{"id":3513742,"date":"2025-06-12T10:59:42","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T10:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/?p=3513742"},"modified":"2025-06-12T10:59:42","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T10:59:42","slug":"yurok-nation-returns-a-vital-creek-and-watershed-to-major-salmon-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/stories\/2025-06-12\/yurok-nation-returns-a-vital-creek-and-watershed-to-major-salmon-run\/","title":{"rendered":"Yurok Nation returns a vital creek and watershed to major salmon run"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><em>Four dams are now down on the Upper Klamath River in northern California in the largest river restoration project in U.S. history. But a rarely mentioned cold-water creek is essential to restoring health to what was once the third-largest salmon run on the West Coast of North America.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Blue Creek is located just 25 km (16 mi) from the mouth of the Lower Klamath at the Pacific Ocean. Critically, it\u2019s the first cold-water refuge for migrating salmon that enables the fish to cool down, survive, and move farther upriver to spawn. The dams and logging have damaged this important watershed for decades.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>The Yurok, California\u2019s largest Indigenous tribe, lost ownership of Blue Creek to westward U.S. expansion in the late 1800s. In 2002, a timber company, negotiating with the Yurok, agreed to sell back the 19,000-hectare (47,100-acre) watershed to the tribe.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>It took Western Rivers Conservancy, an Oregon-based NGO, nearly two decades to raise the $60 million needed to buy the watershed. In a historic transition, Blue Creek returns this spring to the Yurok for conservation in its entirety. The tribe considers the watershed a sacred place.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>KLAMATH, California \u2014 The Pacific Ocean fog hung densely over the narrow mouth of the Klamath River in this coastal rainforest in northern California. Redwood, Douglas fir and alder disappeared into the mist. Seals bobbed nearby, hungry and waiting. An osprey swooped overhead, breakfast clenched in its claws.<\/p>\n<p>It was late July, 2024. The salmon run wouldn\u2019t start for several months. But a few chinook salmon arrived early, some poached by birds and mammals, some caught in nets by Yurok fishing from their johnboats.<\/p>\n<p>Pergish Carlson, a river guide and Yurok \u2014 a member of California\u2019s largest Indigenous tribe \u2014 captained a modern motorboat on that morning. We were there to try and get a glimpse of the future, to witness a crucial ecological element connected to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fisheries.noaa.gov\/podcast\/restoring-klamath-river-basin-largest-dam-removal-project-world\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">largest river restoration project<\/a>\u00a0in U.S. history: the return of nearby Blue Creek and its vast watershed to the Yurok Nation.<\/p>\n<p>But Carlson couldn\u2019t help but look to the past; it helped him savor the renewal that lay upstream, he told Mongabay.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cNot that many years ago,\u201d he said, \u201cthe Indian people, my people, could only fish here at night, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. We were run off by the government if we tried to fish earlier. This was always our river, our salmon. But the daylight hours were reserved for sport fishermen.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That seems a small indignation compared to what happened to the Yurok, and all tribes from coast to coast, with the 1887 passage of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.archives.gov\/milestone-documents\/dawes-act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">Dawes Act<\/a>\u00a0during the administration of President Grover Cleveland. The act gave the U.S. government, eager to accommodate western migration, the legal authority to strip tribes of their own land and waterways, and, by extension, their culture and identity, their hearts and their spirit.<\/p>\n<p>A day prior, as we sat with Joseph James, chair of the 6,000-member Yurok Nation, he spoke of the past and future.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWe as Indigenous people have suffered generations of trauma,\u201d he told Mongabay. \u201cI can look backwards, but it\u2019s not going to do no good. Things are changing and we\u2019re telling our story. We are acknowledging our partnerships and celebrating things we\u2019ve made happen, things that maybe people thought would never happen.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-288707 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/10\/15093505\/1.-Pergish-Carlson.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Pergish Carlson, a Yurok River guide, motoring on the Klamath River near the Pacific Ocean at the river\u2019s mouth in late July. Image by Justin Catanoso.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Back at the mouth of the Klamath near the ocean, Carlson turned his boat upstream. We were accompanied by members of the Portland, Oregon-based\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernrivers.org\/projects\/ca\/klamath-river-blue-creek\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">Western Rivers Conservancy<\/a>, the Yurok\u2019s most important partner in this rich but diminished ecosystem. We were heading just 25 kilometers (16 miles) to an ecologically vital location: the cold-water mouth of Blue Creek and its 19,000-hectare (47,100-acre) watershed. In recent years, more than 12,950 hectares (32,000 acres) had already been returned to the Yurok.<\/p>\n<p>Now in early June, in what stands as a remarkable success story for the environment, for what was once the third-largest salmon run on the West Coast and for the Yurok tribe itself, the last 6,000-hectare (15,000-acre) section of the watershed returns to its rightful heirs who occupied it for millennia before the Dawes Act. It is the largest land-back conservation deal in California history, according to Western Rivers.<\/p>\n<p>And all it took was two decades of relentless work, pioneering funding tools, and $60 million paid to a timber company that first offered to sell the land back to the tribe in 2002.<\/p>\n<p>A generation later, the deal is finally closing.<\/p>\n<p>Arriving at Blue Creek, its frigid waters crystal clear, Carlson said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThis creek right here, this is the lifeline of the whole river \u2014 for the salmon, for water quality, and spiritually, for the Yurok people. This is a sacred spot.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-288709 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/10\/15093519\/3-A-Yurok-tribal-member-fishing.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>A Yurok tribal member fishing for chinook salmon on the Lower Klamath River. Not long ago, Yurok were prohibited from fishing on the river \u2014 an essential part of their culture for thousands of years \u2014 between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Daytime fishing was reserved for affluent sports fishermen. Image by Justin Catanoso.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>Blue Creek: \u2018The biggest step\u2019<\/h3>\n<p>Barry McCovey has been director of the Yurok\u2019s fisheries department for a quarter-century. He\u2019s intimately familiar with the Lower Klamath and its many creeks and tributaries (the entire river length starting in the Cascades in Oregon runs 423 km, or 263 mi). Since fall 2024, \u00a0most attention has focused on the Upper Klamath and the h<a href=\"https:\/\/news.mongabay.com\/2024\/10\/largest-dam-removal-ever-driven-by-tribes-kicks-off-klamath-river-recovery\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\">istoric removal of four dams<\/a>\u00a0that has enabled the river\u2019s free flow for the first time in more than 100 years.<\/p>\n<p>McCovey has a broad view of the ecosystem. He knows how crucial dam removal is to restoring health to the Lower Klamath, \u201cbut it\u2019s just one step,\u201d he told Mongabay. \u201cThere are many steps in this journey to get to the ultimate goal of balance and restoration of the river system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for Blue Creek, just 37 km (23 mi) long and, at its mouth, barely a few feet deep, McCovey \u00a0said, the reclamation and restoration of the creek \u201cis a massive step in the right direction, maybe the biggest step of all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The reason is simple. Salmon \u2014 chinook, steelhead, coho \u2014 are cold-water fish spending much of their adult lives in the salty Pacific. When they swim up the fresh-water Klamath to spawn in spring and fall, their body temperatures climb perilously by almost 13\u00b0 Celsius (23\u00b0 Fahrenheit) in just a few miles in warmer river water.<\/p>\n<p>This would be fatal if not for the pool at the mouth of Blue Creek, the first cold-water refuge that\u2019s a stopover for every salmon heading farther upstream. When juvenile salmon swim downstream to the ocean in June and July, Blue Creek is their last temperature-adjusting refuge before entering the ocean.<\/p>\n<p>In essence, no Blue Creek means\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/bioscience\/article\/53\/4\/315\/250146\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">no salmon<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a reality that would impact the very survival of the Yurok themselves.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cAround 40,000 fish will return to the Klamath Basin this year,\u201d McCovey predicted; he snorkels to help do fish counts himself. \u201cThe average was around 120,000 fish in 1978. But actually, 120,000 was a number really depressed by the dams, the timber industry, overfishing, water diversion for agriculture and now climate change. That 120,000 was a fraction of what fish runs were historically.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Blue Creek suffered along with this. Logging roads and timbering amid the 19,000-hectare watershed dumped silt into the creek, where it remains piled up near the mouth. Shade was reduced, creek flows sped up, and water levels dropped. The creek even warmed by more than 12\u00b0C (22\u00b0F). Salmon populations\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernrivers.org\/projects\/ca\/klamath-river-blue-creek\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">dropped as a result<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Richard Nelson, who heads the Yurok\u2019s watershed restoration and roads department, told Mongabay an enormous amount of work is needed to \u201cheal\u201d the acreage above the creek wrought by decades of timbering. Such work includes selective tree thinning to reduce wildfire fuel, recontouring miles of logging roads and swales to mitigate runoff and strategically placing dead trees in the creek to slow the flow, recharge groundwater and create aquatic habitats.<\/p>\n<p>In the coming generations, active Yurok land management intends to deepen the creek and restore the entire watershed to the biodiverse old-growth forest it once was. Endangered species such as the spotted owl (<em>Strix occidentalis<\/em>) and marbled murrelet (<em>Brachyramphus marmoratus<\/em>) may rebound along with the salmon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy grandchildren couldn\u2019t retire out here [before] doing all the work that needs to be done,\u201d Nelson said, looking years into the future. But he stressed that such labor is an opportunity, a privilege.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cBack in the day, it was pie in the sky to think we\u2019d ever get this land back. Now here we are, and the dams are \u2026 gone, too. It\u2019s a phenomenal thing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-288705 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/10\/15093450\/9.-The-Klamath-River.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>The Klamath River, 423-km- (263-mi-) long and originating in the Cascade Mountains in Oregon, flows into the Pacific Ocean at a narrow mouth where redwood, Douglas fir and alder forests looming above. Image by Justin Catanoso.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-288710 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/10\/15093527\/4-Blue-Creek.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Sixteen miles upstream from the mouth of the Klamath River, Blue Creek pours icy cold mountain water into the river. The creek is the first biologically critical cold-water refuge for salmon migrating farther upstream to spawn. Image by Justin Catanoso.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>The cost of saving a watershed<\/h3>\n<p>The opportunity was first broached in 2002.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.greendiamond.com\/about\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">Green Diamond Resource Company<\/a>, a sixth-generation forest products firm once known as the Simpson Logging Company, enjoyed the flip side of the Dawes Act coin. A tragic land-stripping ordeal for Indigenous tribes near the river became a lucrative business opportunity for settlers in forest-rich northern California. Green Diamond still controls more than 121,400 wooded hectares (300,000 acres) in the region and along stretches of the Klamath.<\/p>\n<p>Galen Schuler, the company\u2019s former general counsel, tells Mongabay the legacy of the Dawes Act was not forgotten in deciding to make the Blue Creek watershed available for sale.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cHere we are in the 21st century, a family-owned company that acquired this land in the post-World War II era from a bunch of different companies,\u201d said Schuler, who retired in April. \u201cA lot of it is inside the Yurok reservation. A huge, huge bunch of it. And here you have the largest tribe in California, and they hardly own any of their reservation at all. We knew they had ambitions for that, so we started talking.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It quickly became clear that Blue Creek was a priority for the Yurok, for the ecological health of the salmon and the spiritual health of the tribe. Talks progressed, haltingly.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cYou know, it\u2019s difficult to be in tribal leadership and do a deal with a timber company,\u201d Schuler said. \u201cEveryone is wondering if the timber company is taking advantage. There\u2019s a trust thing. We were fortunate to meet with really good Yurok leaders who wanted this deal, but they saw the benefit of a conservation group getting involved.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t just optics. Green Diamond wanted fair-market value for the 19,000-hectare watershed: $60 million. The Yurok never could have raised that enormous sum on their own. Starting in 2006, Western Rivers Conservancy took on the fundraising challenge. As a sign of trust, Green Diamond stopped logging in the watershed.<\/p>\n<p>Sue Doroff co-founded Western Rivers in 1988 and retired as president in mid-2024. For her last 18 years with the conservation group, raising the funds to secure Blue Creek was her primary focus. It was complicated. It was long and difficult. And in late July, 2024, standing with her feet in the creek, she said the complex, innovative efforts were paying off.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cSometimes to save a creek, you have to buy it,\u201d she told Mongabay. \u201cWe are in the business of forever; that\u2019s how we feel about the Yurok taking over as stewards of this vital creek and watershed.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-288704 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/10\/15093444\/7-Sue-Doroff.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Sue Doroff, former president and co-founder of Oregon-based Western Rivers Conservancy, spent the better part of the last 18 years working diligently and creatively to raise the $60 million required to buy the entire 19,000-hectare (47,000-acre) Blue Creek watershed from a timber company for the Yurok Tribe. Standing in the creek, she says, \u201cWe are in the business of forever; that\u2019s how we feel about the Yurok taking over as stewards of this vital creek and watershed.\u201d Image by Justin Catanoso.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-288711 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/10\/15093534\/5-Klamath-River.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Looking upstream on Blue Creek as it flows into the Klamath River. Every single migrating salmon \u2014 some 40,000 this year \u2014 stop at Blue Creek to cool down \u2014 sometimes for several hours, sometimes for a day or two \u2014 before migrating farther upstream to spawn. Image by Justin Catanoso.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>A novel, complicated deal<\/h3>\n<p>In interviews with Doroff, she made clear that the range of financing tools, including California carbon credits as well as federal loans and foundation grants rarely used in conservation projects, made for a complex challenge.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWhen we first took on this project, we were all in,\u201d Doroff said, \u201cbut we saw no clear way to raise that much money. We had to be creative. In time, we figured out how to get it done.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Travois, a Kansas City, Missouri-based company that helps fund economic development on Indigenous lands in the U.S., originally helped Western Rivers access\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/travois.com\/developments\/yurok-blue-creek\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">$3.85 million<\/a>\u00a0in new markets tax credits, a federal program. Such credits are typically used to fund real estate projects in low-income communities. At the time, using them for conservation was unusual. Western Rivers was later able to use those tax credits to leverage millions more from other financing partners across the country.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/cwsrf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">revolving loan fund<\/a>\u00a0to help tribes reduce pollution impacts. It\u2019s not usually used for conservation. But Doroff worked to qualify Blue Creek for $18.75 million, then lined up funding sources to repay the loan. Millions in loans and grants also came from California\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ww2.arb.ca.gov\/our-work\/programs\/compliance-offset-program\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">carbon credits program<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIt was the first time we ever did a loan where we promised to repay the loan with proceeds from carbon credits estimated from the watershed,\u201d Doroff said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As a result, Western Rivers paid Green Diamond in full in 2018. Loan guarantees required the nonprofit to hold most of the land for several years to demonstrate to lenders that it would be conserved. The last 6,000 hectares of the watershed are going back to the Yurok this spring.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, all that money bought the Yurok the entire Blue Creek watershed, most of it divided between a salmon sanctuary and a community forest.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-288706 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/10\/15093459\/10-The-Yurok-Tribe.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>The Yurok tribe, headquartered in the town of Klamath in northern California, is the state\u2019s largest Indigenous tribe with about 6,000 members. Most of its original land was taken from it in the late 1800s by pioneers and prospectors flooding California for gold mining and timbering. The land grab was made legal by an act of Congress called the Dawes Act of 1887. The tribe is just now getting back a significant tract \u2014 considered a sacred place \u2014 that was part of its former territory. Image by Justin Catanoso.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>\u2018Buying back our own land\u2019<\/h3>\n<p>Joseph James, the Yurok chair, paused when asked about the total cost, choosing his words diplomatically.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cYou have to smile a little bit when you realize you\u2019re buying back your own land, right?\u201d he said. \u201cYes, it\u2019s a hefty price tag, but it\u2019s also priceless.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>James added that \u201cthere are not enough words\u201d to describe the importance of Blue Creek to his people. The salmon are such a big part of it. But reclamation transcends nature.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cBlue Creek is also cultural for us,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a place of higher prayer that we go to. It\u2019s important to our members from a spiritual standpoint, from a wellness standpoint, and even when our members leave this earth. We use the area via boats to transport them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When tribal elders are taken to the ridgetops of the watershed and told \u201ceverything you see is yours again,\u201d they shake their heads in disbelief, their eyes welling up. Not long ago, they would\u2019ve been arrested for trespassing. Now their tears tell a different story.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThere were times over the past 20 years when we weren\u2019t sure this would happen,\u201d James said. \u201cBut we never gave up hope. We took a stance and said, \u2018We love our river. We love our fish. We love our natural resources. We love our culture. And we\u2019re not shy about showing it.\u2019 That\u2019s what Blue Creek means to us. That\u2019s who we are.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong><em>Justin Catanoso<\/em><\/strong><em>, a regular contributor to Mongabay, is a professor of journalism at Wake Forest University in the United States.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThere were times over the past 20 years when we weren\u2019t sure this would happen,\u201d James said. \u201cBut we never gave up hope. We took a stance and said, \u2018We love our river. We love our fish. We love our natural resources. We love our culture. And we\u2019re not shy about showing it.\u2019 That\u2019s what Blue Creek means to us. That\u2019s who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128238,"featured_media":3513762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79717,213528,79718],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3513742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-economy-featured","category-environment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3513742"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3513763,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513742\/revisions\/3513763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3513762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3513742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3513742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3513742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}