54 



One of the challenges of ecosysiem restoration -indeed 

 of ecosystem management In general - is to develop strategies that 

 flow easily across private property lines and the jurisdictions of 

 various government agencies. These boundaries breaks our aquatic 

 sylems into fragments which are devoid of ecological continuity. 

 Again, these arc challenges necessarily resolved on the local level, 

 parcel by parcel, land manager by land manager. My own experience 

 with various interest groups in my watershed has demonstrated 

 thai when ihe productive resource base is understood as requiring 

 healthy natural areas, the people who live in those areas are able to 

 engage in common endeavors that were once thought impossible. 



The goals of II.R. 4481 as 1 understand them are two-fold: 

 to establish a national strategy for aquatic ccosytem recovery, and to 

 provide fiscal support where it will do the most .good: at: the level of 

 the active watershed community. Two generic problems arise in the 

 implementation of these goals. One is the tendency lor federal 

 strategies to be top-heavy; and the other is the fact that federal 

 funds tend to become heavily politicized as they move toward their 

 intended goals. Too often I have had the distressing experience 

 seeing appropriately targeted legislation diverted from its intent 

 before reaching its desired constituency. 



Everyone recognizes the need for a national ecosysiem 

 recovery strategy. Anyone who has been involved at all in ecosysiem 

 restoration will recognize the need for long t.rra comprehensive 

 planning. Watershed restoration work without comprehensive 

 planning becomes watershed puttering - an activity which has 

 benefits to its practitioners but may or may not serve the goal of 

 long term recovery. Action plans must necessarily be drawn around 

 specific places, however: one plan will never fit all. Any planning 

 pnxess will once again rely for its efficacy on the quality of all that 

 intimately observed detail to which I've referred earlier. Planning 

 and program development need to happen a' the level of the 

 watershed and ecoregion. The appropriate role of the Task Hone 

 established by this bill will be to establish a requirement and criteria 

 for planning at the watershed level, and then to make support 

 available for the achievement of those goals in the near term - say, 

 two or Ihree years. Il may be Impossible to avoid the establishment 

 of ecoregional boards or councils to fine-tune priorities and to 

 provide assistance to this process in the most direct and efiective 

 way. 



