(Seattle WA) The conservation group People For Puget Sound today urged the Puget Sound Leadership Council to adopt meaningful recovery goals when it meets this week in Seattle. These goals will be the basis of the Partnership’s revised Action Agenda to recover the health of the Sound by the year 2020.
“We need to base these goals on what best available science tells us a healthy Puget Sound needs and what can be technically attained,” said Tom Bancroft, executive director of People For Puget Sound. “Goals should be what’s good for Puget Sound, and should not be based on current levels of funding or existing government programs.”
According to Bancroft, the Partnership should first determine what needs to be achieved for a healthy Sound, then decide what actions to adopt and how to fund what needs to be done. Degradation of the Sound, in any case, should not be allowed to continue.
The problems facing Puget Sound are interconnected and interdependent, and specific goals for recovery have to take that into account, Bancroft said. For example, Orca whales eat Chinook salmon. Chinook salmon eat herring that lay eggs on eelgrass. The Partnership’s goals must reflect this interconnectedness if the Action Agenda is to truly address Puget Sound recovery.
The Puget Sound Partnership’s Leadership Council meets at the Seattle Aquarium on June 16 from 9 AM to 5 PM and on June 17 from 8:30 AM to 4 PM. The Council will adopt recovery goals and 2020 targets at this meeting.
The Partnership will subsequently revise its Action Agenda to incorporate the goals and 2020 targets, and the actions needed to attain them. The Partnership is scheduled to adopt its revisions to the Action Agenda in December 2011.
A copy of People For Puget Sound’s letter to the Puget Sound Partnership Leadership Council is found at http://pugetsound.org/programs/policy/comment_letters/060911PSPltr/