Improvements on way for North of Falcon
by Jeffrey Koenings, Ph.D., WDFW Director, and
Billy Frank Jr., Chairman, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
The Trout and Salmon Leader, Director's Column
January - March 2001

Enough's enough.

That's what tribal and state fish managers were saying back in 1983 when they decided to meet at Port Ludlow to find a way to systematically set salmon seasons each year in Washington's inland waters.

Nine years after the Boldt decision, tribal and state managers were still finding themselves running back and forth to court dozens of times a year to settle differences over how particular fisheries should be structured.

Not a very efficient way to conduct business.

What came out of the Port Ludlow meeting was the North of Falcon process. The state and tribes agreed to carry out their respective management responsibilities by coming together every year and mutually determining fishing seasons based on the best science and technical information each side brought to the table.

The North of Falcon process is now under fire by some fishers who say it doesn't adequately represent their interests. Despite efforts to ensure they are an integral part of the process, these fishers say they feel isolated from it, cut off from participating in any meaningful dialogue. In short, they feel disenfranchised.

We believe the North of Falcon process is a fundamentally good process. But we also believe it can be improved to work better for everyone involved. As such, the state and tribes have initiated a series of steps that should improve the process not only for tribal and state fisheries managers, but for fishers and all other citizens who have an interest in the way our state's fisheries are managed.

Last spring, tribal and state policymakers sat down at their annual planning meeting and identified areas of mutual concern. From that meeting, a series of improvements were identified and are now being implemented.

First, in a move to streamline the process, the tribes and state have committed to having coho management objectives and all salmon run size forecasts agreed to ahead of time. In past years, lack of agreement in these areas has slowed down or stymied the process.

Second, we have agreed to improve the way discussions occur between the tribes and the state, and the state and its constituents, by holding the discussions on different days. In the past, these separate discussions occurred on the same day, sometimes simultaneously.

Third, the state has agreed to spend more time discussing regional fishing issues and run-size forecasts with constituents. State fisheries managers are also discussing the possibility of increasing the number of meetings to allow for more public input on regional fishing matters.

Fourth, the state and tribes are exploring ways to increase participation of fishers at those North of Falcon meetings previously restricted to state and tribal representatives under the government-to-government relationship.

And, fifth, we are attempting to do a better job of explaining the process to fishers as well as the general public. A special Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife web site will be established soon to post information about the process and issues involved. The web site address will be publicized within the next several weeks.

In the months ahead, we will continue to look for ways to improve the North of Falcon process. And we welcome your continued input. Following this year's meeting, WDFW will immediately seek your evaluation of the process through a survey that we will post on the web. We hope you take the time to participate in the survey.

The North of Falcon process was born out of chaos, and remains the best process yet devised to annually set seasons in inland waters. Its flaws are far from fatal. Instead, we believe it is essential to work to amend and refine the process so it is more inclusive and more efficient. By doing so, we will at the same time reaffirm the importance of the co-manager relationship from which the process derived.

Indeed, we believe North of Falcon should be viewed in the same context as the co-management principal - as an on-going evolving process. And we believe both should be guided by the same overriding principle, namely, that much more can be done to conserve and protect our salmon and maintain sustainable fisheries by working together in a cooperative manner.

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