The Conservation Alliance

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Rivers Without Borders

Website
http://www.riverswithoutborders.org
Contact Name
Will Patric
Contact Email
will@antispamriverswithoutborders.org
Location
Port Townsend, Washington/ & Juneau, Alaska
Past Grants
2013 · $35,000
2012 · $30,000
2011 · $25,000
2010 · $20,000
2008 · $25,000
2007 · $25,000
Grand Total
$160,000

Rivers Without Borders formed in 1999 (originally as the Transboundary Watershed Alliance). We work collaboratively with groups and individuals on both sides of the Canada-US border to protect the transboundary watersheds of British Columbia and Southeast Alaska. 

Our mission is to safeguard the ecological integrity of transboundary watersheds, encourage visionary conservation-based land use planning and promote indigenous self determination and cultural sustainability. 

Project Update

Currently, our most pressing work is to protect the Taku Watershed from industrial development.

The Taku Watershed covers nearly two million hectares of diverse ecological zones - ranging from boreal and temperate forests to alpine meadows and craggy mountain tops, to low lying sloughs. There are no roads in the watershed. 

Right now, the British Columbia government is negotiating with the Taku River Tlingit First Nation over land use designations across their territory, much of which is in the Taku. BC wants to designate areas in the lower wateshed open for mining and access routes. The mines would be just upstream from the richest salmon rearing habitat in the entire watershed. The region is known to have acid-generating rock which can render the water toxic to salmon and other aquatic life  if that rock is exposed to air. 

The Taku is home to globally significant populations of large mammals, and diverse flora, it is also a stronghold for all five species of wild Pacific salmon. With salmon populations in jeopardy along the west coast, this watershed is more valuable than ever. Salmon in the Taku are healthy and the runs remain abundant. We are working to keep it that way. 

For more information or to take action, visit our websites: 

http://www.takulegacy.org

http://www.riverswithoutborders.org