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The tribes' sole effort in fisheries management is to preserve, protect and restore the salmon 

 provided by the Creator for our ceremonial, subsistence and economic uses. To that end, the 

 tribes' have committed to gravel-to-gravel management - meaning that, as governments, we 

 Strive to protect and restore the salmon that are the subject of our treaty fishing rights at all 

 stages of their life cycle. Over the past several decades, we have spent millions of dollars 

 opposing those who sought to exploit and as a consequence destroy the habitat the salmon 

 enjoyed as their home for thousands of years. 



For some, the past is a distant memory, easily dismissed. For Indian people, the past is a 

 historical archive, useful in measuring the quality of today's decisions and assessing the impact 

 of events and circumstances. History affords us a perfect vision of the absolute resistance to 

 total ecosystem preservation and protection. For us, the petitions and listings of some Pacific 

 salmon stocks under the Endangered Species Act are but some of the numerous and unfortunate 

 consequences of the exploitation of salmon and their habitat and the resistance to the tribal 

 philosophy of gravel-to-gravcl, or as it is now popularly termed "ecosystem," management. 



The lack of a shared vision and commitment to ecosystem management has sent individual 

 agencies scurrying to find cover from the barrage of legal, social and political challenges to 

 recent Endangered Species Act decisions. Technical level issues and staff have sometimes 

 misled policy makers and have created much confusion and anxiety. Layers of bureaucratic 

 studies and paper plans have been develo|>ed instead of on-the-ground solutions. However, the 

 creation of more bureaucracies and paper plans without implementing actions are not producing 

 fish nor restoring habitat. 



