Building Science and Accountability into Community-based Restoration

Abstract In 2004, the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) reviewed the results of its first five years of watershed restoration funding in the Pacific Northwest states of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. We examined completed restoration projects, interviewed watershed managers, and reviewed past project proposals to determine if BEF's conventional one to two-year grants were promoting accountable, scientific, and watershed-scale restoration. Our evaluation indicated that BEF's short-term funding was likely to promote site-specific interventions and discourage rigorous, sustained monitoring and a watershed-scale approach. In an effort to advance accountable and increasingly effective restoration, BEF developed and is now applying an experimental long-term funding approach. We present this new approach in order to stimulate discussion and propose an alternative funding policy that might enhance the region's ability to effect watershed-scale restoation.