This handbook is written for everyone whose life is touched by the Columbia River and its many landscapes: the Indians who have lived on this land for thousands of years; the natural resource managers who are working to restore watersheds in this basin; the families who have made their living working on this land for the last 150 years; and anyone else concerned with restoring and protecting watersheds.

Here you will find broad guidelines for designing restoration projects, based on Wy-Kan-Ush-Mi Wa-Kish-Wit, Spirit of the Salmon, the tribal salmon recovery plan. Other sources of detailed information and technical assistance are listed at the end.

We hope to see abundant wild salmon in the rivers again, in our lifetime and for generations to come. May this handbook contribute to making that vision a reality.

Dear Friends:

The way we live has changed our landscape. Now we must change the way we live. That doesn't mean that we can go back to the way things were. Our traditional leaders, our elders, were wise enough to know that we would have to adapt to new conditions if we were to persevere. But we are also responsible for helping to shape the path to the future.

The way things are isn't the way things have to be. Our tribes are taking an active role in leading the way to co-existence with the other creatures that help define this land as a place apart from all other places.

Our salmon restoration projects are demonstrations of that philosophy. We have found ways to keep water in streams, not by demanding an end to irrigation, but with creative uses of existing technology. The Warm Springs tribe, for instance, is using solar-powered pumps to deliver water to ponds that keep cattle away from streams. And perhaps most important, we have found ways to collaborate with our neighbors, as well as local, state, and federal agencies.

To share our approach and some of our successes, we have created a handbook which explains watershed assessment, protection, passive and active restoration, as well as our partnerships.

This handbook is one piece, but an important piece, of an overall strategy for dealing with a critically important component of salmon restoration. Our experience has shown us that when we properly restore habitat for salmon, we are really restoring habitat for many other species as well. Our handbook, and our restoration strategy then, is not an attempt to take us where we cannot go, but an attempt to keep us from losing what we can never get back.

Sincerely,

Ted Strong