While salmon and steelhead have been on the decline for a century, in the last decade alone, 167 populations of salmon and steelhead in Washington State have been added to the federal Endangered Species List. The listings have served as a 'wake-up' call to the citizens of Washington State, prompting actions by local watershed groups, state agencies, and state government.

WDFW is the agency responsible for ensuring wild salmon populations are healthy while also providing sustainable fisheries in Washington State. WDFW has worked intensively with tribal governments and salmon recovery partners over the last decade toward those goals. Highlights include:

• Playing a key role in negotiating a reduction in Canadian and Alaskan Chinook catch to increase the number of fish that return to Washington waters;
• Working with the Hatchery Scientific Review Group to evaluate 187 hatchery programs and then implemented program changes and facility improvements in response;
• Helping the State’s Lead Entity program and Regional Fisheries Enhancement Groups implement over 3,000 projects to protect and restore salmon habitat;
• Working with Regional Salmon Recovery Boards to create six salmon recovery plans mandated by the ESA;
• Working with the Governor’s Office to secure federal disaster relief for unprecedented fisheries restrictions off the west coast of the United States in 2008;
• Directing fisheries onto marked hatchery fish while letting wild fish return to spawn; and
• Redefining steelhead conservation policies statewide based on new biological and life history information.

Although these strategies represent positive steps forward, the challenges to wild salmon are increasing. Given that climate change and a rising human population will continue to impact salmon, we must do all that we can to ensure that the management of our salmon is the best it can be. This means that we not only do everything we can to protect, conserve, and recover habitat, but that decisions about habitat and harvest are coordinated with those habitat actions to produce synergistic benefits. WDFW needed a way to identify, prioritize, and coordinate efforts such as those listed above while also improving management practices internally.

Like most fisheries management agencies, WDFW has made management decisions about salmon and steelhead harvest, hatcheries, and habitat according to discipline, and in isolation from one another. This "silo" approach was workable so long as the resource was abundant and when the efficient delivery of a fishing season was the primary objective. But today, with the resource in serious trouble, prominent scientists, resource managers, and community leaders are calling for an All-H approach to management in which decisions about harvest, hatcheries, and habitat are coordinated to recover species and provide sustainable fisheries. For example, in the 2007 Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Plan, Shared Strategy for Puget Sound noted that:

“Clear consistent communication is...needed across the hatchery, harvest and habitat sectors. Hatchery programs must be designed and operated to consider the availability of habitat quality and quantity, with appropriate timing and sequencing as habitat conditions are improved. Harvest programs must consider the production objectives, capabilities and needs of hatchery programs.”

WDFW created the 21st Century Salmon and Steelhead Initiative to compel the internal changes necessary for managing salmon and steelhead in an All-H context.

The purpose of the new decision-making framework is to help the Department identify, prioritize, and coordinate the strategies it will pursue to recover salmon and steelhead and provide sustainable fisheries. The framework contains six key outcome areas, each of which is made measurable with specific indicators of success. The framework contains over 400 benchmarks laid out in a timeframe that extends to 2050, against which WDFW can measure progress; evaluate strategies, programs, staff assignments, and resource investments; and synchronize activities in support of each outcome area.

Additionally, the framework provides:

• A shared definition of success
• A transparent context for decision-making
• A solid foundation upon which to identify priorities and build a budget
• An effective tool for communicating internally and externally
• A disciplined way of maintaining focus while moving forward
• A measure of staff performance

WDFW has already begun using the new decision-making framework to set priorities, drive budget requests, and allocate resources. In broad terms, WDFW will be making management decisions in support of the following conclusions:

• Habitat protection and restoration efforts must be supported
• WDFW lands provide opportunities for salmon recovery
• Hatcheries are means, not ends
• Sustainable fisheries depend on conservation of wild fish
• Science is a wise investment
• State/Tribal management is key to success

In addition, WDFW will be working to:

• Improve methods of information-sharing internally (between the different divisions in charge of hatcheries, habitat, and harvest), as well as the infrastructure for working effectively with tribal co-managers, reporting to the Director, Governor, and the Fish and Wildlife Commission.
• Ensure that its management decisions are transparent, scientifically defensible, and well-communicated;
• Coordinate hatchery, harvest, habitat, and hydro actions in each watershed; and
• Strengthen partnerships between the Department and local governments, businesses, and organizations committed to salmon and steelhead conservation.

WDFW has already begun working to meet the first set of framework benchmarks:

• The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission endorsed the framework, and its outcomes are included in the Director’s goals and objectives.
• The 21CSS Planning Team is chartered by WDFW as the entity responsible for ensuring that the benchmarks and outcomes in the framework are achieved. Additionally, the Planning Team is responsible for oversight, use, and management of the framework.
• Planning Team members have been promoted to positions of greater leadership, including Deputy Director; Acting Deputy Assistant Director, Fish Program; Intergovernmental Resource Management Program Lead; Division Managers for Salmon and Steelhead, Inland and Marine Resources, Fish Science, and Hatcheries; and Regional Fish Program Managers.
• Every framework benchmark has been assigned a staff lead who is empowered to form inter-disciplinary teams to develop strategies for reaching the benchmark.
• Annual staff performance evaluations are based in part on each staff member’s success hitting benchmarks.
• A new web-based management utility will track strategy development and accomplishment, and provide a forum for staff coordination.
• The framework drives WDFW’s budget and funding requests for salmon management.

We are a private nonprofit salmon conservation organization with a 20-year track record developing innovative management tools and demonstrating integrated All-H approaches to salmon recovery. WDFW needed outside expertise to help them manage internally across disciplines and synchronize their involvement in multiple outside processes. We taught WDFW how to create a framework for change; gave them the format and tools; and facilitated the development of their ideas and their plans to make them operational. In addition, we contributed strategic planning, project management, and communications expertise to the initiative.

LLTK believes that recovering, protecting, and conserving wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest and supporting sustainable fisheries requires that those with the responsibility and authority to make decisions about hatcheries and harvest management be successful. We also endorse the view that nothing short of a watershed scale All-H approach is going to get us there. Our partnership with WDFW provided us with the opportunity to help them successfully link their hatchery, habitat, and harvest decisions in a way that is science-based, transparent, and accountable. We believe, that in the end, it is targeted efforts such as this that together will result in the recovery and sustainability of salmon and steelhead.

LLTK remains committed to finding ways to ensure state, tribal, and local governments, private organizations, and salmon recovery councils in Washington State work together at the watershed scale to carry out an All-H approach to salmon management.