Connecting Cultural and Biological Diversity in Restoring Northwest Salmon

Salmon problems in the Pacific Northwest have an important cultural as well as biological dimension. Economic growth is a dominating cultural goal. Social and political units do not match well with ecosystems. Authority is fragmented, and local, state, and federal agencies have conflicting mandates. To achieve biological diversity, a suggestion is to use adaptive management, taking major subbasins as bio‐regions. Using cooperative management a planning unit in each subbasin would determine the qualities of a long‐term experiment that best assures biological and cultural diversity. An organization overseeing the whole region would coordinate activities among subbasins.