Nisqually serves as national marine ecology role model

By Rob Carson | The News Tribune • Published July 20, 2008

For people who spend their lives studying rivers, the Nisqually is a model made in heaven. It's only 78 miles long, but it flows through such spectacular, varied terrain that it makes an ideal living laboratory for geologists, hydrologists and biologists.

It begins at a glacier on an active volcano; crashes down a steep, narrow canyon, through old-growth forests and past herds of elk. Then it meanders across prairies and farmland to its mouth, a largely intact estuarine delta filled with marshes and migrating birds.

"This river is a whole different world," said geologist Scott Beason, one of a panel of scientists introducing the Nisqually to this summer's crop of seasonal rangers at Mount Rainier National Park in June. "There's so much going on here it's just insane."

The Nisqually is a model in another important way as well. For 20 years, it has been watched over by the Nisqually River Council, a loosely knit group of landowners, business people and government representatives who rely on consensus and a mutual appreciation of the watershed.

As the global search for ways to balance economic and environmental needs grows more desperate, the Nisqually plan has begun to stand out as a prototype.

The 18-member council has had such success that its philosophical basis is being used as a blueprint for environmental management around the world.

A new approach

The Nisqually process sounds simple, but it involves revolutionary shifts in thinking about politics, economics and lifestyles.

In short, rather than saving the river from people, the Nisqually River Council tries to save the river for people. Its members use collaboration instead of government regulations and the courts, looking for places where economic values and nature's values align.

"We're not going to get anywhere if we fight," said Steve Pruitt, a Nisqually River landowner and longtime participant in the process. "There is absolutely nothing to be gained by getting into a corner and saying the environmentalists are the good guys or the business people are the bad guys. That's a monumental waste of time.