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ecological approach. The fundamental underpinning of that is to 

 protect the long-term interests of society in terms of the biological 

 integrity of the resources that we depend upon. That requires us 

 not to look at the human actions but to look at the condition of 

 biological systems as the fundamental way to determine whether 

 they are healthy or not. Too frequently we count permits, we count 

 contaminants without looking at biology. And if we look at biology 

 carefully, we can protect ecological systems. 



Mrs. tJNSOELD. An excellent description but you have got to have 

 three or four words that are going to substitute for ecosystem ap- 

 proach that is going to get the concept across. Anyone else want to 

 throw — or what it isn't? And what I am fishing for is incorporating 

 the term integration, I believe, somehow into this. 



Mr. DoppELT. I will take a shot at it, but I am not sure I will use 

 that term 



Mrs. Unsoeld. OK. 



Mr. DoppELT [continuing], if that is OK. From a riverine perspec- 

 tive, I can't speak about ecosystem management on a broader per- 

 spective, but I think from a riverine system perspective it means 

 integrating the concept of conservation biology which begins with 

 the belief that there is not a whole lot left and it is fragmented. 

 Where do we begin within a fragmented system and watershed dy- 

 namics — integrating those two within the context of full watershed 

 level management that really comes down to from our point of 

 view to identifying and protecting the remaining biotic refuges that 

 may exist in the Northwest salmon refuges as we have talked 

 about, the remaining riparian areas and floodplains and what we 

 call the biological hot spots found throughout the system to begin 

 with that because we have to acknowledge that the systems are 

 fragmented. 



"There aren't a whole lot of real long healthy ecosystems that 

 exist so how do we manage fragmented systems? We have to identi- 

 fy the healthy patches that still remain, hang onto them, begin to 

 link them and expand those. That is how I would define it. 



Mrs. Unsoeld. The reason I am trying to pursue this is that if 

 we protect or lock up watersheds, besides recognizing the technical, 

 the needs for this approach, we have to politically be able to accom- 

 plish it. And, Mr. Higgins, I am afraid I would have to take excep- 

 tion to your statement that it is in the farmer's best interest and, 

 therefore, why wouldn't the farmer just go ahead and do this. How 

 do we get them to do it? It is almost impossible when we, the Feds, 

 own the land to get that change to take place. How do we do it in 

 the bigger picture and particularly when it is private land? 



Mr. Higgins. Well, you kind of changed the question there. I 

 guess it is a new question, but right now in the Shasta River I 

 think it makes a very interesting case study because with fewer 

 than 500 chinook salmon returning to that river and a baseline 

 that is continuous back to the 1930's, we have got a classic textbook 

 threatened or endangered species. So there is another specter that 

 all of a sudden we get the National Marine and Fishery Service or 

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service telling them how to graze their cows 

 instead of them coming up with a grassroots holistic approach in 

 their local area that is most effective and cost effective. And so we 

 have to change. I mean, we are there. I think that will drive people 



