G. Community Issues and Concerns

Assessing community interest and support. Community interest and support for salmon recovery actions is assessed both formally and informally. Formally, community interests are represented by:

1. The LEG members, who represent the NOPLE governmental and tribal entities, and provide socio-political, cultural, and economic perspectives.
2. The WRIA-based Citizen Facilitation Groups, who represent the regional areas and provide community input, feedback, and support .
3. The watershed stakeholders (landowners, watershed stewardship groups, natural resource managers, etc), who are invited to contribute to the prioritization of actions and areas at the watershed-scale level, as reflected in the respective Watershed Pages.

Informally, community interests are communicated to NOPLE through:

1. Networking, cross-memberships, and working relationships between NOPLE and citizen based organizations.
2. Consideration by NOPLE in updating the Strategy of local watershed analyses, reports, studies and assessments, many of which include community interests elements .
3. Participation of citizens in NOPLE subcommittees that are working to identify actions, prioritize reaches, update the Strategy, and support for salmon habitat recovery projects.
4. Working with NOPLE representatives in developing projects and applying for SRFB funding.

Strong community support. Historically, NOPLE watersheds were abundant with many strong stocks of salmon. These populations were large enough to support multiple tribal communities, extensive commercial harvests, and legendary sports fisheries. Reduced salmon returns have resulted in fisheries closures as well as stricter logging practices which have had devastating effects on the local economy as well as caused tensions between various communities and interests.

Recovering salmon stocks is of primary importance to the economy and culture of all ten NOPLE entities. Projects which have the most likelihood of success and are most beneficial to recovering priority salmon stock in high priority watersheds typically enjoy the strongest community support. In addition, projects with the following characteristics may merit additional consideration.

• project employs displaced-natural resource workers.
• project provides additional economic benefits to the local community.
• project has an outreach/education component.
• project promotes a diverse cultural interaction.
• project supports the goals of a local watershed or nearshore stewardship group, where one exists for the relevant watershed.

Weaker community support. Not widely supported are actions to remove existing bluff bulkheading and riprap, because homeowners may believe that doing so might affect the stability of developed properties located above. Also not widely supported are high-cost actions within urban areas that are likely to be of low certainty of success or benefit to salmon, with such an abundance of alternate opportunities available for priority projects with high certainty of success and benefit to salmon.

Strategy to increase general community support. NOPLE believes that the most effective way of increasing community support is by

• Using habitat recovery projects to involve and educate citizens. To assess a project's potential effectiveness in increasing general community support, the NOPLE Application Addendum requires all project applicants to answer the following questions:

i) Will your project employ displaced-natural resource workers? If yes, please explain.
ii) What economic benefits to the local community are associated with, or will result, from this project?
iii) Does the project include an outreach / education component? If so, please describe.
iv) Explain how the project would promote a diverse cultural interaction.
v) Explain how this project will support the goals of a local watershed or nearshore stewardship group, provided one exists in the geographical unit(s) targeted by this project.

• Showcasing the contributions local salmon habitat recovery projects make, by featuring them prominently
  • on the NOPLEgroup.org website
  • in NOPLE Salmon Recovery newsletters
  • via PowerPoint presentations delivered to community organizations by the NOPLE coordinator
    
• Educating citizens of salmon needs and by involving citizens in the process. NOPLE's Community Outreach Plan specifies how NOPLE educates and involves citizens.

Strategy to increase specific community support. To garner support for high priority actions where such is lacking, NOPLE believes that the best way to do so is by educating and involving watershed-specific stakeholders and providing them with the means to educate those more reluctant watershed-specific stakeholders.

• Landowners are much more likely to listen to and follow the example of their neighbors. Through the process of constructing and updating Watershed Pages, watershed-specific stakeholders learn where the priorities are in their watershed and the resources available for addressing them. Stakeholders can then use that information to communicate with their more reluctant neighbor landowners. This Strategy is carried out through the NOPLE Community Outreach Plan.

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