The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes Concept Paper for the General Approach to Fish and Wildlife Recovery in the Columbia River Basin for the Multi-Species Framework
November 6, 1998
The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes believe that we should protect the healthiest habitat and restore the rest, continue management practices that encourage protection of fish and wildlife, and stop destroying our natural resources for the benefit of social convenience.
Goal
Maintain and restore the natural ecosystem that includes all naturally producing indigenous species, their habitats and provides human sustenance, and acknowledging that this must also provide for cultural and spiritual needs.
Objectives and Strategies
The order in which the following is presented does not represent their importance or any attempt to prioritize.
Restore natural river levels and hydro-graph to the Columbia River Basin and implement strategies that lessen impacts to the natural ecosystem.
Continue protection of habitat that is already protected by local laws, such as water quality standards, discharge permits, fish and wildlife passage requirements, etc.
Enforce existing federal laws that provide for protection of fish, wildlife and their habitats (e.g., The Fort Bridger Treaty, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, National Pollution Discharge Emissions System, wild and scenic river designations, wilderness areas, etc.).
Review existing laws that are destructive to habitats that are critical for indigenous species.
Restore damaged habitats (e.g., acquire water rights needed for sensitive and weak species; fence riparian areas, acquire conservation easements, rest lands that are over used, etc.).
Increase production of indigenous fish and wildlife species to full natural productivity.
Secure and continue to provide harvest opportunities that meet treaty and cultural needs.
Management actions
Restore natural river levels to the lower Snake River (below Hells Canyon complex) and draw down John Day dam to spillway crest level; and restore natural river ecosystem components throughout the basin. Keep water levels in Libby, Roosevelt, Dworshak, and Hungry Horse reservoirs relatively full and stable.
Protect and enhance habitat to provide management of the holistic “circle of life,” such as connecting fragmented habitats, obtaining conservation easements on private lands, education of society on true impacts to natural resources of development actions.
Restore fish passage by reconfiguring the FCRPS to eliminate barging and trucking.
Artificial production should emphasize the protection and recovery of native stocks by using conservation management actions, such as supplementation to provide eggs and fish for out-planting (concrete to gravel to gravel).
Conduct research to answer critical uncertainties only, conduct monitoring of implementation activities in order to evaluate if expected results are achieved.
Implement harvest actions that protect weak stocks.
Re-evaluate management activities and priorities to be consistent with restoration objectives.
Rationale
Manage human activities that affect the land and water so that fish and wildlife needs are met. Economics and social convenience should not preclude a healthy ecosystem.
Only when the last tree has been cut down, only when the last river has been poisoned, only when the last fish has been caught, only then will you learn that money cannot be eaten. – Lakota Elder.
