Here are my Tweets from today's State of the Salmon 2009 conference sessions (third of three days), in last-to-first order:
Angelo: we all hope that future generations will be able to admire salmon as we have.
Angelo: we cannot forget the hope that salmon themselves represent.
Angelo: sustainability must be a primary guide.
Angelo: We need more political leadership.
Angelo: I worry about a younger generation that is drifting away from.
Angelo: need to do more to reconnect young people to the environment.
Angelo: Protecting salmon needs to be seen as a moral issue.
Angelo: need a precautionary approach to development.
Angelo: the unrelenting loss of salmon habitat is mainly due to rising human population.
Angelo: Heart of the Fraser is one of most productive stretches of river in the world.
Angelo: pollution, water extraction, development.
Angelo: but we also have to protect rivers that are still in good shape.
Angelo: urban habitat restoration leads to education.
Angelo: Protect, reconnect, restore.
Angelo: We need to better identify and manage key salmon watersheds.
Angelo: Need to incorporate local values so that people buy in.
Angelo: Instead of reacting to bad development planning, need to be proactive.
Angelo: Need to put a more preventive slant on habitat preservation.
Angelo: need to better understand and incorporate societal values into conservation.
Angelo: strive to develop ecosystem-based approaches to conservation.
Angelo: there is a need for new and fresh approaches.
Angelo: there is a pressing need for action.
Angelo: Most important is to move from discussion to being more action oriented.
Angelo: the theme for this conference was "Bringing the Future into Focus".
Angelo: Closing remarks.
Our problem is managing people, not fish.
Protected areas give society an excuse to ignore everything else.
Comment -- urban streams are so important, they bring fish to people's backyards.
Belyaev -- every citizen of every country is an integral part of the environment, their habitat.
Belyaev -- legislators won't get on side until they are informed.
Need to have an ongoing conversation with a legislator.
"Adopt a Legislator" Every scientist, every activist needs to adopt a legislator.
We're still talking about the same things we were 15 years ago -- how do get moving, doing?
We need a scale that people can relate to.
We need to change the paradigm as how we function as humans.
We need an informed public that votes differently and changes behavior.
Glaciers "make rivers work" in many places.
How long will glacier-fed watersheds continue to exist?
Groundwater flows are critical to spawning habitat and must be protected.
QA "we'll come to that later" -- later is now.
Every salmon stream must have a protected base flow throughout the seasons.
Alaska has strong laws for preserving flows in streams for salmon, but tough process.
Bristol: salmon are fun, they're food, let people define salmon for themselves.
Bristol: need to do outreach with political decision makers, and those who live off salmon.
Bristol: reframe the issue -- protected areas to pass on to future generations.
Bristol: Tongas has been a long and heated land battle in Alaska, but we're making progress.
Bristol: Grassroots concept -- bringing more and disparate people to conservation.
Bristol: what role do salmon play in modern society?
Bristol: Trout Unlimited Alaska
Belyaev: we can't accomplish anything in isolation, need all groups aboard.
Belyaev: criticizing is a favourite pastime of people.
Belyaev: different fishermen have very different opinions.
Belyaev: where can we find a compromise among all the groups?
Belyaev: salmon preservation is first and foremost human relations, scientists, fisherman, politicians.
Belyaev: How is Russia different -- no private property along rivers, so feds can protect areas.
Healey: must be thinking about salmon within context of global change.
Healey: the future is not going to be same as the past.
Healey: should we preserve Arctic areas as refuge for migrating salmon?
Healey: we have to start looking at Arctic as becoming suitable for salmon.
Healey: are there places where salmon habitat will continue to be suitable in face of warming.
Healey: In a very few decades most salmon habitat in southern range will no longer be suitable for them.
Healey: we really need to take a long-term view of conservation.
Kopchak: we are building an "electronic elder" to collate/share information.
Kopchak: Find common languages, cross jurisdictional systems.
Kopchak: H2O -- Headwaters to Ocean.
What are you going to do about long-term sustainability of salmon. YOU.
We who love salmon are not necessarily representative of the general public.
Rahr: we cannot succeed without preserving salmon strongholds.
Rahr: Russian far east has best opportunity for salmon habitat preservation.
Rahr: WWF study says 55,000 tons of salmon are poached for roe yearly in Kamchatka.
Rahr: We tend to react at the 11th hour -- we need to take the long view, get ahead of the curve.
Rahr: We don't proactively protect, we react, so good places get pounded, it's a losing strategy.
Rahr: Pacific Salmon Conservation Assessment.
Rahr: The time to be effective is before the threat is on top of you.
Rahr: we must save the best -- habitat etc.
Rahr: Pacific Rim population will double by 2050.
Rarh -- Wild Salmon Center http://www.wildsalmoncenter.
Fukushima: masu salmon are effectively protected but taimen are not.
How the heck do get an average from some of these scatter plots?
Fukushima: Japanese huchen/taimen -- http://tinyurl.com/cfo4tw
Fukushima: fish species richness falls due to damming.
Fukushima: Hokkaido protected drainages designed for salmon conservation.
Fukushima: Hokkaido has 574 watersheds of which 32 are "protected drainages"
Fukushima: Japan has thousands of dams.
Fukushima: National Institute for Environmental Studies Tsukuba Japan http://www.nies.go.jp/
Marxan: http://www.uq.edu.au/marxan
Reeves: Marxan -- a decision support system for systematic conservation planning.
Reeves: Concept of irreplaceability -- areas essential to meet conservation goals.
Reeves: We have long thought that nature can bounce back from any indignity we impose upon it.
Reeves: Livingston Stone was calling for salmon reserves in Alaska in 1892.
Salmonid Rivers Observatory Network
Do we need more vision or more implementation?
Skeena: kids learn to honour, respect and take care of the fishery.
Skeena -- these fisheries are also nurturing grounds for our children.
Skeena -- this is all for naught if we don't protect the habitat. Yes!
In-river native fisheries don't need boats, fuel, port infrastructure.
Skeena, we can catch fish in better ways, with more local benefits, while boosting biodiversity.
Russia -- we need legislation like Canada's Wild Salmon Policy, and we need more than that.
Kaev: Pink salmon need improvement of spawning conditions.
Kaev: chum salmon need further development of hatchery rearing.
Kaev: wild vs hatchery salmon in Sakhalin.
Russains are using Google Earth for some mapping -- what a change from the Cold War!
Semenchenko: Sakhalin test rivers -- Taranay, Kura, Naycha.
Semenchenko: move away from monitoring commercial fisheries to whole river monitoring.
Semenchenko: Monitoring salmon in Sakhalin.
Tabunkov: We are talking major devastation (poachers + ruthless companies).
Tabunkov: Companies will take maximum fish regardless of regulations.
Tabunkov: Poachers taking about 20% of salmon caught.
Tabunkov: I don't want to keep this photo on screen (fish gutted for roe only) -- too depressing.
Tabunkov: Problem of poachers taking roe only.
Tabunkov: problem of "heavily corrupt companies working with "heavily corrupt bureaucrats"
Tabunkov: we do not tag hatchery fish on Sakhalin so research "leaves much to be desired"
Tabunkov: hatchery chum pushed wild pink out of spawning grounds, so law was changed.
Tabunkov: these recently built hatcheries were destructive to wild fish.
Tabunkov: fishing companies are building their own hatcheries with no scientific input.
Tabunkov: Sakhalin has 15 federal hatcheries producing 900 million fish?/year.
Tabunkov: Sakhalin divided into over 700 fishing areas -- assigned to companies -- they care for enviro.
Tabunkov: no forestry, no mining, no drilling equals recovering fish.
Tabunkov: collapsing Russian economy (see prev Tweet) resulted in recovery of salmon.
Tabunkov: collapsing Russian economy some years ago impacted fisheries - no forestry, mining, drilling.
Tabunkov: Sometimes there were too many spawning fish that clogged the river - I don't get this.
Tabunkov: Fisheries Association of Sakhalin http://tinyurl.com/cegdgd
Tabunkov: I'm here representing concerns of fishermen.
Taylor: thanks to First Nations of the Skeen Fisheries Commission http://www.skeenafisheries.ca/
Taylor: looking for "fair trade" designation for Skeena salmon sustainable harvested by FN.
Taylor: all economic benefits of Babine/Skeen fishery stays local.
Taylor: conservation, biodiversity and ecological integrity paramount in all decisions.
Taylor: develop selective in-river fisheries that emulate what FN did.
Taylor: look back to move forward -- there are other ways.
Taylor: but increased abundance of "enhanced Sockeye" has led to overharvest of wild fish.
Taylor: says installation of spawning channels was a success.
BTW, by FN, I refer to First Nations, or "native Indians".
Taylor: We are trying to replicate something FN had in place for hundreds of years.
Taylor: FN principles -- reciprocal economic exchange, strict and transparent enforcement of rules.
Taylor: FN principles -- fishing property rights, sustainability, conservation for future generations.
Taylor: Babine River, FN used to harvest 3/4 million salmon a year.
Taylor: First Nations "managed" fisheries for hundreds and thousands of years – sustainably.
Taylor: there was a robust fishery on the Skeens thousands of years ago - a sustainable FN fishery.
Taylor: Skeena Wild Conservation Trust - http://www.skeenawild.org/
So LuLu says, yes we need a TV show or weekly newspaper column called "Fish Files"
Artist LuLu has a panel on her scroll called "Fish Files" -- I like that, sounds like a TV series.
Artist Lu is chronicling the conf with an art scroll.
Morning break is announced -- we now get to eat Skeena salmon with our coffee.
I'm feeling like the patient is dying and we're discussing better ways to monitor the decline.
DFO asked Tlingit to halve salmon take, elders said no fishing at all because there are almost no fish.
Tlingit have completely stopped fishing in the headwaters of the Yukon on advice from elders.
Peterman: we have data on Fraser sockeye "all the way back to 1938" - how is that "historical"?
Canada's Species at Risk Act - http://tinyurl.com/cdg9s6 9:31 AM
QA comment, no fish species has ever been listed as endangered under SARA, even the cod that 99% gone.
Holt: We suggest that risk tolerance be identified by fisheries management.
Holt: uncertainties are pervasive, but we can account for them in the model... Uh, OK
Mortality is depensatory when its rate increases as the size of the population decreases. (http://tinyurl.com/ccwwws)
Holt: depensatory mortality -- another term I need to learn
Canada's Wild Salmon Policy: http://tinyurl.com/bexba
Holt: speaking on Canada's Wild Salmon Policy
Zhivotovsky: there are some lake-spawning chum salmon in Russia - rare
Zhivotovsky: speaking about research on "south Kuril" islands - wonder how Japanese feel about this?
Thinking at the first conf they ate crab and lobster, now salmon and shrimp, next conf tofu and beans.