"The status quo jeopardizes wild salmon recovery. That’s what National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, the federal agency in charge of implementing the Endangered Species Act, told the Federal Emergency Management Agency in reviewing FEMA’s floodplain management plan.

If status quo development, pollution and other ongoing factors damaging and destroying salmon habitat are allowed to continue, ESA-protected species such as threatened Puget Sound chinook and steelhead will not recover.

That means we need to take a hard look at how we’re doing when it comes to salmon habitat protection and restoration. For us, salmon recovery is about more than the ESA, it’s about our treaty rights, our culture, our economies and our very existence.

We are 10 years into recovery efforts for ESA-listed Puget Sound chinook. We know we can’t make up for lost and damaged habitat by further cutting harvest or producing more hatchery fish. We must focus on habitat.

We have accomplished great things on the habitat front in the past few years. Dikes have been torn down and hundreds of acres of estuary habitat have been created at the mouths of the Nisqually and Skokomish rivers. The Lummi Nation is reconnecting tidal channels and restoring hundreds of acres of estuary habitat in Bellingham Bay. The Quinault Indian Nation is restoring the upper Quinault River watershed and critical sockeye spawning habitat. There are many more examples in the region."

Get the Story:
Billy Frank Jr.: Status quo has to go (Indian Country Today 1/12)

Related Stories:
Billy Frank: Sense of place and treaty fishing rights (12/7)
Billy Frank: Tribes restoring salmon at hatcheries (11/9)
Billy Frank: Management key to salmon recovery (8/10)