Storyknife, November/December 2024 edition
The western Alaska salmon collapse has drawn national attention to food insecurity in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Region.
What might be less well known is how extensively an initiative called 鈥�Gravel to Gravel鈥� is championing projects to restore and co-manage salmon habitat in the Yukon, Kuskokwim and Norton Sound watersheds.
The Gravel to Gravel Initiative acknowledges that gravel is where life begins and ends for the five species of Pacific salmon.
The U.S. Department of the Interior has seeded over $44 million in funding to roughly 40 Gravel to Gravel projects in an area spanning from Platinum to north of Nome to the upper Yukon. Funding has gone to multi-year projects to restore impaired waterways but also to build capacity within Tribal-led organizations鈥攍ike the Kuskokwim and Yukon intertribal fish commissions鈥攖o manage fisheries work.
鈥淕ravel to Gravel, from our perspective, is about the shared stewardship of our salmon through their entire life cycle and sharing that burden of conservation more equitably, rebuilding healthy returns, and balanced sustainability,鈥� says Jonathan Samuelson, chair of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
鈥淢y challenge over the next year will be to transition to where the Tribes are more or less administering this,鈥� says Boyd Blihovde, the Gravel to Gravel Coordinator who previously served as manager for the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.
鈥淚t isn鈥檛 just about funding, it鈥檚 also about working together. We all agree that salmon need help now or we may not have salmon to fight over in the future,鈥� says Blihovde.
鈥淕ravel to Gravel, from our perspective, is about the shared stewardship of our salmon through their entire life cycle and sharing that burden of conservation more equitably, rebuilding healthy returns, and balanced sustainability.鈥�
Jonathan Samuelson, chair of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
If a new presidential administration will continue to fund the initiative, no one knows. But to formalize their collaboration begun a year ago, federal agencies and Tribal organizations .
Signatories of the agreement included five DOI agencies, the Association of Village Council Presidents, the Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments, Kawerak Inc., Nome Eskimo Community, Native Village of Eagle, Tanana Chiefs Conference, Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
The agreement has four priorities:
Collaborate across jurisdictional and geographic boundaries through co-stewardship and co-management
- Collaborate across jurisdictional and geographic boundaries through co-stewardship and co-management to restore the health of, and relationships between, salmon, people and place
- Build and maintain trust and communication, and strengthen relationships between Tribes and federal agencies, and increase capacity and knowledge sharing around the care for salmon
- Honor Tribal sovereignty and self-governance by advocating for Tribal stewardship and recommendations regarding decision-making and regulatory authority in wildlife ecosystems and fisheries management
- Work in partnership on ecosystem restoration and resilience, salmon conservation and other projects that are within and adjacent to the Gravel to Gravel Keystone Initiative and include expertise from Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge