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tried to point the blame everywhere possible including dams. It is 

 clear to a number of specific panels and organizations that have 

 looked at the issue that the most fundamental issue that underlies 

 all of the problems is the cumulative degradation of watershed 

 ecosystems and the loss of river habitat. That is the most single 

 contributing factor to the loss of these species, the problems with 

 their ecosystems. This does not mean that if we fix the habitat and 

 fix the species that we can, in fact, save all the salmon. Indeed, we 

 are going to have to address a number of other factors; but this is 

 the mndamental issue. 



Third, there is no quick fix to this problem. We have got to un- 

 derstand that. There is no silver bullet. 



But, fourth, I would like to say that there are some immediate 

 steps that we believe can be taken and should be taken £md should 

 be taken very quickly. And we have heard about some of those 

 today. Numerous scientific studies have confirmed that, basically, 

 the remaining pockets, the few remaining pockets, of healthy habi- 

 tat and healthy river ecosystems are on public lands, primarily in 

 the roadless areas, unroaded areas, and primarily in old growth 

 areas across the region. These areas, we believe, must be correctly 

 identified and protected to form the physical refuges for 

 biodiversity and sources for the fisheries to recolonize and restore. 

 They are the key to the existing health of the remaining rivers and 

 are the anchors for the watershed restoration programs. We believe 

 it is imperative in identifying and protecting these areas at the wa- 

 tershed level. 



Following the protection, we think the next step is to secure 

 these areas. And we differentiate the word "protect" from "secure." 

 What securing them means is to identify, from a full watershed 

 level analysis, what the potential threats from either past manage- 

 ment activities or future activities are to these areas and to diffuse 

 these threats to the extent possible or eliminate the threats if pos- 

 sible, for many, many of the watersheds on the west side of the Pa- 

 cific Northwest. Scientific studies have indicated that it is, in fact, 

 the road systems that form the greatest threat to many of these 

 kev v^ratersheds 



And those are the areas that need to be treated. The road sys- 

 tems must be looked at and assessed and a priority system devel- 

 oped to diffuse potential catastrophic debris flows that may go into 

 the remaining healthy areas and diffuse chronic sedimentation 

 problems. I want to reiterate that to secure the area and protect 

 the areas is not going to solve the whole problem. This is just step 

 one in a watershed recovery strategy, but we believe it is the first 

 step that must be taken quickly. 



When we ran two workshops with scientists in Oregon in the fall, 

 we looked at a number of records in the key watersheds and said, 

 look, we have not had a major rain event in the Pacific Northwest 

 except in the Seattle area since 1990, that many of these road sys- 

 tems are, essentially, a series of loaded guns that could go off. It 

 could fall out into the river systems in the next major rain event 

 so the time was of the essence to get in there and essentially dif- 

 fuse these to the extent that we can. 



Fifth. The fifth point I would like to make is that following the 

 protection, the identification, protection and securing of these 



