Top 10 Salmon Moments of 2024
Photo by Ben Huff
10. Salmon Stories
As always, one of our top ten highlights of the year is getting to share stories of the amazing people deeply connected with Alaska’s wild salmon and the places that make them possible. This year, we were fortunate enough to speak with and share stories from people closely tied to Southeast Alaska, the wild West Susitna region in Southcentral Alaska, the transboundary rivers flowing from Canada into Southeast Alaska, the Yukon River, and more.
“My hopes?” Juneau resident and photographer Ben Huff told us. “I’ll go back to that little piece of the Taku Inlet, a small stretch along Cooper Point. I’d love to be 80 and take my grown nephew out with his kids. We’d find a monster king near Cooper Point. Tell stories of past years of fish caught and lost. And, be confident that his kid’s kids, and their kids, will have the opportunity to have that experience along that small strip of shore downstream from the Taku.” 🐟
We look forward to sharing more stories with you in the coming year!
Photo by Ryan Astalos
9. Bristol Bay Protections Upheld
Bristol Bay’s Clean Water Act protections stood firm in 2024, when SalmonState joined United Tribes of Bristol Bay, Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay, and other Alaska and conservation groups in litigation to defend the protections from Pebble Mine under the Clean Water Act Section 404(c) veto from Northern Dynasty Minerals and Pebble Limited Partnership’s (PLP) lawsuit aiming to overturn it.
“At this point, PLP is less a mining entity than a litigation vehicle for anti-conservation interests,” said Tim Bristol, our executive director, in a joint press release announcing the litigation. “We are confident the court will eventually deny this cynical attempt to circumvent the will of the people and the law and uphold the EPA’s veto of the Pebble Mine.”
SalmonState Outreach Director Melanie Brown and Tim Bristol also intervened individually.
“As a fourth-generation Yup'ik, Unangan, Iñupiaq and Sugpiaq commercial fisherman with a deep family history in Bristol Bay, the proposed Pebble mine threatens to impact not only my economic security, but my family's health, home, and ability to consume traditional foods," Melanie said in a press release from Trustees for Alaska. "Bristol Bay needs clean, cold, clear water — not contamination from a massive, open-pit, acid-generating mine."
In 2025, along with partners and with the leadership of Tribes in the region, SalmonState will continue working toward permanent protections for Bristol Bay.
Photo by Tyler Bell
8. A new Tongass National Forest Plan
The Forest Service this spring announced a re-write of the management plan that guides their work and what kinds of activities are allowed on National Forest land in Southeast Alaska.
“With this announcement, the Forest Service is codifying its effort to bring management of the Tongass into the 21st century, and to be more reflective not only of the values of those who live here, but the needs of local communities and ecosystems,” said SalmonState Executive Director Tim Bristol. “We commend the Forest Service for this important step and look forward to working with them to ensure Southeast Alaskan priorities like wild salmon, traditional use, and recreation get the attention they deserve.”
This year in Southeast Alaska, local crews continued restoring salmon habitat,building trails, and fixing historical damage. There is lots of good work to do so that we can enjoy wild salmon, deer, recreation, and jobs for years to come.
The new plan will guide Forest Service management and zone the forest for different activities, so if you’re interested in where logging, tourism, and other activities will be, keep an eye on communications from us for ways to make your voice heard! The Tongass is in good shape and moving in the right direction.
7. Alaska Congressional Delegation Pens Strong Transboundary Letter to the President
Senator Lisa Murkowski, Senator Dan Sullivan, and Representative Mary Peltola this August sent a letter to President Joe Biden telling him that “without unified action from the executive branch, Canadian mining activity in this region will increasingly endanger U.S. communities and resources.”
The delegation urged President Biden to publicly and immediately demand: 1) that Canada clean up the Tulsequah Chief mine in northern British Columbia, which has been contaminating waters flowing into Alaska for almost 70 years, and 2) support the establishment of a binding international framework for U.S.-Canada transboundary salmon rivers that are currently and potentially impacted by Canada’s large-scale gold mining boom.
The Washington Post also covered this issue, and the congressional delegation letter, for the first time with the November article Canada sees opportunity in these mines. Alaskans see a threat.
While the Biden/Harris Administration ultimately failed to take substantive action on this issue — and has actually been doing the opposite of what Alaska lawmakers, thousands of Alaskans, tens of thousands of Americans, and Tribes and communities have asked, by instead sending tens of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to Canadian mines with zero strings attached — Salmon Beyond Borders is grateful for a long history of unified Congressional support, including from the late Don Young, to defend our transboundary rivers. Salmon Beyond Borders will work to ensure the issue of more than 100 Canadian mines in some stage of exploration, proposal, or operation just over the Alaska border without overarching watershed protections continues to get the attention it needs in 2025.
Photo by Colin Arisman
6. Shocking Report Reveals Canada’s Transboundary Mining’s Ponzi Scheme-like Tactics
“Bad Prospects,” a report from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), kicked off 2024 with the explosive revelation that Canadian mining companies use a highly speculative economic model to fuel gold mine staking and exploration at the headwaters of Southeast Alaska rivers. The EIA report revealed that around the transboundary Taku, Stikine, and Unuk, and Salmon Rivers, which flow from British Columbia into Southeast Alaska, there is a network of more than 450 companies that employ an economic model that “share(s) many of the structural and operational attributes of a Ponzi scheme.” This Canadian modern-day gold rush enriches the distant owners and major investors of mining companies while passing on the financial and environmental risks to Indigenous peoples, rural residents, average investors, Canadian taxpayers, and U.S. communities and economies downstream.
The revelation that Canada and B.C. are incentivizing this gold mining boom through big tax credits and other incentives, and that Canadians are shelling out half a billion dollars annually to transboundary region mine executives and major investors, made headlines in Canada.The report also revealed that a shocking 100 B.C. mine projects are in some phase of exploration, proposal, or operation along shared salmon rivers; over 80% of B.C. mine claims in this transboundary region are within 3.1 miles (5 km) of a river or stream; and 18% of B.C. mine claims are currently covered by glaciers–where new wild salmon habitat is expected to emerge as glaciers melt if it’s not dug up for gold first.
Because over 90% of newly mined gold becomes jewelry or gold bars and is not needed for renewable energy production, and because the Taku, Stikine, Unuk, and Salmon watersheds are incredibly biodiverse and culturally rich, EIA recommends the revision or termination of Canada’s and B.C.’s policies that incentivize the rampant gold fever along these shared rivers.
Photo by Tyler Bell
5. In-depth Report Shows How AIDEA is Squandering Alaskans’ Money on Doomed Industrial Development Projects that Threaten Salmon Habitat
Long-time Alaska economists Milt Barker and Gregg Erickson this spring released three new reports showing that AIDEA (the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority) largely fails at creating jobs or generating new economic opportunity, engages in wasteful loan practices, and has become “in many respects an autonomous organization, exempted from the most important laws that protect the public.” These reports build on Barker and Erickson’s groundbreaking 2022 report “AIDEA — Cost and Financial Performance: A Long, Hard Look,” which showed that AIDEA’s poor decisions have lost Alaskans $10 billion in opportunity costs.
“These in-depth reports clearly reveal AIDEA is lousy at job creation, provides an abysmal return on its investments, takes credit for jobs it shouldn’t, and successfully dodges meaningful legislative oversight,” said SalmonState executive director Tim Bristol. “At a time when Alaska’s schools, our fisheries, and our established infrastructure all desperately deserve greater investment, AIDEA essentially functions as an autonomous corporation with a slush fund of Alaskans’ money. It’s time for the legislature to take a serious look at AIDEA — and at how the $1.4 billion of Alaskan money this failing state corporation is sitting on could be used more effectively.”
AIDEA backs and funds projects that destroy wild salmon habitat, waste Alaska’s money, and often fail to even be completed. One current project is the West Susitna Industrial Access Road, an at least $600 million 100-mile industrial road that would slice through some of Southcentral Alaska’s most iconic landscapes and cross 182 waterbodies, including the Susitna and the Talachulitna River, while torpedoing the thriving outdoors-based economy of the area.
AIDEA spent $250,000 commissioning a report explicitly aimed at refuting Barker and Erickson’s findings. The final report was submitted to AIDEA by Northern Economics this spring. But AIDEA is now claiming it is secret. The reason: AIDEA is adding information so that the report will make the agency look better.
AIDEA’s $1.4 billion, $600 million of which is in cash, is State of Alaska money that can be used for anything. We’ll be looking to the legislature to take a hard look at just how AIDEA is failing Alaskans, and what can be changed to stop those failures, in 2025.
Photo by Bethany Goodrich
4. Courts Overturn Misguided Lawsuit Targeting Alaska Hook-and-Line Troll Fishery
We were thrilled when, this summer, a three-judge panel at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals overturned a decision that could have shut down Southeast Alaska’s commercial salmon troll fishery — a sustainable small boat, hook-and-line fishery that catches salmon one at a time.
The Wild Fish Conservancy, a Washington state-based group, filed the lawsuit in 2020, alleging that trollers take prey from the Southern Resident Killer Whale population of the Salish Sea. Later this year, a new scientific study showed that in the summer, those killer whales actually have more king salmon available to them than the growing Northern Resident Killer Whale population of coastal British Columbia and Southeast Alaska — making even more clear just how misguided this lawsuit was.
Since this legal threat against the poster child of sustainable fisheries became apparent, SalmonState filed an amicus brief in support of trollers; organized both publicly and behind the scenes; made public statements and worked to garner media showing Southeast Alaska’s support of trollers; drove grassroots action, and created several videos and other materials making sure people were aware of the issue. We are proud to stand with Southeast Alaska fishermen and trollers to fight this lawsuit, and we will continue to do so should another threat arise to this sustainable fishery, which has roots in virtually every Southeast Alaska community.
Photo: The F/V Sakura, captained by Tad Fujioka, a Sitka-based troller who passed away unexpectedly this year. Tad fought hard for Southeast Alaska sustainable fisheries, for trollers, and against this misguided lawsuit.
3. Kuskokwim River Tribes Win Major Legal Victory in Fight Against Donlin Gold Mine
Kuskokwim River Tribes won a major victory this year when a U.S. District Court in Alaska ruled “that key federal agencies responsible for permitting the Donlin mine failed to fully consider the project’s harms in the environmental study for the project.”
The coalition of Tribal governments that brought this suit forward were ruled to be correct in their assertion that federal agencies failed to realistically study the impacts to downstream waters and villages from a potentially catastrophic tailings dam failure. The mine developers are proposing to build a 471-foot-tall tailings dam to contain more than 500 million tons of toxic mine waste.
“This victory is incredibly important to our Tribal members who have been on this land for almost 10,000 years,’ said Walter Jim, Orutsararmiut Native Council Chairman, in a press release after the ruling. “The threat of the Donlin Gold Mine has loomed for many years now, posing unacceptable risks to the health of our lands, waters, fish, wildlife, and our people. We are relieved and happy that the judge is requiring a harder look at the mine’s impacts, and the risk of a tailings failure.”
Congratulations to the Tribes who fought so hard for this victory.
Photo by Ryan Astalos
2. Work to Combat Wasteful Trawl Bycatch Progresses
Alaskans across the political spectrum are largely unified in the fight to end wasteful trawl bycatch in Alaska’s federally managed fisheries. In 2024, 34 businesses joined Businesses for Stopping Wasteful Trawl Bycatch and are giving out stickers and other materials at their storefronts. Trawl bycatch was also front and center in the U.S. House race where all candidates for Congress pledged to combat the issue. Though the voting majority of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council — the entity tasked with managing trawling in federal waters — is still composed of people with an economic interest in the trawl fleet, there is now a designated Tribal seat on the non-voting Advisory Panel to the council, which is progress. Rep. Mary Peltola introduced two bycatch bills, and the issue of trawl bycatch also continued to get attention in national news outlets.
We will continue to fight against wasteful trawl bycatch, and for sustainable fisheries in Alaska, in 2025.
Photo by Jayme Dittmar
1. Protections Finalized for 28 Million Acres of D1 Lands Across Alaska
In August of this year, the Department of Interior finalized protections for 28 million acres of D1 lands across Alaska, ensuring they will remain intact and healthy for the communities, businesses, Alaskans, and Tribes who use them for hunting, fishing, gathering, and more. More than half of Alaska’s 227 federally recognized Tribal governments, more than 120 businesses, and 145,000 Alaskans and Americans supported the decision.
“The Department of Interior’s finalization of these protections is an enormous win for Alaska’s wild salmon, caribou, moose, and everyone who uses D1 lands for hunting, fishing, recreation, job creation, and the continuation of traditional ways of life,” SalmonState Public Lands and Waters Lead Rachel James said about the decision. In the coming year, we will continue to work with Tribes, businesses, and Alaskans to maintain access and use of these iconic lands and resources.