Tag: Watershed Collaboration

Kachemak Bay Watershed Collaborative

Kenia Mountain Range & Kachemak Bay

 

The Chugach Regional Resource Commission (CRRC) is an Alaska Native Tribal consortium in south-central Alaska whose Dena’ina, Alutiiq, and Sugpiaq villages and association members have stewarded of the Kachemak Bay watershed for over 10,000 years. CRRC’s mission is to promote Tribal sovereignty and protect subsistence lifestyles through the development and implementation of Tribal natural resource management programs to assure conservation and sustainable economic development in the traditional use area of the Chugach Region.

CRRC Tribes Map

CRRC serves the greater Chugach region of Southcentral Alaska, including Lower Cook Inlet, Resurrection Bay, and Prince William Sound. Within Lower Cook Inlet CRRC will work with area member tribes to establish the Kachemak Bay Watershed Collaborative (Collaborative or KBWC) to protect salmon streams located within the Kachemak Bay Watershed (Watershed). The Athabascan and Sugpiaq communities located within the Watershed rely on a subsistence economy, as they have since time immemorial.

CRRC will engage a diverse group of stakeholders with land ownership or authority within the Watershed, including Federally recognized Tribal entities, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Alaska Departments of Natural Resources and Fish and Game, the municipalities of Homer, Kachemak Selo, Voznesenka and Razdolna, Seldovia and the unincorporated Native village communities of Nanwalek and Port Graham, and conservation organizations.

Many changes related to warming fresh and marine water temperatures impact the subsistence resources. Increasingly common drought conditions and spruce beetle outbreaks in the region threaten the health of the plants and animals rural communities rely upon for subsistence. These changes are happening at a rate no one thought possible even a decade ago. Land management activity within the Watershed can exacerbate such impacts. The Collaborative will work to be more inclusive of tribal and other local communities along with local, state, and federal stakeholders in monitoring, planning, and decision-making within the Watershed. The implementation of risk assessments and planning documents, along with preserving connectivity and non-climate stressor mitigation actions, will ensure better protection and management of salmon habitat in the Watershed.

Project location 

The 4,926,794-acre Watershed is made up of five small watersheds located in the Kenai Peninsula Borough within the state of Alaska and encompasses the municipalities of Homer, Kachemak Selo, Voznesenka, Razdolna, Seldovia, and the unincorporated Alaska Native village communities of Nanwalek and Port Graham. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUC) in which the group will work are: Cook Inlet, Stariski Creek-Frontal Cook Inlet, Fox River, Sheep Creek and Quiet Creek-Frontal Kachemak Bay Watershed HUC ID #s: 1902080000, 1902030108, 1902030110, 1902030109 and 1902030111 respectively.

Technical project description 

There is currently is no group focused specifically on this Watershed, although a diverse array of stakeholders, including livestock grazers, tourist and recreation groups, industry, environmental organizations, recreation advocates, universities, land use, tribal, state and federal entities, municipalities and the general public utilize the area. This Watershed group will also help fill a planning gap left by the elimination of Alaska’s Coastal Zone Management program.

There are several ongoing or previous watershed planning activities, projects, or efforts related to the Watershed that the Collaborative will build upon, including:

  • The Kachemak Bay Fox-River Climate Risk Assessment analyzes current threats to salmon habitat within a portion of the Watershed, addresses salmon habitat connectivity and climate resiliency for the entire Watershed, and works with federal and state resource agencies to enter into cooperative agreements for management of salmon habitat on a watershed basis;
  • The Alaska Department of Fish and Game Fox River Flats Critical Habitat Area (FRFCHA) management plan addresses regulatory management goals for the FRFCHA and includes managing the area to 1) maintain and enhance fish and wildlife populations and their habitat; 2) minimize the degradation and loss of habitat values due to fragmentation, and; 3) recognize cumulative impacts when considering effects of small incremental developments and action affecting critical habitat resources.
  • The Kachemak Heritage Land Trust’s (KHLT) Krishna Venta Conservation Management Plan addresses working collaboratively with state, federal, and local entities as KHLT purchases and negotiates conservation easements on private lands for the purposes of management and protection of fish and wildlife habitat of KHLT’s 160 acres in the FRFCHA;
  • The Kenai Mountains To Sea – Land Conservation Strategy to Sustain Our Way of Life on the Kenai Peninsula calls for the creation of contiguous “green” corridors along 20 inter-jurisdictional anadromous streams, most of which originate on the Kenai Refuge. Such protection will increase the resiliency of these streams and the marine habitat into which they feed from the effects of a rapidly warming climate while ensuring that large piscivores such as brown bears and wolves persist to transport marine derived nutrients onto the landscape;
  • The Department of Natural Resources’ Kachemak Bay State Park and Kachemak Bay State Wilderness Park Management Plan addresses management of the 371,000- acre Kachemak Bay State Park and Kachemak Bay State Wilderness Park (State Park);
  • The Cook Inlet Keeper State of the Inlet watershed restoration plan within the Watershed captures threats and community-specific concerns and ideas to help direct CIK’s watershed-based organization as the plan future projects.

Join the Collaborative:

If you are a federal, state, or tribal entity, conservation group, or anyone else interested in the welfare and sustainability of Kachemak Bay, please join our Collaborative. If you have any questions please contact Hal Shepherd halshepherdwpc@gmail.com

Ten Tribes Partnership Takes a Seat at the Table for Colorado River Management

 

The Colorado River basin is home to 26 federally recognized tribes in seven western states. Despite their long-standing rights to about 20% of the water that flows through the Colorado, many tribes are excluded from water management decisions and don’t benefit from basic water infrastructure and a secure supply of clean, safe water. The Ten Tribes Partnership is taking a seat at the decision-making table by building capacity among tribes to claim their right to water, establishing water leases, and helping restore the river’s health. Drawing upon a spiritual mandate to “ensure that this sacred water will always be protected and available” the tribes are working to “advance sustainable water management through collaborative decision-making.”

Emergency Recovery Plan for Global Freshwater Biodiversity Loss

Covering approximately 1% of the Earth’s surface, the world’s freshwater rivers, lakes and wetlands are home to 10% of all species and more fish species than in all the oceans combined. Posing a threat to global communities who rely on rivers, lakes, and tributaries for food, water, and economic well-being, however, 83% of freshwater species and 30% of freshwater ecosystems have been lost since 1970. In response to the alarming rate of loss of freshwater ecosystems, a recently released study developed by scientists from across a spectrum of environmental and academic institutions outlines a framework for protecting such ecosystems.

Calling it an “Emergency Recovery Plan”, the study proposes six scientifically based strategies to preserve freshwater biodiversity, that have proved successful in certain locations. These solutions include: Returning rivers and streams back to their natural flows; Protecting freshwater from toxic effluents, overfishing, invasive species and mining activity; Protecting critical habitat; and Restoring river connectivity through regulation of land uses and water infrastructure. James Dalton, Director of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Global Water Program says, “all the solutions in the Emergency Recovery Plan have been tried and tested somewhere in the world: they are realistic, pragmatic and they work. We are calling on governments, investors, companies and communities to prioritize freshwater biodiversity – often neglected by the conservation and water management worlds. Now is the time to implement these solutions, before it is too late.”

For more information see press releases for Conservation International and WWF.

National Integrated Drought Information System Developing Pacific Northwest DEWS Priorities, Outcomes and Activities for 2020-202

As part of the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) and as a means of predicting the extent and impact of drought due to the effects of climate change, the The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) is in the process of  improving early warning of drought the Pacific Northwest Drought early warning System (PNW DEWS). The NIDISprogram was authorized by Congress in 2006 (Public Law 109-430) with an interagency mandate to coordinate and integrate drought research, building upon existing federal, tribal, state, and local partnerships in support of creating a national drought early warning information system.

A Drought Early Warning System (DEWS) utilizes new and existing partner networks to optimize the expertise of a wide range of federal, tribal, state, local and academic partners in order to make climate and drought science readily available, easily understandable and usable for decision makers; and to improve the capacity of stakeholders to better monitor, forecast, plan for and cope with the impacts of drought.

NIDIS’ goal is to improve the nation’s capacity to manage drought-related risks by providing the best available information and tools to assess the potential impacts of drought, and to prepare for and mitigate the effects of drought. Toward that end, NIDIS seeks to create a DEWS for the nation.

NIDIS’ approach to building the foundation of a national DEWS has been to develop regional DEWS, where networks of researchers, academics, resource managers, policymakers and other stakeholders share information and actions that help communities cope with drought. Learn more about NIDIS regional DEWS programs here.

About the PNW DEWS Strategic Action Plan:

On October 8, 2019 partners of the Pacific Northwest Drought Early Warning System (PNW DEWS) gathered in Portland, OR to reflect on current issues, past successes, and additional needs for the DEWS region and prioritized activities for the PNW DEWS to focus on in 2020-2022. This information will become part of the next iteration of the Regional Strategic action Plan for the PNW DEWS. The outcomes and activities are organized around the five components of drought early warning 1) Predictions and Forecasting, 2) Observations and Monitoring, 3) Communications and Outreach, 4) Planning and Preparedness, and 5) Interdisciplinary Research and Applications and are meant to address gaps and needs to strengthen drought early warning and preparedness in the PNW region.

According to NIDIS, “These priorities, outcomes and activities…would be a focus of the Pacific Northwest DEWS network over the next three years with the end goal of improving drought early warning and preparedness across the region.” Because the PNW DEWS concludes that “drought and its impacts are slow moving, multifaceted and complex,” stakeholders can combine efforts to take on this challenge using the following DEW strategies to predict stream flow and water supplies impacted by future droughts and high temperatures in the Pacific Northwest:

  • Improve predicting and forecasting around drought at the national and regional levels through EPIC, the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act, and seasonal-to-subseasonal (S2S) forecasting;
  • Better observations and monitoring going into, during and coming out of drought including a better understanding of the most relevant metrics temporally, spatially, and by sector for the region as well as improving drought impact reporting and analysis;
  • Improve communication and public outreach regarding drought information within and outside the region;
  • Provide drought information early enough to give communities (e.g., municipalities, farmers, ranchers, tribes), sufficient time to plan for and minimize economic damage to products and services;
  • Improve communication channels between academia, researchers and end users ensure and decision makers regarding early warning, planning and response.