The San Juan Initiative was a public-private partnership to identify new regulatory and voluntary measures that would improve the marine ecosystem of San Juan County, an archipelago in Puget Sound, Washington that has more coastline than any other county in United States.
This community-based initiative operated from 2006 to 2009 and chose to focus its limited resources on the shoreline environment which had been identified as a concern of high priority. It examined land-use policies, permitting, and building practices in June 2008 report, “An Assessment of Ecosystem Protection: What’s Working, What’s Not.”
The initiative was committed to supporting community values and respecting the rights of property owners. It received a high degree of cooperation from land owners and members of the construction industry. In drafting solutions, the initiative continued to narrow its efforts and focused on shoreline vegetation and erosion problems.
Although the initiative ended in 2009, it enjoyed broad community support and received state recognition as a pilot project to implement ecosystem-based management on a community scale.
Mission
The mission of the San Juan Initiative was to improve ecosystem protection in San Juan County in a manner that supported community prosperity, built local capacity for ecosystem protection, and served as a pilot for the rest of Puget Sound.
Objectives
The initiative set out to accomplish two goals:
Lead Organizations
Management
Funding
Key Parties
Funding
Other Partners
Stakeholders
The San Juan Initiative began as a partnership between the San Juan County Council and Shared Strategy for Puget Sound, a non-governmental organization concerned with salmon recovery in the region. The Puget Sound Partnership eventually assumed the management role of Shared Strategy and adopted the San Juan Initiative as a pilot project.
Policy Group
The San Juan Initiative was governed by a Policy Group. Eleven of the twenty-two members were local residents appointed by the San Juan County Council and included builders, environmentalists, land owners, marina owners and real estate agents. The other members were drawn from federal and state agencies and Native American tribes with resource management responsibilities on the islands.
Advisory Committees
The Technical Advisory Committee and the Science Advisory Committee advised the Policy Group:
Work Teams
In developing solutions to some of the problems identified in its June 2008 report, “An Assessment of Ecosystem Protection: What’s Working, What’s Not,” the Policy Group developed five work teams to expand community engagement. The work teams included four to seven people, who helped brainstorm ideas and provide information from their perspectives and experiences. Their contributions helped establish recommendations that would be supported and were grounded in community values. Work teams were assembled from the following groups of people:
Residents of the San Juan Islands were passionate about their marine ecosystem, but resistant to the idea of programs being implemented by outside authorities. In the 1980s, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration proposed a National Marine Sanctuary for the San Juan area, but the idea was dropped due to strong local opposition.
In 1996, a group of diverse citizens formed an advisory body to the San Juan County Council called the Marine Resources Council which continues to offer community input on marine environmental matters.
In 2006, Shared Strategy for Puget Sound, a non-profit focused on the recovery of salmon populations, released a Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Plan. The plan identified population growth as a major threat to the ecosystem. It found that few attempts had been made to evaluate the effectiveness of laws, incentives and education programs related to resource protection in the region. In addition, the report found that the region lacked a single organization responsible for ecological stewardship and a coordinating structure to ensure that private and public efforts were efficient and effective.
To meet those needs, Governor Chris Gregoire and the state legislature created the Puget Sound Partnership, a community effort of citizens, governments, tribes, scientists and businesses working together to restore and protect Puget Sound The Partnership was charged with creating a plan for a healthy Puget Sound and coordinating efforts to implement that plan.
At the same time, San Juan County Commissioner Kevin Ranker had been working with government officials and private foundations along the West Coast to start an ecosystem-based management pilot project in the San Juan Islands to implement the recommendations of the U.S. Joint Ocean Commission.
Shared Strategy for Puget Sound and the San Juan County Council decided to work together to create the San Juan Initiative. A memorandum of understanding to manage the initiative jointly was signed in 2006. San Juan County agreed to the initiative, but only if the majority of its funding came from external sources.
As the Puget Sound Partnership became established, it eventually assumed the management role of Shared Strategy and adopted the San Juan Initiative as a pilot project.
The Ecosystem
The San Juan Islands in the Puget Sound consist of approximately 175 square miles of land and 408 miles of waterfront. At high tide, the archipelago includes 176 islands and reefs. At low tide, that number increases to 743. The islands are in the Salish Sea at the confluence of Canadian and American waters.
In the past, farming, ranching, logging and fishing were the basis of the area’s economy, but in recent years, the tourism industry has greatly increased. About 16,000 people live on the islands throughout the year; however, the population increases dramatically during the tourism season due to thousands of visitors and recreational boaters. Tourists contribute 23 percent of the county’s annual retail sales tax revenues.
The islands have a variety of terrain and marine habitats, including deep water, shallow bays, rocky coastlines and sandy beaches. The endangered Puget Sound Chinook Salmon use the area to feed on their journey to the ocean.
The islands have seen a decline in marine species and habitats. For example, rockfish are no longer abundant and populations of marine birds have diminished. In 2008, the orca whale population declined by 10 percent. A catastrophic loss of eelgrass has been reported in the most heavily visited bays, such as Westcott Bay.
Threats
Although threats to the ecosystem are varied, a 2006 study conducted by Shared Strategy of Puget Sound pointed to population growth as a major concern. Shoreline development that continued under existing policies and practices would be highly detrimental to the ecosystem.
The San Juan Initiative identified gaps and problems in the regulatory, permitting, enforcement and trades practices related to shoreline development and resource maintenance and then recommended community-supported solutions to two areas of concern: erosion and vegetation issues.
The initiative lacked the resources and time to conduct detailed monitoring of ecological conditions in the San Juan Islands and had to narrow its scope for addressing these two concerns. The Policy Group, working with local and regional environmental managers and scientists, identified the protection of near-shore and terrestrial habitats as the highest priority. The San Juan County Marine Resources Committee completed a San Juan County Marine Stewardship Area Plan which also helped to narrow the focus of the initiative. In addition, community input was solicited through two dozen workshops, formation of the work teams and additional interviews with land owners and builders.
Problem Identification
The San Juan Initiative’s June 2008 report, “An Assessment of Ecosystem Protection: What’s Working, What’s Not” contained the following five main findings:
Recommendation of Solutions
The San Juan Initiative’s December 2008 report, “Protecting Our Place for Nature and People,” recommended tailoring protection measures to the different ecological qualities of varying stretches of shoreline. It also anticipated that property owners would support increased protections of the environment if their desires for views, access to the shoreline and management of hazards were supported. Key specific recommendations included:
The San Juan Initiative recommended development of a monitoring program to assess the effectiveness of its recommendations – including education, regulatory, and voluntary programs – and the mapping of feeder bluffs.
Before ending in 2009, the initiative established the following benchmarks and timelines to measure success:
By December 2010
By December 2012
Community Consensus
The San Juan Initiative developed community consensus about the importance of protecting the near-shore ecosystem and recommended measures to reduce the impacts of shoreline development. It involved builders, land owners and real estate professionals whose individual decisions greatly affected the shoreline environment.
Information Gathering
The initiative proceeded amidst a lack of information on the San Juan Islands ecosystem, but its surveys of shoreline areas developed new information that will be useful to the community, such as a finding that 26 percent of docks and 30 percent of mooring buoys had been placed in areas of eelgrass; shoreline development led to an average vegetation loss of 25 percent per parcel; and areas in which fish may spawn had been covered by extensive beach armoring.
Modeling
The initiative modeled the application of ecosystem-based management principles to a small, community setting. Members of the Policy Group spent time at the outset learning about ecosystem-based management and how it differs from previous resource management strategies.
The following facilitating factors also are listed in the “Key Steps” document issued by the San Juan Initiative:
Additionally, the 2008 report of the San Juan Initiative, “Protecting Our Place for Nature and People,” listed additional facilitating factors:
The following challenges are listed in a “Key Steps” document that was issued by the San Juan Initiative in December 2009 to provide information to resource conservation practitioners interested in conducting similar initiatives:
The San Juan Initiative listed the following five overarching lessons for resource conservation practitioners to consider in its “Key Steps” document:
San Juan Initiative:http://www.sanjuaninitiative.org/
Puget Sound Partnership: http://www.psp.wa.gov/
Shared Strategy for Puget Sound: http://www.sharedsalmonstrategy.org/
San Juan County Council: http://sanjuanco.com/council/default.aspx