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ecosystems are collapsing and our fish are going extinct. This approach has failed to account for 

 the combined effects of federal actions across large areas. Extinctions cost us dearly in economic, 

 cultural and spiritual terms. 



3. Rivers, streams and fisheries will continue to degrade without strong management 

 direction at every level. 



Under existing management plans in the Interior Columbia Basin, aquatic systems were rapidly 

 degrading and fisheries were declining. It was for these reasons that the drastic step of enacting 

 "interim" management policies was taken. 



Sadly, habitat conditions have continued to degrade under the interim direction due to the lack of 

 restoration mandate. This point is borne out in several ways. First, the massive slope failures 

 witnessed this winter and spring across the region's managed portions of the federal landscape 

 bear testimony to the continuing degradation of salmon habitat within the range of the interim 

 direction. Without an affirmative restoration mandate, inappropriately sited and/or poorly 

 engineered roads and culverts continue to prove disastrous for many of the theoretically "key" 

 anadromous watersheds. 



Management direction at the regional level is needed to adequately provide management direction 

 and science-based criteria for determining the appropriate range of management alternatives 

 which v^ll meet the needs of aquatic systems and the species which depend upon them. 



4. The Regional Economy Depends on Regional Protection of Our Natural Amenities 



We now know that environmental protection is the driving force behind the short and long term 

 economic health of rural arid urban communities in the Pacific Northwest: people and investments 

 are attracted to communities due to their perceived quality-of-life and environmental quality is at 

 the top of this list. We refer here not to tourism, but to the attraction of new people and 

 investments that create permanent residents, new businesses and new jobs. See T.M. Power, 

 University of Montana, "Economic Weil-Being and Environmental Protection in the Pacific 

 Northwest," December, 1995. 



Environmental protection is not the cause of job loss and economic distress in rural communities: 

 regional, national and global economic forces such as mechanization are the dominant causes. 

 This is not to say that environmental protection has no costs. Some in the region bear a 

 disproportionate economic and social cost in the transition while others share a disproportionate 

 share of the benefits. For the most part, the inequity is occurring, not because one group is 

 maliciously taking advantage of another, but because of changes in the regional, national and 

 global economies that are ongoing and unavoidable. Those who are prospering from the transition 

 have an obligation to assist those who are bearing the costs. However, the pain of the jobs lost 

 should not obscure the new jobs that are being created. We also must avoid steps that may 

 degrade environmental quality in an attempt to return to the economy of the past. If we degrade 

 the environment today we destroy the economy of the future. 



