About this Collection
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Invest in Co-stewardship with Tribes in the Yukon, Kuskokwim, and Norton Sound Region: Gravel to Gravel’s investments in co-stewardship — Tribes and DOI working together — is necessary to: 1) strengthen existing conservation and management activities to sustain salmon and other natural resources; 2) give greater voice to Tribes in the conservation decisions and research affecting subsistence resources; 3) pool resources and expertise, using both Indigenous Knowledge and western science, to implement priority fish and wildlife habitat assessment, monitoring, and restoration activities; and 4) take collective action to ensure resiliency of the freshwater ecosystems of this region. Funds allocated under this project will be co-designed and implemented with Tribes. Tribal consortia are currently identifying efforts to prioritize.
Restore Degraded Streams: Restoration work is planned to improve fish passage fish passage
Fish passage is the ability of fish or other aquatic species to move freely throughout their life to find food, reproduce, and complete their natural migration cycles. Millions of barriers to fish passage across the country are fragmenting habitat and leading to species declines. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Fish Passage Program is working to reconnect watersheds to benefit both wildlife and people.
Learn more about fish passage and restore historic channels impacted or abandoned as a result of past development, including 20th century mining operations. The service will be reestablishing natural hydrologic conditions in Cripple Creek and other streams and rivers – including the Salcha and Chena Rivers, historic Chinook salmon spawning grounds – which comprise the Yukon River ecosystem.
Expand Habitat Assessments and Practices: Annual Chinook and Chum salmon harvests are essential for the livelihoods of the 76 small, rural villages within the ~330,000 square mile Yukon River ecosystem. But over the past few decades these harvests have declined, and in some places, failed completely. With Gravel to Gravel investments, the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association (YRDFA), in coordination with BLM, with work directly with river communities to complete first-of-their-kind comprehensive salmon run assessments that incorporate Indigenous Knowledge and result in a watershed ecosystem action plan (WEAP).
Replenish Native Vegetation: The health of Pacific salmon is directly tied to riparian riparian
Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas.
Learn more about riparian vegetation, which keep streams cool and offer places for fish to rest, spawn, and grow. Where the Yukon River flows through Ruby, Alaska, YRDFA-partnered projects will replant and restore riparian flora using native vegetation and seed mixes. By reconnecting streams, floodplains, and wetlands habitat, the service will ensure the long-term viability of the restored vegetation, thereby improving population success and abundance for Pacific Salmon, upon which local and Indigenous people rely for food security and culture. This project will also be the first of its kind in Ruby and will provide a model for implementation of high priority restoration actions throughout the Yukon identified by the initiative-funded WEAP.
Study Salmon Productivity, Health, and Survival: Additional research opportunities, in partnership with the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and others, include the Kuskokwim River Smolt Out-Migration Partner Project and annual in-season management and fishery monitoring. Other efforts include an ichthyophonus disease impact study on the Yukon River, and a pilot Southern Bering Sea survey to better understand marine juvenile salmon survival and ecology.