How can we ensure that the Pacific’s great stronghold rivers survive through the next generation? Supporting local communities on strongholds is a big part of our strategy. They have the knowledge and relationships to navigate local politics, and the ability to rally residents’ pride and passion for their home waters. They are the first and last line of defense. And they feel most acutely the consequences of climate change and development.
WSC has helped create 13 organizations and supported dozens more over the years. We provide funding, legal support, communications strategy, scientific expertise—whatever local partners prioritize. And we seek long term relationships with local stewards. In recent years, we have worked to be more intentional about our relationships with Indigenous communities who have stewarded lands and waters the longest. (You can read our Indigenous Engagement Framework here).
Ultimately, our job is to help local communities secure a future for wild salmon. That’s something that benefits everyone, wherever they are.
Coast Salmon Partnership
The 40-member Coast Salmon Partnership leads the long-term protection of the Washington’s Olympic Peninsula salmon rivers and populations. Formed by coastal counties, cities, tribes and ports in 2007, with the help of Wild Salmon Center, it also includes the fishing and timber industries, watershed councils, and conservation partners.
SkeenaWild
SkeenaWild Conservation Trust was formed in 2007 as a regional conservation initiative with the goal of making the Skeena watershed and nearby coastal communities a global model of sustainability. SkeenaWild works on an array of projects and initiatives to conserve and rebuild wild salmon and steelhead populations, improve management decisions and deepen people’s connection with wild salmon.
Coastal Rivers Conservancy
Coastal Rivers Conservancy (CRC) is Wild Salmon Center’s strategic partner working on the long-term protection of wild salmon and steelhead ecosystems in British Columbia’s inner central coast: the Dean River, Fitz Hugh Sound, Bentick Arms, and the Fisher, Burke and Dean marine channels. CRC takes a collaborative approach to address complex fisheries management, habitat, and development issues on BC’s inner central coast.
Babine Partnership
The Babine Partnership between Wild Salmon Center and the Babine River Foundation advances our shared conservation goals in the Babine – a major tributary of the Skeena, one of the world’s premier rivers for steelhead, and a major salmon producer in the region.
Oregon Water Partnership
Co-founded by Wild Salmon Center, the Oregon Water Partnership is fighting together for Oregon’s water future, by bringing state water data into the 21st century, supporting smart water management, and protecting and restoring our life-sustaining freshwater supply.
Stand Tall Oregon
Oregon’s North Coast temperate rainforests hold some of the strongest remaining wild salmon and steelhead runs south of Canada. Stand Tall Oregon is a collection of citizens, businesses and organizations coming together to protect those forests and the clean water, fish and wildlife and recreation these lands support.
Watershed Watch Salmon Society
Vancouver, BC-based Watershed Watch Salmon Society is a science-based charity working to defend and rebuild B.C.’s wild salmon. The organization is grounded in sound science, tackling the complex issues facing wild salmon through collaboration with other organizations and community groups. WSC has teamed up with WWSS to end fish farming in the province of British Columbia.
Bristol Bay Defense Fund
The core coalition that stopped Pebble Mine and seeks to protect Bristol Bay for the long term is built on Tribal leadership and local communities. Supported and staffed by Wild Salmon Center and a small group of other organizations, the Bristol Bay campaign is joined by commercial fishermen, sportsmen, nonprofits, and businesses across the country.
Defend the West Su
Defend the West Su is a coalition of citizens, businesses and salmon advocates working to ensure a healthy, sustainable future for Alaska’s West Susitna. Plans for a dam and a 100+ mile industrial road would cause irreversible harm to rivers, wetlands, and fish and wildlife in the Susitna watershed – the 15th-largest river basin in the United States and home to five species of salmon.
Coast Coho Partnership
The Coast Coho Partnership is a team of public and private partners, managed by the Wild Salmon Center, that convened in 2015 to accelerate the recovery of Oregon’s two coastal coho runs. Because Oregon’s coastal watersheds are largely farms and forests with free-flowing rivers, Oregon Coast coho, in particular, present a unique opportunity for recovery. Our ultimate goal is to recover Oregon Coast coho populations so that local communities can once again fish for these beloved salmon.
Mongolia River Outfitters
Across their range in Asia, giant Siberian taimen are under threat, due to habitat loss and unsustainable fishing pressure. In Mongolia, WSC is partnering with Mongolia River Outfitters to conduct a first-of-its-kind taimen research project on the Amur and Yenisey Basins, including spawning and monitoring programs to track taimen abundance, feeding behavior, and river temperatures.
