242 



The ESA is thus no longer an "environment vs. jobs" issue. A 

 future listing of salmon under the ESA may in fact now be necessary to 

 save jobs, as in the case of the salmon fishing industry. 



As we have seen from the discussion above, maintaining biological 

 diversity has immense potential economic value to the Pacific 

 Northwest as a whole, and is strongly favored by a host of public 

 policies as a public trust resource. That diversity represents the 

 foundation upon which new industries may be built in the future, great 

 advances in medicine may be made, new processes created, new and 

 improved agricultural products (including disease and pest resistant 

 timber products) developed — indeed, a host of uses we cannot now 

 conceive of, but which all have long term economic value . These 

 resources should not be squandered, as they often have been in the 

 past, by short-sighted public policy designed to produce only short- 

 term and transitory economic gains while creating long-term disaster. 



For these reasons — based on purely economic self-interest — 

 the Federal Endangered Species Act should be strengthened , and not 

 weakened as proposed by many. A strong ESA may soon mean the 

 difference between having a viable salmon industry versus massive 

 final extinction of salmon throughout this region. 



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