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begun. I know you're aware, too, of collaborative efforts that are occurring between the respective countries. So I think the answer is to continue those kinds of discussions to a point and get the informa- tion so you can make the best kinds of decisions at the time. Some of that has been initiated. HYDE: It would be nice if some of the powers that be on the U.S. side would put greater weight behind this kind of a concept. It seems that there is still a lot of reluctance and fear on a lot of parts of folks that are involved in the Lower Colorado River to actually say, "Yeah, we support this kind of a bi-national research effort." I think it would help a lot if people weren't resisting. QUESTION FROM THE AUDIENCE: It seems to me that in doing this balancing that we've been talking about this morning, the two questions that are most often asked are: First of all to identify the nature of the interest that needs to be balanced. That can be done pretty easily, I think, in most instances. Second, how much value to give that interest. How much weight do we give it in the balancing process? One man's scenery is another man's ecosystem. On the other hand, a scientist that studied a mosquito all of his life might give that mosquito more value than I care to. So when you talk about values, it seems to me to quickly descend into a fever swamp of subjectivity. Have there been any attempts to try and develop some objective criteria to try and rescue us from this process? To get outside of the subjectivity that we all just fall into when we're trying to assess the weight that we should give these interests? SNAPE: That goes back to my response about the Supreme Court's definition of obscenity. By defini- tion, there is subjectivity to balance but, I would say that every single scientist that I know who has looked at the Colorado River believes that you must look at the entire river ecosystem from its beginning at the Green River all the way down to the Gulf of Califor- nia in order to have a rational solution or some sort of "balance" to this question. So mosquitoes aside, I think if you're going to have a Colorado River restoration program, it must include the entire ecosystem and one of the problems to date is that the action sort of ends at the international boundary. HYDE: There have been some attempts to try and objectify some of these values. I think that's one of the things that the adaptive management program is trying to wrestle with is, how do we deal with that? How do we place a value on a value and balance it out with other values? But I would point out two things. One is that values do change over time. If you listen to what our friend who played Major Powell said, there were values at that time that have changed, and values will continue to change. And the other thing is that as we develop our values, they're based on a number of things but a lot of it is what we're taught, a lot of it is what we know. So education goes towards values as well. One of the things at Glen Canyon Institute we're doing is, we're trying to get people to question where their values about dams came from. Is it based solely on what previous generations handed it to them, or is there an opportunity for them to learn more and make their own choices and their own values based on additional information? refer again to the article I cited which I think says this, and actually it seems clear. "There is no technological criteria for balance." Society has to make a choice about what they want this river to be or that river to be. Those are judgments based on the values of society at the time and in the place in which society makes that choice. Once society has made that choice, science can help. Scientists can help you in your decision making about how to get there. I think that's the role of science. The role of science is not to tell people what their values are. PALMER: Let me Values do change over time. If you listen to what our friend who played Major Powell said, there were values at that time that have THE BALANCI NG ACT changed, and values will continue to change. - Pam Hyde SWAN: Thank you to this very capable panel. Thank you for your attention. SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS SEPTEMBER 1999 o