150 



The Draft Tlatr fails to tvcogahe and build upon other federal aiitfaorities and 

 responsibilities to conserre salmon, both domestically and internationally, and docs not 

 comport with the requirements of the ESA. • 



The Team's Draft Plan will require agnificant modifications to be of auy use to NMFS 

 because it failed to int^nile oo-going federal obligadons under treaty, statute, or federal case 

 law. In essence, the Team cmbaited on a policy Icvd evaluation fiiat diminafrs optioas before 

 NMFS and other responsible federal agencies have an opportumty.to cxerdsc management 

 discretion consistent with their continuing l^al rcspoodbilitics. Many of the Team's 

 recommendations arc inoonastent with continuing international obligations, sjjcdfically those 

 obligations under the U.S.-Canada Pacific Salmon "ncaly. .The Team also failed to recommend 

 actions consistent with tire Statutory directive to federal agencies that th«y are to use their 

 authorities to fiirthcr the conservation goals for protected spedes as provided in Section 7(a)(1) 

 oiftheESA, 



NMFS should not adopt short-sighted recommendations that would continue to vmdcrcut 

 the mandate and goal of the United States and the tribes ondcr the U^.-Canada Pacific Salmon 

 Treaty. Ihis caution is especially pertinent to the Draft Plan because one of the underlying 

 purposes of the ESA is to support international agreements that deal with shared conservation 

 problems on a proactive baas such as the Pacific Salmon Treaty. 



After more than a decade of fiirifless negotiations, the United States and Canada finally 

 entered into the U.S.-Canada Pacific Salrnon Treaty of 1985 largely because of a coastwide 

 crisis in chinook stocks. The Commission's member tribes were instnunental in seeing tiie 

 n^otiations through to a successful condodon. Critical to the tribes' support, as wdl as the 

 stfiport fi:om the n^on as a whole, was the Tteaty's indusion of tiie Chinook rd)uilding 

 program and the Conservation Ptindple. 



The Chinook idjuildiiig program- instituted substantial cfainook harvest constraints, 

 coastwide, so that the Parties to the Treaty could imdertalds necessary domestic conservation 

 actions that would provide for the optimum production of all salmon, spedfically taigding 1998 

 as tiie y«ir that chinook stocks should be rdjuilt coastwide by both Parties, The Tteaty 

 obligation 'to prevent overfishing and provide, for optimum production," known as the 

 Conservation Principle, coupled wife tiie Treaty's Equity Princqile, wbidb. provides that the 

 benefits of enhancement actions diould accrue piincq>ally to the Party undertaking such actions, 

 provided both the mandate to go forward with measures to restore naturally spawning chinook 

 stocks and the promise tiiat the region would benefit from such actions. 



To land and water managers, flie ^gning of the Tieaty was a yig":»i to undertake salmon 

 restoration measures fliat those same managers had dragged their feet on, claiming that Canadian 

 fishing intercqjtions would n^ate sxsy benefits to the r^on. Unfortunatdy, federal land and 

 water managers did not make the necessary dianges in the manner in ■wAich they provided for 

 tiie rebuilding and optimtmi production of Columbia and Snake River salmon stocis. 



