reservoirs and regulated rivers: Experiences from five continents.: Earth’s Future. doi:10.1002/2013EF000184.
  • Narrative 4. August 19, 2019 . “Our Work.” Narrative 4. https://narrative4.com/about/our-work
  • Northwest Power and Conservation Council. n.d. “Extinction.” Northwest Power and Conservation Council. Accessed April 13, 2020. https://www.nwcouncil.org/reports/columbia-river-history/extinction.
  • Northwest Power and Conservation Council. n.d. “Hatcheries.” Northwest Power and Conservation Council. Accessed April 13, 2020.  https://www.nwcouncil.org/reports/columbia-river-history/hatcheries.
  • Northwest Power and Conservation Council. n.d. “Hydropower.” Northwest Power and Conservation Council. Accessed April 13, 2020. https://www.nwcouncil.org/reports/columbia-river-history/hydropower
  • U.S Fish and Wildlife Service. n.d. “Salmon of the West – Why are Salmon in trouble? – Dams.” U.S Fish and Wildlife Service. Accessed March 3, 2020. https://www.fws.gov/salmonofthewest/dams.htm.

Project Progress

Input Received
Assessment
Outcomes
Next Steps
Input Received

The main goal our team has set our eyes on is how to create a regularly occurring forum about the Columbia River salmon controversy where different stakeholders have the chance to express their views and objectives while hearing conflicting ones. This would hopefully help the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, which we hope to assist with in this project. We gathered feedback from others to better the focus of this goal and how we aim to achieve it. It helped us focus our sights greatly.

First, an important note we gathered was that a key limitation to successfully putting together this project in the future will be to achieve a real conversation amongst all actors. A forum with key stakeholders unable to express their interests and inquiries will not get much done. Implementing a structure where everybody is heard in a conversational manner will therefore be of great importance.

One way to integrate that feedback into our project, would be to find a professional moderator to moderate this forum. When discussing this with the group working with Portland Harbor Community Coalition, a member saw firsthand at a forum with PHCC how a professional moderator can help the flow of a conversation within a forum.

Another important note we received was the importance of including the public in these forums. This incentivizes more stakeholders to make themselves a part of it, as it would be detrimental for those stakeholders to have the public hear arguments without considering that missing viewpoint.

The next piece of advice given was to structure these forums with more than a month’s time in between so there can be a plan that is carried out to attain a larger outreach. The more people are there, the more successful our project will be.

There are multiple questions that we are considering but cannot provide answers to. This includes the questions of where student involvement fits in; we hope this fits into the planning phase of course, but do not know specifically, and would need to find a way to fit this into the forum itself. The question of how outreach will actually be conducted is extremely important to consider as well. Lastly, we will need to dwell on how to actually bring in opposing stakeholders, so that the forum can be as successful as possibly.

Assessment

The goals for CRITFC’s engagement proposal are outlined here. Below are summative and formative assessments about each goal.

Goal #1

  • To summatively assess goal #1, CRITFC commissioners would keep track of the number of attendees at each forum. They would then look to see if there is a growing number of attendees, and would consider the project successful if higher numbers present themselves.
  • To formatively assess goal #1, CRITFC commissioners would evaluate what topics are being discussed, and how consistently they are being discussed. If they see dropping numbers of attendees, they would analyze what topics are being discussed. Then they would discuss other relevant topics to include in the future that would inspire others to want to attend the meetings. 

Goal #2

  • To summatively assess goal #2 CRITFC commissioners would survey the groups that attend the forum after each meeting to see how much they learned about the importance of salmon to the tribes surrounding the Columbia River to local fishers and residents surrounding the Columbia River area. They would ask basic questions regarding this subject matter, and would know they’re communicating effectively if people are responding to the questions correctly.
  • To formatively assess goal #2 CRITFC commissioners would ensure that there is ample accessible online and in-person materials to educate those interested in understanding how salmon and fishing is viewed by the Tribes surrounding the Columbia River.

Goal #3

  • To summatively assess goal #3 CRITFC commissioners would notice things like if dams are being removed or not along the Columbia River, and if the tribal rights of tribes in CRITFC are still being ensured. If they are, and CRITFC’s mission goals are being met, then they are effectively communicating about voting on laws and policies through education about tribal fishing.
  • To formatively assess goal #3 CRITFC commissioners would discuss and edit what information is included in discussions regarding the education about tribal rights and their reliance on fishing along the Columbia, and how dams are affecting their fishing. More discussions with CRITFC’s legal advisors would be part of this assessment too.

Outcomes

[N/A: Proposed project]

Next Steps

[N/A: Proposed project]

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Post Author

Cole Jacobs

Cam Sylla

Isabella Lopez Dion Isabella Lopez Dion

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