There isn’t enough financial support by federal and state governments to support co-management, according to findings by the Makah Tribe in the State of our Watersheds Report.
According to the report:
The Makah Tribe has some concerns with the lack of sufficient commitment by federal and Washington state natural resources agencies to protect, properly manage and recover salmon as salmon habitat is being damaged and destroyed faster than it can be restored.
Unfortunately, co-management activities occur far away from the state capital, where many state agency staff are housed:
Some state agencies are better than others, but in a region that takes over 2 hours to travel one-way to a location, this means that there is a large amount of ground that co-managers aren’t engaging in. Some state agencies even have to deploy staff from Olympia (some 4.5 hours away) because they won’t hire a representative for the area. The area’s resources are more vulnerable because of this. It is embarrassing the lack of resources that go into the area in comparison to other regions with ESA-listed salmon species. In addition, state agencies have been cutting their monitoring within the region, therefore increasing the pressure upon the tribes to take up the slack.
Even worse, the lack of engagement by state and federal agencies means that priorities, like the recovery of listed stocks, is left to the tribe:
The recovery of Lake Ozette sockeye provides an excellent example of where the federal and state governments could align their agencies and programs and lead a more coordinated recovery effort. Lake Ozette sockeye were listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 19991 In an effort to protect and increase the number of spawning sockeye, the Makah Tribe ended its commercial fishery in 1974 and ceased all ceremonial and subsistence fishing in 1982. Even so, sockeye numbers have not rebounded. Developing and implementing a plan to stop the downward trend of the species and return it to a healthy, naturally self-sustaining condition and protect treaty-guaranteed tribal fishing rights requires serious commitment and the provision of ample resources by co-managers.