THE PACIFIC SALMON TREATY

Scientists from the United States and Canada are gathered in Portland this week to set salmon fishing policies. While it's certain that Pacific salmon have been in decline in the Columbia Basin for more than a century, the various interest groups in the region are still finger-pointing over the major causes. Who or what is most at fault: harvest, hatcheries, habitat, dams?

The Pacific Salmon Treaty was established 27 years ago as a way for Canadian and U.S. fishery managers to fairly allocate salmon among fishermen from Alaska to California. But in spite of the treaty, overharvest of these fish is still a major problem.

Why is the salmon treaty important? Because it is renegotiated only once a decade. This is our opportunity to bring the lessons of the last decade to bear on salmon management for the next decade.

And we have learned a tremendous amount about salmon recovery over the last decade. We have developed expensive plans to restore salmon habitat, and the federal government is asking for our help across the Northwest to implement these plans.

Yet the United States and Canada opened treaty negotiations this week by agreeing that no reduction in salmon harvest is necessary. Is this the same federal government that is asking for our help in recovery planning?

An observer might conclude that business needs are outweighing responsible fishery management. But in this case, there wouldn't be an observer because the Pacific Salmon Treaty negotiations are carried out behind closed doors. This seems an odd decision from two nations historically committed to open government in managing public resources.

Salmon are a public resource, owned as much by you and me as by the fishermen who harvest them or the governments charged with managing them. The schools of salmon moving down the coast from Alaska contain fish bound for rivers all along the way. This includes several stocks that are protected under the Endangered Species Act in the Columbia Basin and Puget Sound. Refusing to reduce the impact on these species is the equivalent of eating one's seed corn, and it is the kind of thinking that caused the decline of Pacific salmon in the first place.

Another serious issue facing salmon is the loss of biodiversity. As millions of hatchery fish get pumped into the ocean each year, they compete with wild fish for limited food and space. Studies indicate that hatchery fish are genetically inferior, but the hatcheries around the Pacific have made them numerically superior. Without treaty negotiations that address the negative impacts of hatcheries, we will continue to slide further toward a time when wild salmon disappear from native streams throughout the Pacific Northwest, and possibly even farther north.

Millions of dollars are spent each year on efforts to recover wild Pacific salmon runs, yet salmon continue to decline. Imagine the dividends we could enjoy if the agencies managing this public resource would reduce their dependence on hatcheries and exercise due restraint in harvest levels.

We need to stop finger-pointing and all participate in recovery. And we need to open the doors to the public when allocating a public resource. If we don't, the salmon commons are at risk.

Bill Bakke is executive director of the Native Fish Society, a nonprofit advocacy group.