Improving Salmon & Steelhead Management › Integrated All-H Salmon Management › 21st Century Salmon and Steelhead Management Framework

Updates

Institutionalizing the Use of the New Decision Making Framework 

Planning Team meetingIn it's work to institutionalize the use of the 21st Century Salmon and Steelhead Framework and implement All-H management, WDFW is now:

  • improving methods of information-sharing internally (between the different divisions in charge of hatcheries, habitat, and harvest), as well as the infrastructure for working effectively with tribal co-managers, reporting to the Director, Governor, and the Fish and Wildlife Commission.
  • ensuring that its management decisions are transparent, scientifically defensible, and well-communicated;
  • coordinating hatchery, harvest, habitat, and hydro actions in each watershed; and
  • strengthening partnerships between the Department and local governments, businesses, and organizations committed to salmon and steelhead conservation.

Meeting the First set of Framework Benchmarks

Bridget Moran leads framework discussion

WDFW has begun working to meet the first set of benchmarks, as illustrated by the following Departmental changes:

  • the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission endorsed the framework, and its outcomes are included in the Director’s goals and objectives;
  • the 21CSS Planning Team is chartered by WDFW as the entity responsible for ensuring that the benchmarks and outcomes in the framework are achieved. Additionally, the Planning Team is responsible for oversight, use, and management of the framework;
  • Planning Team members have been promoted to positions of greater leadership, including Director; Assistant Director, Fish Program; Intergovernmental Resource Management Program Lead; Division Managers for Salmon and Steelhead, Inland and Marine Resources, Fish Science, and Hatcheries; and Regional Fish Program Managers;
  • every framework benchmark has been assigned a staff lead who is empowered to form inter-disciplinary teams to develop strategies for reaching the benchmark;
  • annual staff performance evaluations are based in part on each staff member’s success hitting benchmarks;
  • a new web-based management utility will track strategy development and accomplishment, and provide a forum for staff coordination; and
  • the framework drives WDFW’s budget and funding requests for salmon management.