The Nature Conservancy. Protecting nature. Preserving life.™

Wild caught salmon. © Clark James Mishler

We work in three salmon landscapes: 

• Bristol Bay

• Matanuska-Susitna Basin

• Tongass

Like people, salmon need clean water. How we use the lands surrounding salmon waters is as important as how we use water itself. The Conservancy is conserving wild salmon in Alaska by:

• Tapping the traditional ecological knowledge of indigenous communities to empower local people to conserve the fish and wildlife essential to a traditional subsistence way of life.
• Establishing accurate environmental baselines in Bristol Bay headwaters to help protect wild salmon habitat as development is proposed.
• Reopening to salmon hundreds of miles of spawning and rearing habitat by restoring stream channels and removing inadequately designed culverts.
• Advancing economic sustainability through innovative conservation partnerships, such as the Tongass Futures Roundtable and the Staney Community Forest Process, with commercial fishing, timber, energy and other business interests—finding the balance for people and nature.
• Protecting millions of acres of pristine forests and tundra in extraordinary wild salmon watersheds through better land management, new conservation designations, land acquisition and conservation easements.
• Ensuring water conditions allow salmon to thrive by working with communities to safeguard water quality, flow and temperature.
• Restoring key estuaries and nearshore habitats to ensure these vital nurseries for salmon remain healthy.
• Building innovative private/public partnerships by collaborating with key salmon habitat state and federal managers -- such as the Matanuska-Susitna Basin Salmon Habitat Partnership and the Southwest Alaska Salmon Habitat Partnership. Advancing second growth management and restoration of forestlands critical for maintaining the water quality and flow and streamside habitat necessary for salmon.
• Sharing our cutting edge conservation management tools and scientific research with landowners, communities, businesses and government agencies to foster more salmon-friendly communities and better management of important habitats,
• Advancing second growth management and restoration of forestlands critical for maintaining the water quality and flow and streamside habitat necessary for salmon.

Read about how the Conservancy's  Campaign for a Sustainable Planet is conserving freshwater systems throughout the world.