Salmon Restoration and the Puget Sound Watershed

In the mid-1990s, several species of wild salmon native to the Puget Sound region were declared threatened and listed in the Endangered Species Act list. While this normally leads to numerous actions from federal agencies, something different and unprecedented is happening in Puget Sound. Throughout the region, watershed by watershed, local agencies, volunteer groups, and tribes are meeting to draft plans that will return the species to healthy, harvestable levels.

This extraordinary, bottom-up effort is being coordinated by Shared Strategy for Puget Sound. Recognizing that planning groups need a range of geographic information to support their efforts, CommEn Space joined forces with Shared Strategy to develop basin-by-basin planning maps that illustrate and contextualize important issues such as protected lands and public ownership. There are also maps that show the extent of habitats being used by endangered fish throughout Puget Sound. The maps on this poster are a subset of maps that is currently circulating among dozens of community groups, helping them develop a common vision of the problem and a clearer understanding of the issues that will influence the solution.