Save California Salmon’s (SCS’s) Restoring Salmon Strongholds Project aims to restore California’s last salmon strongholds in the Sacramento, Eel, Smith and Trinity watersheds. These areas host some of the largest wilderness complexes and concentration of Wild & Scenic Rivers in the nation, along with the largest Tribes and reservations in California, but are threatened by climate change and large water projects. SCS will work to protect these watersheds through dam removal. As a longer-term approach, they will work to secure Outstanding Resource Waters and Wild and Scenic designations for these waterways, and advocate for landscape-scale restoration and the incorporation of Tribal traditional ecological knowledge and sacred lands protections into land and water management practices.
Removing the dams and restoring the watershed will bring back the salmon and allow for healing of the full ecosystem, including for Native peoples and other local communities. Salmon fishing and recreation used to be central to the economy and culture in Humboldt, Siskiyou, Mendocino, Del Norte, Trinity, Shasta, and Tehama Counties. This is the third year they are looking at a shuttered fishing season, along with toxic algae blooms on the river and forest fires. Dam removal will support the salmon economy and Native communities, while also allowing boating, swimming, and fishing, along with traditional practices, to take place on the rivers again.
