The vision for this program is a Columbia River ecosystem that sustains an abundant, productive, and diverse community of fish and wildlife, mitigating across the basin for the adverse effects to fish and wildlife caused by the development and operation of the hydrosystem and providing the benefits from fish and wildlife valued by the people of the region. This ecosystem provides abundant opportunities for tribal trust and treaty right harvest and for non-tribal harvest and the conditions that allow for the recovery of the fish and wildlife affected by the operation of the hydrosystem and listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Wherever feasible, this program will be accomplished by protecting and restoring the natural ecological functions, habitats, and biological diversity of the Columbia River Basin. In those places where this is not feasible, other methods that are compatible with naturally reproducing fish and wildlife populations will be used. Where impacts have irrevocably changed the ecosystem, the program will protect and enhance the habitat and species assemblages compatible with the altered ecosystem. Actions taken under this program must be cost-effective and consistent with an adequate, efficient, economical and reliable electrical power supply.

As part of this vision, the Council also adopts the following policy judgments and planning assumptions for the fish and wildlife program.

• No single activity is sufficient to recover and rebuild fish and wildlife species in the Columbia River Basin. Successful protection, mitigation, and recovery efforts must involve a broad range of strategies for habitat protection and improvement, hydrosystem reform, artificial production, and harvest management.
• The Bonneville Power Administration should make available sufficient funds to implement measures in the program in a timely fashion.
• This is a habitat-based program, rebuilding healthy, naturally producing fish and wildlife populations by protecting, mitigating, and restoring habitats and the biological systems within them, including anadromous fish migration corridors. Artificial production and other non-natural interventions should be consistent with the central effort to protect and restore habitat and avoid adverse impacts to native fish and wildlife species.
• Management actions must be taken in an adaptive, experimental manner because ecosystems are inherently variable and highly complex. This includes using experimental designs and techniques as part of management actions, and integrating monitoring and research with those management actions to evaluate their effects on the ecosystem.
• Actions to improve juvenile and adult fish passage through mainstem dams, including fish transportation actions and capital improvement measures, should protect biological diversity by benefiting the range of species, stocks and life-history types in the river, and should favor solutions that best fit natural behavior patterns and river processes, while maximizing fish survival through the projects. Survival in the natural river should be the baseline against which to measure the effectiveness of other passage methods.
• For the purpose of planning for this fish and wildlife program, and particularly the hydrosystem portion of the program, the Council assumes that, in the near term, the breaching of the four federal dams on the lower Snake River will not occur. However, the Council is obliged under law to revise its fish and wildlife program every five years, at a minimum. If, within that five-year period, the status of the lower Snake River dams or any other major component of the Federal Columbia River Power System has changed, the Council can take that into account as part of the review process.
• Mainstem hydrosystem operations and fish passage efforts should be directed at re-establishing natural river processes where feasible and consistent with the Council’s responsibility for maintaining an adequate, efficient, economical, and reliable power supply.
• The effect of ocean habitat on salmonid species should be considered in evaluating freshwater habitat management to understand all stages of the salmon and steelhead life cycle.
• Systemwide water management, including flow augmentation from storage reservoirs, should balance the needs of anadromous species with those of resident fish species in upstream storage reservoirs so that actions taken to advance one species do not unnecessarily come at the expense of other species.
• There is an obligation to provide fish and wildlife mitigation where habitat has been permanently lost due to hydroelectric development. Artificial production of fish may be used to replace capacity, bolster productivity, and alleviate harvest pressure on weak, naturally spawning resident and anadromous fish populations. Restoration of anadromous fish into areas blocked by dams should be actively pursued where feasible.
• Artificial production actions must have an experimental, adaptive management design. This design will allow the region to evaluate benefits, address scientific uncertainties, and improve hatchery survival while minimizing the impact on, and if possible benefiting, fish that spawn naturally.
• Harvest can provide significant cultural and economic benefits to the region, and the program should seek to increase harvest opportunities consistent with sound biological management practices. Harvest rates should be based on population-specific adult escapement objectives designed to protect and recover naturally spawning populations.
• Achieving the vision requires that habitat, artificial production, harvest, and hydrosystem actions are thoughtfully coordinated with one another. There also must be coordination among actions taken at the subbasin, province, and basin levels, including actions not funded under this program. Accordingly, creating an appropriate structure for planning and coordination is a vital part of this program.

B. Scientific Foundation and Principles

1. Purpose of the Scientific Foundation

In developing a program to fulfill the vision statement above, the Council is relying on the best available scientific knowledge. While the vision is a policy choice about what the program should accomplish, the scientific foundation describes our best understanding of the biological realities that will govern how this is accomplished. The program can succeed only as it recognizes these realities and builds upon them.

Thus, the scientific foundation is the basis for the working hypotheses that underlie this program. It also provides specific guidance for program measures. For example, the strategies for the use of artificial production are an application of the scientific foundation to the use of hatcheries for raising fish within the Columbia River Basin.

The scientific foundation consists of the scientific principles, a detailed discussion of those principles, the geographic structure of the program, and a set of more specific scientific rules and hypotheses. Only the scientific principles and the geographic structure appear in this volume of the program; the remainder of the foundation is in the Technical Appendix for this program.

"...this program will be accomplished by protecting and restoring the natural ecological functions, habitats, and biological diversity of the Columbia River Basin."

The rules and hypotheses in the Technical Appendix will change over time in response to new scientific information. These rules and hypotheses will continue to be evaluated as the program is implemented and will be revised as needed.

In contrast, the scientific principles below are intended to be relatively fixed points of reference. Although scientific knowledge will improve over time, modification of the principles should occur only after due scientific deliberation. The Council charges the Independent Scientific Advisory Board with the primary role in reviewing and recommending modifications to the scientific principles in the future prior to any major revision of this program.

2. Scientific Principles

As part of the scientific foundation, the program recognizes eight principles of general application. It is intended that all actions taken to implement this program be consistent with these principles.

The scientific principles are grounded in established scientific literature to provide a stable foundation for the Council’s program. A more detailed discussion of the implications of these principles, together with citations to the supporting references, is included in the Technical Appendix.

Principle 1. The abundance, productivity and diversity of organisms are integrally linked to the characteristics of their ecosystems.
The physical and biological components of ecosystems together produce the diversity, abundance and productivity of plant and animal species, including humans. The combination of suitable habitats and necessary ecological functions forms the ecosystem structure and conditions needed to provide the desired abundance and productivity of specific species.

Principle 2. Ecosystems are dynamic, resilient and develop over time.
Although ecosystems have definable structures and characteristics, their behavior is highly dynamic, changing in response to internal and external factors. The system we see today is the product of its biological, human and geological legacy. Natural disturbance and change are normal ecological processes and are essential to the structure and maintenance of habitats.

Principle 3. Biological systems operate on various spatial and time scales that can be organized hierarchically.
Ecosystems, landscapes, communities and populations are usefully described as hierarchies of nested components distinguished by their appropriate spatial and time scales. Higher-level ecological patterns and processes constrain, and in turn reflect, localized patterns and processes. There is no single, intrinsically correct description of an ecosystem, only one that is useful to management or scientific research. The hierarchy should clarify the higher-level constraints as well as the localized mechanisms behind the problem.

Principle 4. Habitats develop, and are maintained, by physical and biological processes.
Habitats are created, altered and maintained by processes that operate over a range of scales. Locally observed conditions often reflect more expansive or non-local processes and influences, including human actions. The presence of essential habitat features created by these processes determines the abundance, productivity and diversity of species and communities. Habitat restoration actions are most effective when undertaken with an understanding and appreciation of the underlying habitat-forming processes.

Principle 5. Species play key roles in developing and maintaining ecological conditions.
Each species has one or more ecological functions that may be key to the development and maintenance of ecological conditions. Species, in effect, have a distinct job or occupation that is essential to the structure, sustainability and productivity of the ecosystem over time. The existence, productivity and abundance of specific species depend on these functions. In turn, loss of species and their functions lessens the ability of the ecosystem to withstand disturbance and change.

Principle 6. Biological diversity allows ecosystems to persist in the face of environmental variation.
The diversity of species, traits and life histories within biological communities contributes to ecological stability in the face of disturbance and environmental change. Loss of species and their ecological functions can decrease ecological stability and resilience. It is not simply that more diversity is always good; introduction of non-native species, for example, can increase diversity but disrupt ecological structure. Diversity within a species presents a greater range of possible solutions to environmental variation and change. Maintaining the ability of the ecosystem to express its own species composition and diversity allows the system to remain productive in the face of environmental variation.

Principle 7. Ecological management is adaptive and experimental.
The dynamic nature, diversity, and complexity of ecological systems routinely disable attempts to command and control the environment. Adaptive management — the use of management experiments to investigate biological problems and to test the efficacy of management programs — provides a model for experimental management of ecosystems. Experimental management does not mean passive "learning by doing," but rather a directed program aimed at understanding key ecosystem dynamics and the impacts of human actions using scientific experimentation and inquiry.

Principle 8. Ecosystem function, habitat structure and biological performance are affected by human actions.
As humans, we often view ourselves as separate and distinct from the natural world. However, we are integral parts of ecosystems. Our actions have a pervasive impact on the structure and function of ecosystems, while at the same time, our health and well being are tied to these conditions. These actions must be managed in ways that protect and restore ecosystem structures and conditions necessary for the survival and recovery of fish and wildlife in the basin. Success depends on the extent to which we choose to control our impacts so as to balance the various services potentially provided by the Columbia River Basin.

C. Biological Objectives

The biological objectives describe the conditions that are needed to reach the vision, consistent with the scientific principles. The program fulfills the vision by achieving these objectives.

1. Overarching Objectives

The Northwest Power Act directs the Council to develop a program to "protect, mitigate, and enhance" fish and wildlife of the Columbia River and its tributaries, including related spawning grounds and habitat affected by the development and operation of the federal hydrosystem. In the vision, the Council has stated four overarching biological objectives for this program. They are:

• A Columbia River ecosystem that sustains an abundant, productive, and diverse community of fish and wildlife.
• Mitigation across the basin for the adverse effects to fish and wildlife caused by the development and operation of the hydrosystem.
• Sufficient populations of fish and wildlife for abundant opportunities for tribal trust and treaty right harvest and for non-tribal harvest.
• Recovery of the fish and wildlife affected by the development and operation of the hydrosystem that are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

The Council recognizes that achieving these broad objectives is not the sole responsibility of this fish and wildlife program nor the Bonneville Power Administration. Complementary actions by other governmental agencies and funding sources, including Canadian entities where appropriate, as well as the support and participation of the citizens of the Northwest, will be needed for these objectives to be fully achieved. Consequently, the focus of the program is limited to fish and wildlife affected by the development, operation, and management of the hydrosystem.

2. Basin Level Biological Objectives

Biological objectives describe physical and biological changes needed to achieve the vision, based on the information we now have and thereby fulfill the vision. Biological objectives have two components: (1) biological performance, describing responses of populations to habitat conditions, described in terms of capacity, abundance, productivity and life history diversity, and (2) environmental characteristics, which describe the environmental conditions or changes sought to achieve the desired population characteristics. Where possible, biological objectives are intended to be empirically measurable and based on an explicit scientific rationale. Objectives at the basin level are more qualitative, but objectives should become increasingly quantitative and measurable at the province and subbasin levels. These basinwide objectives will help determine the amount of change needed across the basin to fulfill the vision. They will also help determine the cost effectiveness of program strategies, and provide a basis for monitoring, evaluation and accountability.