Hood Canal Shellfish Initiative: A collaborative multi-benefit approach to shellfish aquaculture, ecosystem protection, and cultural opportunities

The Hood Canal watershed in Washington State is characterized by its iconic shellfish, which are ecologically, culturally, and economically critical to local communities. The Hood Canal Coordinating Council (HCCC) led the development of the Hood Canal Shellfish Initiative (HCSI) to preserve this rich ancestral shellfish culture and to identify coordinated and mutually beneficial strategies and actions that support and expand Hood Canal’s thriving shellfish populations for current and future generations. The HCSI is built on a foundation of collaboration. A representative and inclusive workgroup of Hood Canal tribal and non-tribal shellfish interests developed the HCSI Action Plan using a transparent and consensus-based structured decision-making process. The HCSI strives to support and expand Hood Canal’s thriving shellfish populations, honor Tribal treaty rights, build resilience, pursue ecosystem protection and restoration, and support careful stewardship of commercial and recreational shellfish harvest now and into the future. The Action Plan guides shellfish planning and funding efforts across Hood Canal through six objectives and prioritized actions that contain a comprehensive review of the barriers and opportunities for sustaining robust Hood Canal shellfish resources and supporting a healthy ecosystem and community. The HCSI’s inclusive and collaborative process enabled HCCC to dig into issues from many perspectives and develop actions addressing many interests across multiple objectives. The legitimacy and authority developed during this process has led to organic opportunities to pursue priority actions and partnerships to achieve Action Plan objectives. HCCC continues to pursue opportunities to implement the HCSI Action Plan for the benefit of all shellfish interests in Hood Canal

Monitoring Human Wellbeing as an Ecosystem Indicator in Hood Canal

The Hood Canal Coordinating Council (HCCC) is a council of local governments around the Hood Canal, a narrow 65 mile long fjord on the west side of Puget Sound, in Washington State. HCCC’s member jurisdictions include county and tribal governments, and it works in partnership with a large community of environmental organizations and consortiums to protect and conserve Hood Canal’s extraordinary environment under a unifying framework, the Hood Canal Integrated Watershed Plan (IWP). In 2014, HCCC adopted indicators of human wellbeing to its suite of ecosystem indicators in the IWP. The six indicators represent each of the domains of human wellbeing, including: Physical, Psychological, Governance, Cultural, Social, and Economic. Over the past year, HCCC has initiated monitoring of the selected indicators using a combination of objective and subjective measures with the goal to integrate this information into strategic planning. HCCC continues to refine its indicator measures and monitoring approach and improve the way ecosystem status and programmatic outcomes are communicated. A major component of this effort is OurHoodCanal.org, an online ecosystem report card that provides annual status updates and serves to re-frame our management approach. With the addition of human wellbeing indicators, HCCC has initiated an ongoing conversation with many of its member jurisdictions, partners, and the public around how to make environmental management more inclusive and more responsive to the entire social-ecological system. Opening this discussion with decision-makers and project implementers has begun to re-shape HCCC’s and our partners’ approach to environmental management in a way that will better serve the wellbeing of Hood Canal’s natural and social communities

The Elwha River Ecosystem Restoration Project: A Case Study of Government-to-Government Co-Management

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2013The contribution of indigenous groups in natural resource management is generally believed to enhance management practices and produce positive outcomes for its participants, by improving stewardship and encouraging power-sharing arrangements, among other outcomes. For federally recognized Native American communities, government-to-government co-management relationships with the U.S. federal government have provided opportunities to modernize the treaty trust relationship, and enrich linkages between environmental ethics and cultural heritage, building tribal capacity and autonomy. The case of the Elwha River dam removal and ecosystem restoration on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State presents an opportunity to demonstrate the progress made in consultation practices and co-management efforts on the behalf of the U.S. government, in the execution of the largest dam removal project ever attempted. For the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, river restoration will re-connect the Tribe to the legendary salmon runs that are its cultural livelihood. The co-management relationship established between the project's two lead actors, the National Park Service and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, has demonstrated the positive outcomes of a mutually respected process facilitated through power-sharing, as well as the dilemma for tribal decision-makers in maintaining cultural tradition and engaging in environmental management under congressional mandates

The science and politics of human well-being: a case study in cocreating indicators for Puget Sound restoration

Across scientific fields, there have been calls to improve the integration of scientific knowledge in policy making. Particularly since the publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, these calls increasingly refer to data on human well-being related to the natural environment. However, policy decisions involve selective uptake of information across communities with different preferences and decision-making processes. Additionally, researchers face the fact that there are important trade-offs in producing knowledge that is simultaneously credible, legitimate, socially relevant, and socially just. We present a study that developed human well-being indicators for Washington State's Puget Sound ecosystem recovery agency over 3 years. Stakeholders, decision makers, and social scientists were engaged in the identification, modification, and prioritization of well-being indicators that were adopted by the agency for tracking progress toward ecosystem recovery and strategic planning. After substantial literature review, interviews, workshops, and indicator ranking exercises, 15 indicators were broadly accepted and important to all audiences. Although the scientists, decision makers, and stakeholders used different criteria to identify and prioritize indicators, they all agreed that indicators associated with each of 6 broad domains (social, cultural, psychological, physical, economic, and governance) were critical to assess the holistic concept of well-being related to ecosystem restoration. Decision makers preferred indicators that mirrored stakeholder preferences, whereas social scientists preferred only a subset. The Puget Sound indicator development process provides an example for identifying, selecting, and monitoring diverse concepts of well-being related to environmental restoration in a way that promotes recognition, participation, and a fair distribution of environmental benefits across the region