part of the organizational structure, so that decisionmakers can tell whether recovery 

 measures are working? 



10. Financing: To what extent do the alternatives appropriately spread financial 

 responsibility for species conservation? Does the alternative provide a mechanism by 

 which budget constraints and tradeoffs can be made clear? 



1 1 . Public participation. Presumably the public involvement and open meetings 

 provisions of the Northwest Power Act will continue in effect. Is the overall decision- 

 making process sufficiently open, understandable and inclusive of all interested members 

 of the public? 



12. Implementation time: How long does it take to implement governance 

 mechanisms? Is this time frame appropriate to the nature of the problems? 



13. The long view: Does the governance structure facilitate a long-term, 

 sustainable vision, not just for the current generation, but for generations far into the 

 future? 



COMMENTORS: Is this the right list of criteria? How well do the 

 governance approaches described below satisfy the criteria? How could the Council 

 provide better access to its decision making processes? 



IV. Objectives for governance reform 



One of the important accomplishments of the fish and wildlife governance 

 workshop was to identify a handful of tasks that, if accomplished, would improve the 

 region's fish and wildlife governance. There is not necessarily agreement about who needs 

 to do these things and how they should be done. Section V of this paper explores the 

 "who" and "how" questions. In this section, we reiterate areas where there seems to be 

 agreement about what needs to be done. 



Based on the workshop report, we have identified seven things that, if 

 accomplished, would substantially improve the region's fish and wildlife governance: 



1 . Integrate plans and planning . There are now at least three major plans - 

 either adopted or in draft - that address fish and wildlife management throughout the 

 basin: the Council's fish and wildlife program, the National Marine Fisheries Service's 

 Biological Opinion and draft Recovery Plan and the lower river tribes' draft recovery plan. 

 While there are many common elements in these plans, they differ markedly on several 

 significant points. There is a widespread sense that these plans need to be integrated so 

 that the region and the federal agencies are working in a common effort. Integration need 

 not lead to a single plan or a single planning process - plans for particular watersheds or 



