Sailing the shoals of adaptive management: The case of salmon in the Pacific Northwest

Emerging ecosystem science builds on adaptive management as an approach to dealing with salmon problems in the Pacific Northwest. Adaptive management brings scientific and democratic processes together. However. managers, the public, resource users, and scientists differ in their views on the causes of salmon decline. Managers emphasize habitat loss and over-harvest as the primary causes; commercial fishers point to habitat loss, management practices, and predators; and the public gives greatest weight to water pollution and ocean drift nets. Scientific stud ies of salmon often produce results that seem contradictory or unclear to the public. For adaptive management to be effective, scientists' and the public need to better understand one another's perspectives.