This approach assumed it is possible to adequately treat the effects of habitat degradation throughout the watershed while working only in the stream. This assumption is false. This type of habitat work has not fixed the problems caused by habitat degradation. While numbers of young salmon rearing around the instream structures increased in a few cases, these results were short-lived. In most cases, projects were not evaluated well enough to determine if they were in fact having the desired effect, or even whether the structures lasted.
Hindsight shows the traditional approach failed for a number of reasons.
The traditional approach focused on the habitat unit, a focus as fine as an individual pool, or possibly a short section of stream. While small gains might be made in one area of the watershed at this modest spatial scale, other areas might be subject to severe impacts, resulting in a net loss of salmon spawning and rearing in the basin. By neglecting larger watershed, landscape, and regional scales, the traditional approach overlooked the nature and degree of more widespread degradation. The tapestry of the landscape changed, but traditional approaches to salmon restoration didn't. The approaches have become increasingly illsuited to a landscape dominated by intensive logging.