A Review of the Multi-Stakeholder Process for Salmon Recovery and Scenario Mapping onto Stability Landscapes

Abstract

We review and draw distinctions between positions held by various federal agencies, tribal agencies, and civil society organizations to identify distinct stakeholder scenarios for salmonid recovery in the Columbia River Basin. We view the Columbia River Basin through a resilience lens from the point of view of the resident endangered salmonid populations. Using the resilience concept of multiple stable states we describe a stability landscape for the basin as a social–ecological system. We use a shared stability landscape as a common locus for mapping and comparing multiple scenarios representing distinct stakeholder perspectives of pathways towards salmon recovery. We found that the potential of using this approach goes well beyond the specifics of the Columbia River Basin.

1. Introduction

The goal in this paper is to demonstrate how mapping differing scenarios for salmon recovery, envisioned by different stakeholder groups, onto a common stability landscape is a powerful tool. This methodology allows analysis of proposed solutions promoted by different stakeholder groups for salmon recovery in the Columbia River Basin. In an earlier paper [1], we employed the concept of multiple stable states as depicted in a stability landscape. It is a scientific theory but also a metaphor and a mental model. Using evidence-based plausibility arguments about the existence, creation, and critical transitions between regimes, we described changes over long periods of time.

As a recent resilience-based approach to transformations and tipping points noted:

Drawing on the concept of multiple basins of attraction, early frameworks in resilience-based transformations describe transformations as regime shifts between stable states, involving the crossing of thresholds or tipping points… From this perspective, any transformation process will involve the dissolution of negative attractors and at least some of the feedback relationships associated with the dominant state, as well as the generation of new attractors, relationships, and feedback loops in alternative basins. Put more simply, transformations involve both “unmaking” and “making” of specific sets of relationships that make up a system… In social-ecological systems, attractors can encompass physical conditions such as temperature, soil, or water, as well as hopeful and newly articulated visions, narratives, and imagined futures that are embedded in specific sets of values that can attract behaviors and institutions to organize around them…

[2]

In a previous publication [1], we retrospectively visualized and described the historical development of the system. We identified alternative regimes and thresholds, their changes through time in response to external forces, and changes in the resilience of the various regimes [3,4,5]. In this paper, we take a prospective approach, using the same stability landscape to visualize future states of the system. We consider pathways mapped onto the stability landscape from the current state to imagined futures. We prospectively map the perspectives of different stakeholder groups about salmon recovery, for metapopulations of salmonid species, onto a common stability landscape for the Columbia River Basin. We refer to this method as “Scenario Mapping onto a Stability Landscape”.

2. The Method of Scenario Mapping onto a Stability Landscape

In situations with multiple scenarios due to differing perspectives or goals among stakeholders, there is often a need to compare scenarios to choose one, or to combine several. The term “scenario mapping” has been used to capture the practice of “mapping” scenarios described in text form onto visual representations where comparisons can then be made. An example of a wide range of scenario representations is given in a publication [6], where the representations involved take the form of 3D visualizations, process diagrams, bar graphs, pie charts, analog drawings, and more. Other research involving “scenario mapping” includes a publication [7] where the scenarios were mapped onto existing scenario archetypes; a publication [8] where larger geographical scale scenarios were mapped onto geographically localized versions for comparison; and a publication [9] where biophysical and socio-economic data from landscapes were mapped onto bar charts for comparison. Unlike the examples above, a stability landscape provides a single visual platform that can incorporate the information in any data format. Every single point on a stability landscape has meaning because it can be interpreted through the lens of resilience theory.

In this paper, we will be “mapping” multiple scenarios. Our case scenarios represent pathways derived from distinct visions of stakeholder groups, for beneficial changes to the system of salmonid populations in the basin. A key difference in our approach is that we will be mapping scenarios onto a common visual representation: the stability landscape representing the current state of the system of salmonid species in the Basin. On this common stability landscape, each point represents a distinct state of the system. The scenarios involved have distinct starting conditions that are “mapped” to the corresponding point on the stability landscape. The future changes envision in the individual stakeholder groups are “mapped” to corresponding “states of the system” on the stability landscape. Scenarios also have goals that represent future system states, thus each goal “maps onto” a point in the stability landscape. In this way, all the proposed scenarios are simultaneously, visually represented. We map multiple scenarios from starting points to goals by visualizing them on a single shared stability landscape.

To graphically visualize a stability landscape:

… balls represent states… arrows represent drivers or disturbances… valleys represent regimes… and peaks represent thresholds… Valley widths determine resilience. Valley slopes determine… how difficult it is to change the state... Once close to a threshold, a relatively small disturbance can result in a regime shift…

[10]

…a ball, often representing an ecosystem or some socio-ecological system, exists on a surface where any point along the surface represents a possible state... When the ball is in a valley or a “domain of attraction”, it exists in a stable state and must be perturbed to move from this state. In the absence of perturbations, the ball will always roll downhill and therefore will tend to stay in the valley (or stable state)… deep basins of attraction mean that greater influences are required to change the current state of the system away from the attractor. Within this model we can talk about the precariousness of the system which would correlate to the current trajectory of the system, and how close it currently is to a limit or “threshold”…

[11]

There are important benefits of this mapping methodology. One is that when all the distinct scenarios can be visualized as pathways on a shared stability landscape, individual points on these pathways have meanings derived from resilience theory. For example, certain points on the stability landscape represent places where “regime shifts” could occur. According to resilience theory, pathways that move “uphill” on the three-dimensional stability landscape require additional energy to move towards the change envisioned. Such “uphill” movements are, thus, more difficult to achieve. In the examples visualized below, such resilience interpretations of movement along scenario pathways represented on a common stability landscape play a large role.

3. The Four Regimes for Salmonids in the Columbia River Basin

In a previous paper [1], we identified and described four regimes for salmonids in the Columbia River Basin. The terms Historic, Refugia, and Remnant are widely used in various contexts in the fisheries literature [12,13]. The term Techno is one we applied to a regime to describe a situation where dams and hatcheries are dominant features determining salmonid abundance.

The Historic Regime was described as being “…an extremely resilient regime, characterized by an extensive modular distribution of fluctuating but generally abundant populations of various runs of salmonid species. The resilience of the regime is produced by this modular metapopulation as well as a robust collection of balancing social-ecological feedbacks associated with cultural norms in the Native American communities occupying the basin”. The Historic Regime largely retains the original dendritic structure of the waterways that constitute the Columbia River Basin, with all of its varied habitats vital to salmonid life cycles.

The Refugia Regime was described as being “…a simplified system with less connectedness, reduced dendritic complexity, fewer tributaries, and less life history diversity” due to the actions of settler populations. While not representing the full dendritic structure originally present, all of its varied habitats vital to salmonid life cycles are represented, albeit with reduced populations and metapopulation complexity.

The Techno Regime was described as “…a river system that can be reasonably well supplied with salmon (in a quantitative sense)…a substantially reduced level of life history diversity due to hatchery operations”. The yet unoccupied Remnant Regime, with wholesale loss of salmonid metapopulations and habitat, was described as “… characterized by very low life history diversity…”. The Remnant Regime would be exactly what its name implies, a few salmonids in a few places, extant but dramatically diminished in range and genetic endowments. For a more extensive treatment of these four regimes, see our previous paper [1]. See Figure 1.

From our perspective, the four regimes constitute a typology of descending metapopulation and numerical “health”, in which the Historic Regime is the healthiest, followed by the next healthiest, the Refugia Regime, then the third most healthy, the Techno Regime, and, finally, the least healthy, the Remnant Regime. NOAA Fisheries and fishery biologists, in general, take metapopulation life history diversity into account. Some stakeholders might prefer to only judge system health by overall fish numbers, ignoring the local genetics, system resilience, and distribution of historic populations. In the latter case, they would make the argument that the Techno Regime might be viewed as being as healthy as the more genetically and distributionally diverse Refugia Regime. Whether genetic diversity and historic population structure is included in the metric for “health” (consistent with the Endangered Species Act) is critical in this distinction. The Remnant Regime is clearly the weakest when measured using any metric.

In discussing salmonid populations in terms of the Endangered Species Act, focusing on metrics intended to avoid extinction over the next century, NOAA Fisheries states [14]:

In a spatially and temporally varying environment, there are three general reasons why diversity is important for species and population viability. First, diversity allows a species to use a wider array of environments than they could without it. For example, varying adult run and spawn timing allows several salmonid species to use a greater variety of spawning habitats than would be possible without this diversity. Second, diversity protects a species against short-term spatial and temporal changes in the environment. Fish with different characteristics have different likelihoods of persisting—depending on local environmental conditions. Therefore, the more diverse a population is, the more likely it is that some individuals would survive and reproduce in the face of environmental variation. Third, genetic diversity provides the raw material for surviving long-term environmental changes. Salmonids regularly face cyclic or directional changes in their freshwater, estuarine, and ocean environments due to natural and human causes, and genetic diversity allows them to adapt to these changes.

4. Stakeholder Groups and Recovery Plans

The list of stakeholder groups and entities involved in salmon recovery planning in the Columbia Basin is overwhelming in its size and diversity [15,16]. Out of the large array of stakeholder perspectives, we choose three highly developed and influential visions of salmon recovery to illustrate the scenario mapping method: the Wild Salmon Center [17]; the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission [18]; and the U.S. federal government, represented via the Multispecies Framework [19] and the work of the Columbia Basin Partnership [20,21,22]. The latter was recently incorporated with the work of NOAA Fisheries. To map scenarios onto the common stability landscape, we needed to identify stakeholders’ view on the current state of the system and their goal states. We “mapped” these onto the stability landscape. Many organizations working towards salmon recovery, including the three we have chosen, describe the current state of affairs in dire terms. They put the risk of extinction of the remaining runs of salmon at the center of their discourse, describing the profound differences between the historic conditions and the contemporary situation in stark language. In terms of our stability landscape, we take this as evidence of a shared mental model of the current state of the system as being within the Refugia Regime [1] but at risk of transitioning into the Remnant Regime [1]. Figure 1 is a depiction of this current state along with a “goal state” within the Historic Regime [1]. This goal state is not shared by all three organizations.

The Wild Salmon Center is a non-profit organization based in Portland Oregon but working internationally:

In short, salmon are the key to protecting a way of life rooted in the North Pacific environment: protect salmon and you protect forests, food, water, communities, and economies. But our work over the last two decades has shown that only an aggressive, proactive approach on the strongest remaining salmon rivers—salmon strongholds—can halt the decline of these iconic species and all the benefits we derive from them…

[23]

The organization has a very clearly defined and elaborated strategy called the “Salmon Stronghold Initiative” based on what they refer to as “intact rivers”, which are rivers that have not been turned into a series of slackwater lakes by dams and which have sufficient and appropriate salmonid habitats remaining:

The most important challenge for long-term salmon conservation is to find and protect the best remaining intact rivers. Once lost, this salmon habitat is politically and economically expensive to reclaim. For this reason, we should focus on the rivers with the best existing habitats and healthy native salmon stocks, and the fewest major human impacts. We call these salmon strongholds. Moving region by region around the Pacific Rim, we should make permanent investments in the rivers that have the best chance of getting watershed-level habitat protection… We are already working to create a Pacific Rim-wide system of protected salmon strongholds. Each stronghold has (a) healthy native salmon stocks, (b) enough protected river habitat to sustain salmon and their surrounding ecosystem in perpetuity, and (c) local human communities that actively work to protect strongholds because they benefit from and support these salmon ecosystems [23].

This system of strongholds (see Figure 2) is a representation of the modular system of salmon populations described in Figure 1 as the Refugia Regime. It is a vastly simplified metapopulation compared to that characterized by the Historic Regime. The claim of the Wild Salmon Center is that this simplified system of strongholds can be sustained by activities of the conservation movement and the agencies and laws aligned with that movement—the institutions representing the stabilizing influence for the Refugia Regime. For example, below is a map of the planned strongholds lying in the Oregon part of the Columbia Basin.

We interpret this as a scenario that moves the state of the system away from the threshold at the Remnant Regime and towards conditions that, while still a vastly simplified network, resemble historic conditions more closely. Thus, we depict an intermediate goal state (see Figure 3, which occurs below) that is still within the Refugia Regime but that is approaching the threshold to the Historic Regime.

Indeed, since 2009 and in following years, the Wild Salmon Center and their coalition have introduced a bill to the U.S. congress, the Pacific Salmon Stronghold Conservation Act, that proposes to:

…the Pacific Salmon Stronghold Conservation Act, is to establish a comprehensive, strategic, science-based approach to wild salmon stronghold conservation. It would create a structural framework and expand Federal support for the protection and restoration of the healthiest remaining wild Pacific salmon stocks in North America [24].

Versions of the FISH Act (2022) continue to be introduced [25]:

The Salmon FISH Act would promote the vitality of salmon populations by: Identifying the core centers of salmon abundance, productivity, and diversity as Salmon Conservation Areas and identifying areas of particularly pristine quality as Salmon Strongholds; Building upon existing analysis such as that used in Essential Fish Habitat;

Ensuring actions of the federal government do not undermine the abundance of these areas; Authorizing funding for a grant program focused on restoration and conservation of Salmon Conservation Areas and Salmon Strongholds; Supporting current federal programs already focused on restoring and maintaining healthy watersheds [26].

In resilience terms, if a version of this bill were enacted into law, it would establish a powerful stabilizing feedback, intended to build the resilience of the Refugia Regime in a way that would deepen that regime and move the current state of the system closer to historic conditions.

The Wild Salmon Center is part of an informal network of conservation organizations working towards salmon recovery and has listed a coalition of close to 100 such organization in support of the Salmon Stronghold Initiative. As a whole, the informal messaging of this network of organizations describes the ultimate goal of salmon recovery actions as a restoration of the full diversity of salmon runs throughout the Basin. This goal involves removal of major hydroelectric dams on the mainstem of the river, but it is so highly charged politically that many organizations do not describe this fully in their official statements of purpose. But, as with the case of the Wild Salmon Center, their visions are consistent with a basin-wide level of restoration.

In terms of resilience theory, the Salmon Stronghold Initiative is a strategic first step towards such a basin-wide recovery. As depicted below, the Salmon Stronghold Initiative would bring the state of the system into a position that would allow a critical transition into the Historic Regime if some large—and probably unforeseeable—change in conditions were to occur, thereby lowering the threshold. What might that change be? Lowering that threshold would mean reducing the resilience of the Refugia Regime. We have described the effect of the conservation movement as building the resilience of the Refugia Regime. The institutions and feedbacks supporting the hydroelectric system also make large contributions to the resilience of all three non-historic regimes. These regimes, Techno, Refugia, and Remnant, are each distinguished by their own feedbacks and institutions [1], but the forces that stabilize the hydroelectric system contribute to the resilience of all three. As described above, the hydroelectric system was originally driven by the agricultural sector, but, presently, electric power generation and flood protection services of the system are the strongest stabilizing influences [1]. Could these stabilizing institutions be weakened to lower the threshold into the Historic Regime?

With the ongoing renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty [27], the treaty that governs the bi-national management of the river, these questions are being discussed with increasing seriousness, albeit out of the public view. With respect to flood control, the Army Corps of Engineers has changed their overall approach from “flood control and prevention” to “flood risk management”. Perhaps this is a first step to a management system regime shift from what has been called [28] “Protect the Landscape from Water” to the alternative management regime of “Living with the River”. If that were to occur, the institutions stabilizing the role of the hydroelectric system would be weakened and the threshold would be lowered. It is probably the reliance on electric power generation that has the strongest stabilizing influence. Indeed, if the need for hydroelectric power generation was reduced, flood control could be managed with a reduced system of dams devoted to that purpose alone. No one knows how this might occur, but critical transitions often rely on unexpected exogenous shocks. Being positioned to take advantage of such a shock—as the Salmon Stronghold Initiative envisions—constitutes preparation to achieve a transformative change and to be prepared to reinforce the resilience of the new regime.

The Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC), is a coalition of four Tribes (the Yakima, Nez Perce, Warm Springs, and Umatilla) with the mission:

…to ensure a unified voice in the overall management of the fishery resources, and as managers, to protect reserved treaty rights through the exercise of the inherent sovereign powers of the tribes [29].

Among their many activities, CRITFC has produced a comprehensive recovery plan Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit (Spirit of the Salmon) whose objective are as follows:

Within 7 years, halt the declining trends in salmon, sturgeon and lamprey populations originating upstream of Bonneville Dam; Within 25 years, increase the total adult salmon returns above Bonneville Dam to 4 million annually and in a manner that sustains natural production to support tribal commercial as well as ceremonial and subsistence harvests; Within 25 years, increase sturgeon and lamprey populations to naturally sustainable levels that also support tribal harvest opportunities; Restore anadromous fishes to historical abundance in perpetuity [30].

Stated this way, the direction of the plan would seem to be an adaptive change strategy, perhaps building the resilience of the Refugia Regime or moving the system closer to historic conditions, given the constraints imposed by the dams. But, a closer reading of Spirit of the Salmon positions the ultimate goal to “restore anadromous fishes to historical abundance in perpetuity”. The CRITFC strategy differs substantially from that of the Wild Salmon Center, particularly in the reliance on hatcheries to supplement natural production. The plan includes this approach to hatcheries:

Supplementation hatchery programs must necessarily be enacted in concert with efforts to restore habitat, improve hydrosystem survival and manage harvest; Program scale should be appropriate to both mitigation needs and match the potential natural productivity of the stream; Use of natural-origin broodstock as feasible to increase integration with the natural population and promote local adaptation; Adopt spawning and rearing practices to maintain genetic diversity and to produce behavioral and physical phenotypes of hatchery origin fish that are (more) similar to those of natural-origin fish; Acclimate and release hatchery-origin juveniles in locations within spawning areas to promote adult homing for natural reproduction [31].

Key to this plan is the difference between supplementation and augmentation hatcheries. Augmentation refers simply to an effort to increase the availability of fish for sport and commercial fisheries, while supplementation, as described by the Regional Assessment of Supplementation Project:

…is the use of artificial propagation in the attempt to maintain or increase natural production while maintaining the long-term fitness of the target population, and keeping the ecological and genetic impacts on non-target populations within specified biological limits [32].

A strategy that produces more salmon while protecting life-history diversity is understandable from the point of view of the profound cultural and religious connections of tribes in the basin to salmon. A leading example of the CRITFC approach is represented by the Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery in Idaho. There have been many obstacles to establishing the tribal hatcheries, but as reported in Wana Chinook Tymoo, a CRITFC publication [33]:

Despite all these years and all these setbacks, the hatchery goal never changed. What did change, though, was the science and technology of hatcheries. “This hatchery evolved over the years to fit the changing views of science and move from traditional hatchery practices to the more state-of-the-art views of supplementation techniques”, says Bonneville Power Administration administrator Steve Wright. “Leadership at the tribe led the science development, focusing on the concept of gravel-to-gravel management”. With the constant demands for further studies and requirements, the Nez Perce were able to fine-tune the details of their hatchery program.

The CRITFC 2014 Update to Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit (Spirit of the Salmon) includes the following assessment [31]:

Results from the supplementation programs suggest that with judicial management, they can provide the sought after demographic benefits while sufficiently controlling for effects on other viable salmonid parameters… that might be associated with artificial spawning and rearing... Declines in natural population abundance have been reversed in response to some of these supplementation programs, though reduced habitat productivity and hydrosystem mortality continue to constrain natural growth… While gains have been achieved and the threat of extirpation has been substantially reduced, essentially none of the natural populations in the interior Columbia Basin can be deemed naturally abundant and self-sustaining. Reduced habitat productivity and hydrosystem mortality continue to constrain natural growth of these populations. As a result, these populations remain in need of further support from hatchery supplementation.

The politics of producing such tribal plans is complex and has been discussed in detail that goes beyond the scope of this paper [34].

Nonetheless, there is risk in pursuing a plan that engages with potentially irreversible damage to the life-history diversity of the salmon metapopulation. The fisheries science community is divided on their assessment of the risks associated with the new hatcheries and many in the non-tribal NGO community oppose all hatcheries. Depicted in Figure 4 is a visualization of the CRITFC strategy on the stability landscape, showing a path that decreases the precariousness of the system to entering the Remnant Regime through the use of hatcheries.

Figure 5 shows the perception of those who see this as a high-risk strategy, one in which a small perturbation or uncertainty could easily send the state of the system into the Techno Regime from which recovery would be very difficult.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA Fisheries) is the organization responsible for responding to the requirements of the Endangered Species Act as it pertains to the 13 listed runs of salmon. The mandate of the Endangered Species Act itself is quite broad:

The purposes of this Act are to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved, to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species, and to take such steps as may be appropriate to achieve the purposes of the treaties and conventions set forth in subsection (a) of this section [35].

But, as the intent of the act is interpreted by the implementing agency, the goal has become to reduce the risk of absolute extinction for individual stocks to less than 5% in 100 years [36]. While conserving the ecosystems upon with endangered species depend may require a transformative change from the business-as-usual trajectory, this quantitative approach can best be interpreted as a call to reduce the precariousness of the system to crossing into the Remnant Regime. This scenario is shown below, alongside the two others in Figure 6.

Of the three strategies, NOAA’s is distinguished as a strictly adaptive strategy, keeping the system within the Refugia Regime, while adapting to and acting to weaken the accelerating feedbacks—persistent directional change forces that tend to push the state of the system towards the Remnant Regime.

The Federal Caucus, the “ten federal agencies working for endangered salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River Basin” led by NOAA, maintains a website [37] that describes their strategies and the current status of their efforts. It is noticeable that of the “four H’s” of salmon recovery they list, Habitat, Hydro, and Hatcheries have places on the menu bar, but Harvest does not. The number of fish being caught is as important a consideration as it is a politically complicated and difficult one. The fact that discussion of the salmon harvest is not part of the headlined discourse on the joint webpage of these agencies is evidence that transformative change is not fully on their agenda.

As the lead agency responding to the Endangered Species Act, the main task of NOAA, with respect to salmon recovery, is the production of a “Biological Opinion” (BiOp)—a guidance document for the other agencies intended to:

…ensure that the proposed action will not reduce the likelihood of survival and recovery of a ESA-listed species. A biological opinion usually also includes conservation recommendations that further recovery of the specific ESA-listed species. The biological opinion includes Reasonable and Prudent measures as needed to minimize any harmful effects, and may require monitoring and reporting to ensure that the action is implemented as described [38].

Each of the Biological Opinions produced by NOAA has been challenged in court by tribal organizations and by conservation NGO’s. In 2011, for example, for the third time in a decade, U.S. District Court Judge James Redden rejected NOAA’s Biological Opinion as an inadequate response to the mandate of the Endangered Species Act. He gave the agency an additional 2 ½ years to produce a plan without “a reliance on mitigation measures that are unidentified and not reasonably certain to occur”. In terms of the mapping of the NOAA scenario on the stability landscape, we take this to mean that the goal state of the agency, while still within the Refugia Regime, is further away from the Historic Regime than would be preferred by either the Wild Salmon Center or by CRITFC. In 2019, a new BiOp was announced, the proposed actions included [39]:

Continuation of the system operations for Congressionally authorized purposes including flood risk management, fish and wildlife conservation, irrigation deliveries, and power system management; Continuation of the tributary habitat improvement program, targeting interior basin ESA-listed species; Continuation of the estuary habitat measures to improve rearing habitat for juvenile salmonids; Continued funding conservation and safety-net hatchery programs (site specific operations are covered under separate BiOps); Continuation of the predator management programs for marine mammals, avian, and pikeminnow predators; Continuation of a targeted research and monitoring program; Continuation of the adaptive management framework.

In 2020, the Endangered Species Act Section 7(a)(2) Biological Opinion and Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act Essential Fish Habitat Response for the Continued Operation and Maintenance of the Columbia River System was released by NOAA [40]. At 1496 pages plus appendices, it is difficult to summarize; the document states the following about the 2019 BiOp:

Rather than continue on the path of developing CRS [Columbia River System] -specific standards, in the 2019 CRS biological opinion we returned to our usual practice applied in most (if not all) ESA consultations. Specifically, we applied the statutory language and our long-standing interpretations of Section 7(a)(2) that are contained in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services’ (USFWS) and NMFS’ joint consultation regulations and preambles to those regulations. In the 2019 CRS biological opinion we used those standards and long-standing interpretations of the ESA to determine whether the proposed action was likely to jeopardize the continued existence of listed species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat, and concluded it was not…

In contrast to the 2019 BiOp, this 2020 federal document returns again to a goal of avoiding anything to “jeopardize the continued existence of listed species”, which, as shown in Figure 6, is consistent with working to maintain the metapopulations in the Refugia Regime and prevent movement to the more perilous Remnant Regime.

Nevertheless, the legal situation surrounding the BiOps remains in flux at this time. The NGO EarthJustice reports [41] that, in 2021, it responded to current federal plans as follows:

…files a petition for review of these documents in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and returns to U.S. District Court to challenge the 2020 FEIS, ROD and BiOp. Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe again join Earthjustice and its clients. Earthjustice also files a motion for injunctive relief seeking further increases in spill and drawdown of water levels in the reservoirs behind dams to speed juvenile salmon passage downstream. The Nez Perce Tribe and Oregon join this request.

EarthJustice reports for 2022:

NOAA Fisheries releases the Rebuilding Interior Columbia Basin Salmon and Steelhead report which concludes that removal of the four dams on the lower Snake River as soon as possible is “essential” to avoid salmon extinction and allow populations to rebuild.

And EarthJustice reports for 2023:

On On Sept. 27, the Biden administration issues a Presidential Memorandum on Restoring Healthy and Abundant Salmon, Steelhead and Other Native Fish Populations in the Columbia River, directing federal agencies to use all of their authorities to restore healthy and abundant wild salmon and steelhead populations across the Columbia and Snake River Basin and to review and update any policies not aligned with that goal [42]. Earthjustice’s plaintiffs and other parties notify the Court on Oct. 31 that they are working towards approval of a proposed package of actions and commitments from the federal government and will file that with the Court by Dec. 15, 2023, or propose a schedule for restarting litigation by that date.

The aforementioned Rebuilding Interior Columbia Basin Salmon and Steelhead report [20] is worth examining, it says:

The Rebuilding Interior Columbia Basin Salmon and Steelhead report identifies a comprehensive suite of actions that would have the greatest likelihood of making considerable progress toward rebuilding Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead to healthy and harvestable levels. The report was finalized by NOAA Fisheries, with input from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and with feedback from state and tribal fishery co-managers… The aggressive actions reflect the urgency behind the Columbia Basin Partnership’s 2020 recommendations that merely avoiding extinction of native salmon and steelhead is not enough. Instead, the Partnership called for healthy and harvestable numbers that again contribute fully to the culture, environment, and economy of the region. The healthy and harvestable goal goes substantially beyond recovery as required by the Endangered Species Act and would take a sustained commitment over many decades. This report is not a regulatory document, but rather is intended to inform and contribute to regional conversations and funding decisions.

The current Rebuilding Interior Columbia Basin Salmon and Steelhead report is, at this time, described as a discussion document generated from scenarios gathered from a broad range of stakeholders. Some scenarios, as mapped onto the common stability landscape, seem to point beyond maintaining salmonid metapopulations in the Refugia Regime and move towards the possibility of something more like the Historic Regime as a goal. In saying that, the “…healthy and harvestable goal goes substantially beyond recovery as required by the Endangered Species…”. NOAA seems to acknowledge the different regimes that these goals represent, although, at this time, just for discussion purposes. The use of scenario mapping onto a common stability landscape would make these regimes and associated goals much more transparent to stakeholders, as well as clarify the relationship between stakeholder scenarios and their associated goals.

NOAA has not yet produced a BiOp acceptable to the tribes and other stakeholders who are litigants, and the possibility of federal plans moving beyond stabilizing the metapopulations in the Refugia Regime remains hypothetical. All this is subject, at this time, to potentially changing political situations. For now, Figure 6 represents the different ranges of recovery in the scenarios that NOAA has gathered and includes goals that go beyond what NOAA has committed to after several decades of BiOps.

It is worth noting, as we consider the viability of these scenarios, that in our region seemingly unlikely things sometimes turn into public policy that is then enacted. A current example involves dam removal. The four hydroelectric dams in the Klamath River Basin [43] were a source of great conflict and a near-revolt by farmers against federal irrigation rules in 2001. The dams were the cause of a massive fish die-off event in 2002. The dams were due to be removed according to a compromise struck in 2010 after 6 years of debate. The compromise was rejected by Congress in 2016. The compromise was then revived via a process that avoided the federal funding bottleneck when California and Oregon formed a nonprofit organization called the Klamath River Renewal Corporation [44]. Dam removal began with the smallest dam in 2023 and the others are scheduled to come down by the end of 2024 [45]. Improbable, impossible, and implemented events—all were eventually part of what happened in the Klamath River Basin. The same might end up being true in the Columbia River Basin. The third of four Klamath Basin dams began to undergo the removal process in May 2024 [45]. Some scenarios might presently seem less likely, but given the history of the region, they remain important possibilities to include in any discussion.

5. A Future for Scenario Mapping?

In 1998, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council began an extensive scenario planning exercise (the Multi-Species Framework Process) [46,47] by sending out approximately 1500 letters to a wide variety of stakeholders to solicit their concept papers. Proposers of concept papers were asked to formulate a broad vision for the Columbia River Basin reflecting ecological, cultural, and socioeconomic priorities. Based on these visions, proposers completed the concept papers by developing objectives, strategies, and management actions to realize their vision for the basin. The proposers of the 27 received concept papers represented a wide range of standpoints, including those of organizations such as the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, and Reynolds Aluminum, as well as a number of unaffiliated individuals.

Council staff distilled the concept papers down to seven alternatives ranging from Alternative 2, calling for the breaching of five major hydroelectric dams, to Alternative 7, envisioning a river managed for maximum economic benefits. At this point, a decision support system (Ecosystem Diagnosis and Treatment) was brought in to produce quantitative evaluations of the various plans for biological benefit [16]. A separate process produced a similar evaluation for the social and economic benefit of the various scenarios [48]. To compare the scenarios, all the modeling outputs were summarized as a table and presented to decision makers. In spite of the substantial funding, expertise, and social involvement in what may be the most extensive scenario planning exercise ever to take place in the U.S., the process and its output were forgotten almost immediately after it concluded. One factor that contributed to the failure of the process may have been a lack of a shared mental model of the range of possibilities, and a way to compare the scenarios in a more conceptual way. The quantitative comparisons of the plans made compromises and intermediate plans difficult to envision. Another obstacle was that the scenarios presented a set of competing optimization goals that were difficult to reconcile.

First Nations and tribes of the Columbia River Basin have different relationships to salmon and the river itself, depending on their traditional locations and indigenous lifestyles. Some were more fully dependent on migratory salmonids, some also incorporated more resident fish into their diets, and some included more dependence on terrestrial food sources. Some First Nations and tribes of the Columbia River Basin were traditionally located in areas now above a long series of sometimes impassible dams, others have traditional locations closer to the estuary. Various combinations of indigenous communities, sometimes working in partnership with federal action agencies or other partners, have produced a quilt of salmon recovery plans. These plans combined, often in an overlapping way, cover the entirety of the dendritic geography of the Columbia River Basin. The “Bringing the Salmon Home: The Columbia River Salmon Reintroduction Initiative” is a project coming from what was originally a 2019 joint effort of five governments—the Syilx Okanagan Nation, Ktunaxa Nation, Secwépemc Nation, Canada, and British Columbia [49]. The Upper Columbia United Tribes, consisting of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe of Indians, Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Kalispel Tribe of Indians, Kootenai Tribe of Idaho & Spokane Tribe of Indians, produced the “Fish Passage and Reintroduction Phase 1 Report: Investigations Upstream of Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee Dams” in 2019 [50], the “A vision for salmon and steelhead: goals to restore thriving salmon and steelhead to the Columbia River basin Phase 2 report of the Columbia River Partnership Task Force of the Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee” [22], and, by interacting with various federal entities, “The Phase 2 Implementation Plan: Testing Feasibility of Reintroduced Salmon in the Upper Columbia River Basin, version 4” in 2022 [51]. The Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish Commission, whose members are The Warm Spring Tribes, Yakama Nation, Umatilla Tribes, and Nez Perce Tribe, produced their full life cycle salmon recovery plan, “The Spirit of the Salmon, WY-KAN-USH-MI WA-KISH-WIT”, in 1995 [52] and updated it in 2015 [53]. They went on, in 2023, in collaboration with the states of Oregon and Washington (collectively referred to as “The Six Sovereigns of the Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative”) to produce the “Six Sovereigns Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative: a comprehensive strategy for salmon and steelhead recovery in the Columbia Basin” [54]. The Nez Perce Tribe’s Department of Fisheries Resources Management produced its own “Department Management Plan, 2013–2028” in 2013 [55]. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde were excluded from the Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish Commission due to federal action that officially terminated the tribe’s status in 1954 when Congress passed the Western Oregon Termination Act. The tribe was restored to tribal status in 1988 [56] and produced an integrated wildlife management plan that includes salmonids in 2014 [57]. It could be argued that all of this planning would have more effect if there was some way to weave all of these plans into a single collective, with strands contributed individually and in various combinations by all of the Columbia River Basin’s tribes and First Nations. No significant effort to accomplish this has yet been made. There is an indisputable tension between an instinct for inclusiveness and what might be the greater utility of a single plan in which some elements would inevitably end up being emphasized over others.

However, what we propose is not a quilt vs. weaving; it is an analytical comparison of multiple recovery scenarios mapped onto a shared stability landscape. An analytical comparison of multiple recovery scenarios is important because little has been actioned to carry forwards any progress in using stakeholder-generated scenario planning from one report to another. The reasons behind an apparent lack of progress to incorporate the diverse stakeholder-generated recovery scenarios from one planning report to the next will be the basis of a future article.

What might planning look like if stakeholder-generated scenarios were mapped onto a shared stability landscape that served as an analytical tool and mental model for planners and stakeholders to compare scenarios? In the case of salmonid recovery planning, the added benefit of this methodology is that it facilitates a comparative analysis of scenarios that goes beyond a patchwork of perspectives from stakeholder engagement processes. While stakeholder participation is crucial in social–ecological scenario mapping, using a shared stability landscape would allow stakeholders and policy makers to compare pathways representing different visions of salmonid recovery. Some scenarios have preferred pathways on the common stability landscape that are incompatible with other scenarios. Some scenarios involve future pathways at greater risk of moving the system state into an undesirable regime. A shared stability landscape expressed in resilience terms allows clear comparisons of scenarios. The potential of using a common stability landscape to map and analyze social–ecological scenarios generated by different stakeholders goes well beyond the specificities of the Columbia River Basin. A recent example of this potential in another large river basin is the analysis of possibilities for achieving sustainable regimes in the Rio Grande [58], and the approach would be applicable in many other circumstances.