08/17/05 Cooperative Conservation

The Bush Administration's philosophy of bringing government agencies, private landowners, and stakeholders together to find common solutions towards land and water conservation, and habitat protection, has been visible since the President took office four years ago. In fact, it was just one year ago that the President signed an Executive Order requiring the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, and the Environmental Protection Agency to implement environmental and natural resource laws that promote partnership and local inclusion in the decision making process. However, the philosophy never really had a title that the public could relate to, until this year. President Bush may have coined the phrase "cooperative conservation" years ago, but it sure is getting a lot of play in recent announcements. For example, a myriad of government officials, private landowners, and stakeholders in conservation efforts will gather in St. Louis at the end of the month for a three day conference on conservative conservation. The sponsor? The White House Council on Environmental Quality. The goal of the conference is sharing innovative approaches to cooperative conservation, in hope of getting all stakeholders on the same page. As part of the conference, thirty organizations have been invited to share their stories of cooperative conservation. One of those is the Walla Walla Basin Watershed Council. For the first time in a century, the Walla Walla River which flows through Washington and Oregon has water year round. Kevin Scribner of the Watershed Council said it took a partnership of state government, private landowner, and tribal entities that came together after stakeholders pledged to give something to the Umatilla Tribes & a return of Chinook salmon to the river. SCRIBNER: The cultural component of it is that foods are a key part of tribal culture, their spirituality, their religion. With that depth of connection with salmon, a source of wild food, it then helps the rest of us think about well 'how does the land and water also figure into our sense of ourselves, our sense of being, our sense of meaning. The fish reintroduction was done as irrigators utilized more efficient sprinklers and pipes instead of ditches, as private landowners improved habitat and fish passage, as farmers began implementing conservation tillage on their land. And as a result of these efforts, there is more water for irrigators as well as fish, and there is no need to conduct seasonal fish rescues as has been done in years past.