Acquisition Protects Caribou and Salmon in Southwest Alaska

Anchorage, Alaska— 19 January 2007 — The Nushagak-Mulchatna Wood-Tikchik Land Trust announced the purchase of 80 acres at the confluence of Keefer Creek and the Mulchatna River in Southwest Alaska. This acquisition, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, protects an important river crossing for the Mulchatna Caribou Herd as well as spawning habitat for salmon.

There are hundreds of similar allotments scattered throughout the region, creating potential conflicts between conservation of wildlife habitat, public access and private ownership, according to The Nature Conservancy’s Southwest Alaska Program Manager and Land Trust Executive Director Tim Troll.

“This issue has come to a head in Bristol Bay because it is truly a very attractive place for sport fishing as well as important for subsistence,” says Troll. “This type of conservation action creates economic benefits for landowners, continues to allow public access and traditional use and benefits conservation.”

Because of the property location at the mouth of Keefer Creek, both sockeye and king salmon spawn on site and it has important off-channel salmon rearing habitats. “We also learned, after talking with residents, this place is important for caribou to congregate and cross the Nushagak River,” said Troll.

Troll has conducted interviews with area Yupik residents to gather traditional knowledge about the region’s wildlife and habitat and integrate this information in a local vision for conservation for the Nushagak watershed.

The land trust and The Nature Conservancy are using this type of local knowledge about places within the watershed to develop a conservation plan that benefits wildlife as well as helps maintain the local subsistence way of life.

The Keefer creek property is surrounded by State land, but is not part of a park or any other kind of conservation unit. Both the Land Trust and The Nature Conservancy are working together with local Native corporations and communities to protect these types of small parcels within a larger conservation effort for the entire Nushagak-Mulchatna watershed.

“In the end, we are interested in ‘win-win’ solutions for people in the region. These lands conserve important wildlife habitat, support subsistence and continue to provide public access,” said Troll.

The Nature Conservancy is the leading conservation organization working to protect the most ecologically important lands and waters around the world for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.