2010 Columbia River Estuary Conference: Adaptive Management of Ecological Restoration

Theme: Bringing together project leaders, program managers, and research scientists to share lessons from ecological restoration and endangered species recovery in the lower Columbia River and estuary (LCRE).

Overall Purpose: Provide a forum to develop recommendations for future application of lessons learned from research, monitoring, and restoration of ecosystems essential in the LCRE.

Call for Papers and Posters: Abstracts relevant to adaptive management of LCRE ecosystems to benefit salmon and other species are welcome. Please indicate whether you prefer to make an oral or poster presentation. Abstracts addressing key questions (below) will receive priority for the limited number of time slots available for oral presentations; however, abstracts on any aspect of the LCRE are welcome. Authors of abstracts not selected for oral presentation will be encouraged to present posters. Abstracts should be submitted to Kathi Ruiz by April 15, 2010 via email (Kathi.ruiz@pnl.gov).

Contributed Papers:

• Strategy and Prioritization: What are improvements to the ecosystem-based strategy for LCRE ecological restoration? How can we develop larger-scale, ecosystem-based restoration projects? What are ways to prioritize proposed projects? What are the greatest uncertainties to properly design and justify projects to increase salmon survival/fitness and the quality of the ecosystem and why?

• Uncertainties Research: What is the latest research telling us and why is it important? What are the management implications of this? How can the survival or ecological benefits of a given restoration action be projected beforehand and measured afterward? What are landscape-scale benefits of habitat restoration to salmon and their ecosystems?

• Lessons from Ecological Restoration Projects: Which types of restoration are most effective and why? Which habitat types are the highest priority for restoration and why? What are the best locations for projects and why? What are the biggest risks to a successful project? What do we know now that we did not know five years ago about LCRE restoration?

For more information and to pre-register: Please contact Kathi Ruiz 503-417-7551, kathi.ruiz@pnl.gov or visit the conference website (http://cerc.labworks.org/). Registration is free. Pre-registration is encouraged.