About Us
Statement of Principles
We believe that the nations of the Pacific Rim should embrace the following four salmon conservation and management principles. The adoption of these fundamental principles will give us the best chance of protecting wild salmon and the many life forms they in turn support, over the next 100 years.
Principle 1
We must inventory and monitor each native stock of salmon and steelhead and the quality of their environment.
Until we know how many salmon spawn in each river, where they spawn, the life history and genetic diversity of each salmon species, and if the salmon's habitat is changing, we cannot know if salmon populations are healthy or declining and if our actions are helping or destroying the fish and their river ecosystems.
Principle 2
We must harvest each salmon stock at sustainable levels and set and meet escapement goals that allow enough salmon to spawn naturally in the rivers to support salmon food webs and local peoples.
Until we harvest each stock at sustainable levels, we will continue to indiscriminately harvest immature fish and overharvest weak and endangered stocks. Until we set and meet escapement goals that let enough fish spawn naturally, we will degrade the health of stocks and starve rivers of the nutrients upon which everything from insects to bears to people depend.
Principle 3
We must reduce and localize the artificial production of salmon.
Fish hatcheries and fish farms threaten native stocks and the people who harvest wild salmon. By reducing and isolating artificial production and eliminating its impacts on native stocks, wild salmon and the people who depend on wild salmon will have a future.
Principle 4
We must protect the remaining native salmon strongholds while restoring threatened salmon stocks across the Pacific Rim.
We must aggressively protect the remaining strongholds for native salmon before they are impoverished by development. At the same time, we must restore degraded salmon ecosystems so they will once again produce wild salmon for people and nature.
Principle 5
We must work for institutional reform so water and land management agencies can effectively carry out these principles.
The institutions responsible for natural resource management have traditionally focused on short-term harvest and artificial propagation, instead of long-term sustainability. In addition, the responsibility for management of salmon and their habitats is fragmented among too many institutions, often with differing missions. For salmon to survive, we must work for meaningful institutional reform.
Principle 6
We must inform and empower local communities so they will benefit from and steward salmon-river ecosystems.
To ensure the viability of wild salmon populations, sustainable fisheries, and river ecosystems, local communities must be involved in and benefit from the conservation salmon and theirecosystems.