Science-based Conservation for Alaska’s Salmon

Valued at $541 million in 2025, Alaska’s commercial salmon fishery supports thousands of jobs and is a cornerstone of the state economy and unique way of life. Every Alaskan relies on salmon in one way or another—for income, subsistence, or recreation, but many residents don’t know that every wild salmon begins its life in the tiniest of headwater streams, often in their own backyards, miles from the ocean waters where fish are harvested. Building on decades of science, the Kachemak Bay Reserve is working with Kachemak Heritage Land Trust to help residents of the southern Kenai Peninsula make the “salmon to land” connection and guide conservation of the lands that underpin one of Alaska’s most important industries.

“We’ve been working with the Reserve for decades,” says Marie McCarty, executive director of the Kachemak Heritage Land Trust. “The Reserve’s long-term watershed monitoring, groundwater modeling, peatland research, and salmon ecology expertise is a great complement to the Trust’s work with easements, strategic land acquisitions, stewardship, and restoration.” 

Together, and with strong relationships across local communities, the Reserve and the Land Trust are leveraging federal investments in watershed science and land conservation to support the needs of Kenai Peninsula residents and the fisheries on which they depend.

One example of this collaboration is Fish Need Land Too, a field-based program developed when local commercial fisherman, Hannah Heimbuch, who was a Land Trust board member at the time, had the idea of bringing fishermen onto the land that supports juvenile salmon to see habitat in action.

McCarty and then Reserve Director, Coowe Walker, developed a program to bring folks onto protected land to better illustrate how land-use decisions affect fish habitat. Now in its ninth year, the program brings commercial fishermen, local families, policymakers, and decision makers onto conserved properties with small headwater streams to demonstrate how groundwater flows, healthy riparian vegetation, and intact wetlands work together to sustain salmon populations.

“Young Alaskans leave understanding why they shouldn’t drive through streams on their properties,” says McCarty. “Decision-makers leave understanding firsthand how land protection supports the salmon industry.”

The results extend beyond education. Decisions like these are supported by Reserve science documenting how wetlands regulate stream temperature, store and gradually release water, and supply nutrients that support downstream food webs. This knowledge helps the Trust and partners prioritize parcels with high conservation value, ensuring that limited funding—influding federal— is directed toward land that supports healthy salmon and provides other important benefits. 

The Reserve/Trust partnership is also helping guide conservation around the Bridge Creek Reservoir, the primary drinking water source for the City of Homer. “By clarifying how snowfall, forest cover, groundwater recharge, and intact wetlands sustain the reservoir, Reserve research helps us identify the most important parcels to protect and pursue funding to conserve them,” McCarty explains.

In a state where much resilience work depends on collaboration and voluntary conservation, the partnership between the Reserve and the Land Trust demonstrates how federally supported science can inform local decision-making and produce tangible results. By aligning watershed research with strategic land conservation, the two organizations are helping sustain fisheries, protect drinking water, and strengthen the economic stability of communities across the lower Kenai Peninsula.

“We do what we do really well. That intersection makes a better product,” says McCarty. “Science is the brain. Conservation is the hands. Our local community is the heart.”