Several thoughtful ideas are presented in the proposal. These could become the basis for a scientific component for the coordination activities discussed.

Proposal strengths:

• Objectives are written as desired outcomes
• Good examples of the specific work conducted are provided for each category.

Weaknesses:

• The problem statement does not directly address the problem to be addressed, but rather lists the activities to be undertaken.
• It is difficult to directly relate the list of accomplishments to the project's objectives.
• No project relationships are provided
• No emerging limiting factors are identified

1. Purpose: Significance to Regional Programs, Technical Background, and Objectives

The Coeur d'Alene Tribe (CDT) has chosen to represent its interests and engage in technical and policy issues with resource managers in the Upper Columbia Basin. “Tribal coordination through the Upper Columbia United Tribes venue enables a proactive voice in the Regional forums that may determine various outcomes at the programmatic and project level.”

Significance to Regional Programs: The proposal relates the need for coordination to the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program, MERR Plan, Research Plan, and coordination white paper. It also relates to the need addressed by the UCUT Coordination Project. The "significance" statement includes a description of benefits of the coordination entities that could have been listed in the problem statement: input into the development of data program objectives, data collection methods, data interpretation, data presentation, use of data to implement restoration measures, and the development of consensus approaches to research, monitoring and evaluation.

Problem statement: The problem statement does not directly address the problem to be addressed, but rather lists the activities to be undertaken.

Objectives: The project has eight objectives written as desired outcomes. A deliverable is associated with all but one of the objectives. Deliverables include implemented projects and regional coordination, user evaluation of outreach and member assessment of effectiveness and impact, and gain benefits for fish and wildlife. With the exception of deliverable 5, none of the deliverables includes metrics with which to assess progress toward meeting the objectives.

2. History: Accomplishments, Results, and Adaptive Management (ISRP Review of Results)

The Coeur d'Alene Tribe left CBFWA because of inadequate and poorly timed communication about issues in the Upper Columbia region. A budget history since 2009 is provided, with a brief explanation of budgets, personnel and their effect on recent financial performance. No explanation of the project's financial history is provided.

Reports and deliverables have been completed either on time or ahead of schedule. Reports in Pisces were mentioned, but none were available for review.

Major accomplishments are listed as a number of different activities, without any assessment of the outcome or evaluation of benefit of those activities in contributing to the objectives. Most of the activities described pertain to monitoring the actions of other entities, primarily UCUT and NPCC. It is difficult to directly relate this list of accomplishments to the project's objectives. However, later in the proposal in the "Past Accomplishments" and "Value Added" sections the sponsors provide a good history of project accomplishments and value added. Past accomplishments are tied to outcomes beneficial to the Tribe. The value-added section describes specific projects that have benefited from increased coordination among UCUT members. It also describes a situation of more effective tribal participation in regional fora, better communication and coordination, and the avoidance of redundancy within and across tribal projects.

Adaptive management: No management changes planned. However a later section of the proposal on assessment of effectiveness describes annual evaluation against objectives and planning adaptation to changing conditions with specific examples of strategies employed.

3. Project Relationships, Emerging Limiting Factors, and Tailored Questions for Type of Work (hatchery, RME, tagging)

The geographic interests are with agencies and stakeholders at the subbasin and provincial levels. The CDAT are a member of UCUT and support its activities.

No emerging limiting factors are listed.

What were the outcomes of “a regional funding allocation strategy to redistribute funds in a way that was more aligned to the environmental impacts within the region and its power benefits?” Were Fish and Wildlife Program objectives more effectively and efficiently achieved? Were funds saved, more efficiently used? Was the prioritization of projects better? How was there alignment made to environmental impacts?

Mention is made, “Coordinated efforts involve trend forecasting for multiple projects across UCUT member Tribes with sometimes divergent goals with regard to resource management.” This sounds like a very innovative process. Can it be described? Has it been assessed in terms of meeting UCUT goals, Fish and Wildlife Program objectives? What coordination processes work to resolve divergent goals?

Would the coordination process for an “assessment phase that evaluates the entities participation” work in other regions. What is the assessment that is conducted? What were the outcomes?

What are some of the specifics of “assessment of regional policies and directives that are consummate with Tribal cultural and policy values through the coordination with Tribal Council and policy representatives?” How do coordination activities figure into these assessments?

This proposal identifies a number of very important issues that could be framed into one or more hypotheses that would show the value of coordination. Monitoring of these relationships would be very valuable in showing the value of coordination and how coordination procedures might be improved. This could be framed in an adaptive management context where the lessons learned from this project inform the next.

4. Deliverables, Work Elements, Metrics, and Methods

Program Coordination: The proposal lists eight categories of work to be undertaken, with proportional shares that don't sum to 100%. Two categories are each listed twice with slightly different texts. Shares don't sum to 100. The categories are coordination of projects and programs (25%), facilitating and participating (10%), data management (10%), information and education (10%), monitoring and evaluation (10%), biological objectives (10%), and project proposal reviews (5%).

Good examples of the specific work conducted are provided for each category.

Four work elements are identified – 99. Outreach and Education, 122. Provide Technical Review, 174. Produce Plan, and 189. Coordination-Columbia Basinwide. Only 99 has metrics, but they are more inputs rather than outcomes. Can output metrics be identified to go with these work elements? Ideally, the hypothesis(es) developed in the proposal would be measured during the course of the coordination activities and results presented in the report on this project. There are many ideas discussed in the proposal that are amenable to this approach. Selecting a few of the most important questions, concerns, or hypotheses and monitoring them is recommended.

4a. Specific comments on protocols and methods described in MonitoringMethods.org

The protocols for the four work elements are published but do not provide adequate guidance on the methods and metrics. Guidance is available from ISRP (2007-14:2). Project sponsors should design the metrics into their proposal and identify methods for measurement.