Spokane to confer on conservation approach today

Leaders of the Bush administration’s “cooperative conservation” effort will hold their first public meeting in Spokane today to gather ideas on how disparate groups can work together to protect the environment.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne will attend the meeting, dubbed a “listening session” that is intended to foster cooperation on thorny environmental issues.

The meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Spokane Convention Center. The event is free and open to the public.

The Bush administration, which held a conference on the topic last year, defines “cooperative conservation” as the efforts of landowners, communities, conservation groups, industry and government to work together to preserve the environment.

“We believe cooperative conservation is the best way to protect the environment,” Bush said in mid-June when he announced creation of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument. “This means we must focus on the needs of states and respect the unique knowledge of local authorities, and welcome the help of private groups and volunteers.”

Efforts to protect Puget Sound and to restore Northwest salmon runs can be advanced through this philosophy, the administration said.

The Spokane meeting is the first of several across the country that have been scheduled by the secretaries of Interior, Commerce and Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Sam Mace of Save Our Wild Salmon plans to be in the audience today and hopes to discuss her group’s efforts to preserve the Northwest’s iconic fish.

The long-running salmon dispute is one of the most acrimonious in the region, with many environmental groups and fishermen demanding that some hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River system be breached to save salmon runs.

Numerous business groups oppose removing the dams, and President Bush has vowed they will be saved.

Mace said she’s unsure about the goal of cooperative conservation.

“There is nothing under today’s current laws that doesn’t allow for working cooperatively on conservation,” Mace said. “People are doing it every day on a variety of issues.

“We are supportive of cooperative conservation, but not if it means weakening the Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act,” Mace said.

But Mike Petersen of The Lands Council, a Spokane-based conservation group, said the cooperative approach worked in recent negotiations to protect the Spokane River.

“There have been more collaborative efforts in the last few years in our area,” Petersen said Tuesday. “Whether it’s the work of the Bush administration, or people are just tired of fighting, I’m not sure.”