Programs
Advancing Protected AreasNews & Program Updates
WSC and Portland State University host Russian partners for a Protected Areas Management Workshop
April 2009 - - Kamchatka and Khabarovsk partners joined WSC's Tricia Melnik, Daniel Nelson and Yuliya Klichkova in Portland, Oregon for a workshop focusing on protected area management in the Columbia River Basin watershed. With the potential for several Russian salmon strongholds to attain protected area status in the coming year (over 6 million acres), it is critical that our partners receive support from the international community and see how protected areas are designated and managed in other countries, including the United States.
The workshop was conducted by two faculty members from the Executive Leadership Institute at Portland State University. Dr. Peter Paquet is the Director of the Watershed Management Professional Program at PSU and the Wildlife and Fish Program Manager at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. He has been working in resource policy and habitat restoration in the Columbia Basin for over 25 years. Dr. Craig Shinn is the Associate Director of the Executive Leadership Institute and specializes in natural resource policy and administration.
The primary topics addressed during the workshop were multi-level governance of protected areas, public and private salmon conservation efforts, habitat restoration, and resource management at both the state and federal levels. Participants received a broad understanding of the several types of protected areas that exist within the Columbia Basin, and they were introduced to the programs and policies that drive protected area decisions by federal, state, tribal and local governments. The group met with several resource managers and conservationists located in Eastern and Central Oregon, including:
- Carl Sheeler, Wildlife Program Manager at the Wanaket Wildlife Area, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
- Linda Brown, Watershed Restoration Program Manager, John Day Basin Office, Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs
- Jerry Ebeltoft, Land Steward at the Dunstan Homestead Preserve, The Nature Conservancy Andrei Rykoff, District Ranger, Clackamas River Ranger District, Mt. Hood National Forest, USDA Forest Service
Russian guests included Evgeny Lobkov, Director of Science at the Wild Fishes and Biodiversity Foundation (Kamchatka); Dmitry Ryzhov, Director of the Kol River Salmon Refuge; Aleksandr Kulikov of the Khabarovsk Wildlife Foundation; and Evgeny Khlynov, Head of the Department of Hunting in the Ministry of Natural Resources (Khabarovsk).
The complexity of the American system of protected areas surprised the Russians, but it also provided a good comparison and a vision for the future. Evgeny Lobkov said at the end of the conference, “In addition to the new information we learned during the seminar, I’ve become more confident that the work we’re doing is beneficial and that we’re on the right track.”