At the Council’s July 31 request the ISRP reviewed the Accord proposal, Yakama Nation Status and Trend Annual Report (2009-002-00). According to the proposal,
"The long-term goal of the Status and Trend Annual Report project is to support mitigation described in the 2008 FCRPS Biological Opinion and the obligations of the NPCC Fish and Wildlife Program by annually reporting progress towards salmon recovery efforts relevant to the Columbia Cascade Province and within the Ceded Lands of the Yakama Nation. This work will be in coordination with, and will support other local and regional efforts including but not limited to Upper Columbia Salmon Recovery Board, the State of Washington, NOAA Fisheries, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, BPA and the NPCC Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Program."
The ISRP notes that production of an annual report on RM&E is a very worthwhile endeavor, and the use of a coordinator dedicated to producing this report annually may be a very reasonable approach. However, the ISRP recommends that all subbasin stakeholders should be of the same opinion before this effort is initiated. The chances of success would be greatly enhanced if it was clear that all the stakeholders agreed that this was a reasonable approach to generating annual reports and that they will willingly share data and cooperate with the STAR coordinator. Also, the activities proposed for the STAR coordinator during the initial 10 months of this project appear to be less ambitious than they might be. A significant amount of progress towards the first STAR could be made in this time frame rather that simply generating an outline of what the report should contain. The ISRP requests a response on these issues. See report for details.
