​Back in 1990, Kachemak Heritage Land Trust (KHLT) was a brand-new nonprofit in a sea of many new and budding nonprofits popping up in Homer. It was before my time in this community, actually even before I was born, but I get the feeling that it was a period of hope, strength, togetherness, and ambition. A time when this tight-knit community set out to “make the world a better place” through truly grassroots initiatives. KHLT’s first newsletter in the spring of 1990 painted a clear and promising picture of why the organization came about, why it mattered, and how it could be a tool to help maintain the specialness of this place:

Here we are, 36 years later, still “afloat” thanks to the continued support of our members and donors, many of whom were part of these early days. We’ve grown to a staff of six, an operating budget of almost a million dollars, permanent offices in the middle of town, and most excitingly, we just crossed the threshold of 4,000 acres of land under our care (in addition to the many other land protection projects we’ve worked with our partners to complete). ​

​KHLT published this information about current projects in that same spring 1990 newsletter: 

​That 400-acre easement project turned into 613.61 acres protected as the first conservation easement held by a land trust in Alaska. And those 120 acres turned into the first of several properties protected by KHLT in the Anchor River Watershed which now total over 800 acres. And, as of today, KHLT has worked with landowners to place voluntary conservation easements on 28 properties totaling 2,496.586 acres.

Over the next 35 years, KHLT worked with a wide variety of landowners (from homesteaders to Alaska Native Tribes to the State of Alaska) to protect special lands across the Kenai Peninsula. Our three newest land protection projects showcase this variety well.

First, in April 2024, KHLT protected 46.393 acres in the cherished Kenai River Watershed. This marked the culmination of the fifth and final collaborative effort between KHLT and the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (ADoT&PF) as part of the Sterling Highway MP 45-60 Reconstruction Project, allowing KHLT to further its commitment to preserving the ecological integrity of this vital region. Since being selected to handle the project’s mitigation component, KHLT diligently worked to identify, evaluate, and secure lands crucial for wetland conservation. With this latest acquisition, the total land safeguarded by KHLT with ADoT&PF mitigation funds for the Cooper Landing Bypass project has reached an impressive 200+ acres.
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Second, in November 2024, KHLT closed on “The Dragonfly Property.” Over the course of a year, we fundraised with the community to permanently protect 11.016 acres on the Anchor River. The Conservation Fund purchased the property in the fall of 2023 with grant funds from the Alaska Sustainable Salmon Fund and other sources, but KHLT needed to raise $40,000 for stewardship and overhead costs to ensure that the property could be transferred to our ownership and protected forever. The Dragonfly Property is important for conservation because its location on the Anchor River provides spawning and rearing habitat for king and coho salmon, steelhead/rainbow trout, and Dolly Varden char and the lower reaches support pink salmon. The property also provides habitat for moose, bear, and other resident and migratory species. What is especially exciting is that the property is that it is located next to eight other parcels owned and protected by KHLT which make up our Anchor River Salmon Conservation Area. Conserving the Dragonfly property will help maintain existing habitat for spawning and rearing salmon, improve connectivity of conservation lands along the Anchor River, and, it will remain open to public access for fishing and hiking.

Third, after initial conversations began back in 2014, KHLT closed on “Two Moose Creek Conservation Area” in December. KHLT worked with local Homer residents who donated nearly one hundred acres to protect habitat and open space. Protecting this property contributes to the overall health of the Anchor River Watershed including the headwaters of Two Moose Creek and ensures healthy habitat for large and small mammals, birds, and fish. These parcels, totaling 94.3 acres and containing 2,100 feet of creek bed, were particularly vulnerable to development due in part to their road and utility access and viewshed.

Based upon groundwater mapping provided by Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, the property includes multiple groundwater flow paths which are very important to baby salmon. These flow paths help transfer nitrogen generated from alder patches further away from the riparian floodplain— in other words, they help feed baby salmon. This perfectly embodies KHLT’s slogan that “fish need land too.” With the addition of these parcels, the total KHLT-protected land within the Anchor River Watershed is now more than 800 acres.

These three projects have brought the total number of acres under KHLT’s care to 4,049.795. And these projects highlight a common thread: like the analogy our founding director made about launching the boat, there has always been, and will continue to be, a connection between land and sea for KHLT. As a land trust, we protect land. That land is home to terrestrial creatures, like moose and humans, and, perhaps surprisingly, also to aquatic creatures like baby salmon. The things we do on land make an impact on all the creatures who walk on it, swim through it, and who live downstream. When we protect and cherish and nurture our land, we are also taking care of our fresh water, air, and ocean. Without the creatures in the water and sea, there would be no fishing industry, no tourism industry, no Alaskan way of life of which we’ve come to know. We are intricately interconnected to land. We need it and all its functions to continue to sustain life, and specifically the Alaskan way of life.
 
As shown by the projects over the past year, and over KHLT’s 36 years in operation, we are one piece of the puzzle—we are one tool to help nourish, cherish, honor our land and our connection to land. Let’s celebrate the thousands of acres that we, as a community, have worked together to safeguard in perpetuity. What an accomplishment! From drinking water sources to moose calving grounds and from headwater streams to world class fishing riverbanks, 4,049.795 acres are protected forever. As a relatively new member of this incredible community, I feel immensely grateful to all the people who have made land protection a priority. I am so thankful to have been welcomed here with open arms. I feel lucky to be raising my son in a place that values all forms of life and is considering the wellbeing of future generations as our community grows.

So, let’s continue to stoke the flames of hope, strength, togetherness, and ambition from 36 years ago. Let’s keep working together to find special pieces of land that we can keep undeveloped. Let’s keep protecting places that are so important to our way of life. Let’s keep the wellbeing of future generations in mind as we grow with intention. 

If you want more information about placing a conservation easement on your land, leaving KHLT in your estate plans, or becoming a donor or volunteer, please contact me at [email protected].

Last fall, a quarter mile of the river that flows behind our house here at Anchor Point, Alaska vanished. After nearly three decades fishing the big bend that used to lie within sight of our living room, I have to say it was a little disconcerting to find it had become a high and dry oxbow remnant almost overnight when the rain-swollen river blasted a new channel and took its water elsewhere. That river bend is gone.

*            *            *

It’s a ten-minute walk from my house to the now dry oxbow that was once the bend, and only a few steps more to the new channel nearby where the river has relocated itself. When I last saw it, the new stretch of river was still churning through a grid of downed cottonwood trees it had bowled over on its shortcut to the sea—their yellow leaves fluttering madly underwater, roots reaching for the moody autumn sky. I know that, over time, as the spring floods gouge declivities and undercut banks and wash away the fallen timber, new pockets of holding water will form in that channel. New places to fish.

Even so, making new friends does not entirely make up for the loss of old ones.

*            *            *

The Anchor River is home to three species of salmon, steelhead trout, and Dolly Varden char. To protect the highly valued salmon on their spawning beds, salmon fishing is permitted only from the tidewater zone to the first bridge, about a mile upstream. But another three miles upriver and halfway around the bend behind our house was a wide slow run we called the Meadow Hole that was invariably full of small Dollies.
Dolly Varden char—gaily spotted pink and purple creatures, supposedly named after a Dickens character who wore similarly colorful hats—are a lot like brook trout. Only even less wary. Which makes Dollies great fish for new anglers. And the wide-open and brush-free banks of the Meadow Hole made that a wonderful place to introduce novices to fly fishing.

*            *            *

The youngest angler I ever took there was then six-year-old Ross Bass, son of my longtime business partner. Ross showed up wielding a pushbutton spinning rig he was already adept with. So I tied a caddis fly onto the end of his line a couple feet below his huge red and white plastic bobber, and he was soon into squirming, foot-long Dollies. Because Ross was a little too young to appreciate the sublime pointlessness of catch and release fishing, his father and I built a corral of rocks in the shallows and stocked it with the live fish he landed. I told him that we’d take the whole batch home to show his mother at the end of the day. When the Dollies squirmed their way out of their rock enclosure and escaped—as I was almost certain they would—Ross was only moderately disappointed. He’d done what he’d come to do: catch fish. It was a very good day at the Meadow Hole, purposely deceiving a small child notwithstanding.

At the other end of the age range, another memorable first-timer was a woman in her seventies named Cecilia. A late-in-life transplant to Alaska from New York City, Cecilia was a great looking and adventurous spirit with her knee-high Xtrtufs and perfectly coiffed hair. She was talkative and good company and we gabbed cheerfully on the walk down the steep promontory trail from the house and wound our way through a nightmarish jumble of beetle-killed spruce trees stacked like Pick Up Sticks for giants. As we fished—she caught a number of dollies—I thought about her age and worried a bit about the walk home, a lung-straining climb back up the same trail, zigzagging around, over, and under the dead trees. But Cecilia, buoyed by an afternoon of sunshine and fast Dolly action, and probably by the dizzying misconception that fishing would always be this good, marched uphill through the obstacle course and straight to the back porch, chatting all the way. I wheezed out an answer or two, when required. Still, it was another good day.

*            *            *

And then there was Gomer.

Gomer was not a neophyte by any means, but just as memorable.    

A few years older than me, he had what might be called a personality of excess. He ate too much, drank too much, and smoked way too much. He laughed loudly and frequently in a high giggle, like a coyote with hiccups, and kept a line of entertaining (and mostly apocryphal) stories going for hours. He was a blast.
One October, on the Columbus Day weekend, Gomer made the two-hundred-mile drive from Anchorage to Anchor Point to fish. The steelhead run peaks on The Anchor River around that time, and the water can get crowded. All weekend, Gomer and I found ourselves shut out of our favorite holes by strangers.

Gomer, a hedonist to the end, had brought a box of gourmet comestibles from one of the tonier grocery stores in Alaska’s big city. So, Sunday afternoon, tired of being crowded out of the most productive fishing water anyway, I headed back up to the house to start braising some veal shanks. Not surprisingly, Gomer stayed on the river and fished until dark. When he finally arrived at the back porch—gasping for breath between puffs on his cigarette—he ranted about the appalling lack of streamside etiquette he’d suffered at the Lower Bend hole.  

It seems that he had no sooner parked himself in the productive water, when two philistines with spinning rods waded in upstream and down and proceeded to cast hardware across his line. Of course, it wouldn’t be a story unless the bastards also started hauling in steelhead, which—no surprise—they had. Words were exchanged.

Suffice it to say that the Lower Bend Hole was forever after referred to as The Flaming Ass Hole.

*            *            *

Not all the changes in the river have been geological. Enter the internet. If you google Alaskan steelhead fishing, your trusty computer will point you to the Lower Kenai Peninsula and the three rivers here that have wild steelhead runs—including the one in our back yard. There are very few places left to fish for wild steelhead on the road system in America. These days, the Anchor can get more than a little crowded. In response to the ever-increasing pressure on the fish, The Alaska Department of Fish and Game recently shortened the season even further.

More fishermen, fewer days to fish, less good water. Things change.
I grew up in an industrial area of the Great Lakes, nearly devoid of gamefish in the sixties and seventies when I lived there. Maybe that’s why I spent more than twenty years building a house on a wild salmon and trout stream. And now that the work is complete, and I’m retired and have more time to fish, a natural phenomenon has eradicated the best holes within walking distance of the house, and the season is so short a couple good rainstorms can effectively eliminate it. It sounds like the comic restaurant review: “The food was terrible, and the portions were too small.” It’s a good thing I’m a fan of irony.

*            *            *

Gomer now lives in Tennessee where a tumor on his spine has put him in a wheelchair. But when I spoke with him on the phone this week, he didn’t want to talk about that. Mostly he wanted to know how the river fished last fall.

The truth is, I stopped fishing in early October, after only a couple trips. Maybe one of the things that kept me from making the hike was a new awareness that the river valley bottomland is filled with the impressions of much older oxbows, evidence of how dramatically the river has been changing and straightening over time. The very old river channels closest to the foot of the promontory, are most filled-in and only reveal themselves now as crescent-moon curves of willow or twisted black spruce jutting up from the wet grasses. Several more recently deceased channels are now deep trenches with just a trickle of remnant river current still detectable in the tannic water like a weak pulse. Others have become stagnant ponds, their muddy bottoms gouged by moose hooves.

Or maybe I chose to stay at home and watch the river from the comfort of a chair near the wood stove so many days last season because the fused vertebrae in my neck and lower back were making the march through the fallen spruce and across the boot-sucking wetlands more painful than the fishing—such as it was—could make up for. The obvious lesson is: rivers may straighten with age, but men bend.
Yet, now, deep in the dark heart of another Alaskan winter with months to go before the new season opener, I can’t remember the geezer aches and pains as clearly as those sunny days fishing with friends, Dollies flashing in the Meadow Hole like little bolts of underwater lightning, big red-cheeked steelhead bulling upriver behind the house.

One thing I know for sure.

That bend may be gone. But come August, those fish will be out there somewhere, and so will I.

Kachemak Heritage Land Trust (KHLT) is honored to share a guest article with Ridgeline readers celebrating the remarkable collaboration shaping the Inspiration Ridge Preserve (IRP). This expansive mosaic of ecosystems near the east end of Skyline Drive in Homer, Alaska, spans 693 acres and is renowned for its summer population of Sandhill Cranes. Serving as a critical wildlife habitat for various species, the Preserve is a testament to the shared vision and dedication of Edgar Bailey, Nina Faust, KHLT, and the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies (CACS).
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A Journey of Preservation
The creation of Inspiration Ridge Preserve began in the 1990s when Edgar Bailey and Nina Faust–driven by their deep commitment to wildlife and land conservation–began acquiring land to establish a sanctuary. Their vision was to protect essential wildlife, provide nesting habitats for Sandhill Cranes and other waterfowl, and create pre-migration staging areas for these majestic birds. Today the Preserve encompasses 19 ecologically connected properties, featuring diverse habitats such as Lutz spruce forests, meadowlands, bogs, fens, cottonwood forests, and significant riparian zones that form the headwaters of Fritz Creek.

​A Path to Conservation
Ed and Nina chose a land protection tool called a conservation easement, where a landowner willingly places permanent conservation restrictions on the deed to their land that stays with the property with every subsequent change in ownership. With a conservation easement, an organization such as KHLT agrees to monitor the property and to enforce the deed restrictions forever. 

Ed and Nina donated their first conservation easement to KHLT in 1997 on a 32.5-acre privately-owned property. Their second conservation easement was donated in 1999 on the 102.6-acre property now known as Bailey 103. The total acreage permanently protected by Ed and Nina with KHLT through conservation easements is 502.38 acres. In 2016, Nina and CACS began working together for Nina to donate 452.6 acres of land protected by conservation easement to CACS. (Side note: Nina also donated 240.4 acres that, while not under conservation easement, are required to be managed under the IRP Management Plan the same as the properties under easement and when combined with the donated easement properties, make up the total 693-acre IRP.) This created a partnership between CACS and KHLT, wherein CACS owns the land and KHLT is responsible for the permanent protection of 469.88 acres of Inspiration Ridge. This project has brought an amazing opportunity for CACS to engage in community education and outreach, while allowing KHLT to continue to focus on the protection of the property. This ensures that both conservation and educational goals are met effectively through the terms of the original conservation easement language. Additionally, Edgar Bailey and Nina Faust established an endowment with the Alaska Conservation Foundation to support the ongoing operational costs of the Preserve.
 
Honoring Ed Bailey
In July 2018, the Edgar P. Bailey Estate added 17.28 acres to an existing conservation easement held by KHLT. Nina Faust, as Trustee of the Edgar Bailey Estate, facilitated this expansion to honor her partner of 45 years. 

The legacy of Ed Bailey, who passed away on January 14, 2018, is a powerful testament to his lifelong dedication to conservation. He played a crucial role in the planning team for the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and was its first biologist. His efforts included advocating for Homer to be the headquarters for the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, removing invasive foxes from seabird islands and protecting local habitats in Kachemak Bay. Ed’s achievements were recognized through various honors, including the Celia Hunter Award from the Alaska Conservation Foundation in 2004 and the Land at Heart Award from KHLT in 2014.

Stewardship and Education
One of the many core goals shared by CACS, KHLT, and Nina Faust/The Edgar P. Bailey Estate is to balance human use with the protection of coastal environments. Through shared passion and collaboration, this goal was made possible by creating a master plan that ensures that the Preserve remains predominantly in its natural, scenic, and open condition while promoting public education about Sandhill Cranes, habitat protection, and wildlife corridor values through low-impact, quiet, small-group uses.
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The Preserve features seven waterfowl ponds, over 50 swallow, owl, and Barrow's Goldeneye nest boxes, and an extensive private trail network often used by wildlife. Usage of the trails is limited to educational purposes with a cap on daily human visitors to minimize impact. This habitat stewardship guides the careful implementation of all educational, research, and management practices, enhancing local land ethics and community involvement.

A significant component of the Preserve’s educational efforts is the Kachemak Crane Watch program managed by CACS. This program is dedicated to the protection of Sandhill Cranes and their habitat in the Homer and Kachemak Bay area. It involves data collection on crane distribution, nesting, population numbers, and mortality causes, with official count days providing valuable insights into crane migration patterns.

A Model of Conservation
Inspiration Ridge Preserve exemplifies the extraordinary results that can be achieved through dedicated conservation efforts and collaborative partnerships. The legacy of Edgar Bailey and the dedication of Nina Faust, supported by KHLT and CACS, serve as a model of effective land management and environmental education. By preserving these lands in perpetuity, they have created a sanctuary that protects wildlife and Homer’s watershed while fostering a deeper appreciation for the delicate balance between human activity and nature.
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As we celebrate the history and accomplishments of Inspiration Ridge Preserve, we are reminded of the profound impact that collective action and shared commitment can have on preserving our natural heritage for future generations.
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How You Can Get Involved
Anyone can leave a lasting impact, protecting open space here on the Kenai Peninsula, by making a contribution to Kachemak Heritage Land Trust. You can also join KHLT's Legacy Giving Circle by letting KHLT know you've included them in your estate plans. You can learn more about contributing to KHLT here and more about the Legacy Giving Circle here. And, you can donate to Inspiration Ridge Preserve directly here to help support the conservation of these critical landscapes.

Kachemak Heritage Land Trust turns 35 this year and I invite you to celebrate our accomplishments and help chart our future to preserve land forever.

In the context of perpetuity, 35 years is a pencil point dot (like a tardigrade sized slice of time). However, our past 35 years have set the baseline for KHLT to be successful over time. With solid finances, a stellar board of directors and committees, a spectacular staff, and the enduring support of our community, KHLT joins the best of the nonprofit world.

35 years ago, Kachemak Heritage Land Trust was incorporated, just one month before the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, by a group of Homerites wanting to maintain our community’s unique feel for the future. We called ourselves a “landmark organization” as we were “faced with the challenge of being the first Alaskan land trust and serving as a model for future regional trusts.” Our original service area was Anchor Point to Koyuktolik Bay and included parts of the Outer Coast. Our newsletter is still called Landmarks, in honor of those heady early days.

Our Spring 1990 newsletter was titled, “…Launching the Boat” and described KHLT’s vision to maintain our “quality of life by balancing development with open space.” This is still KHLT’s philosophy. In a place so closely tied to fresh and salt water, the boat analogy makes sense, even for a land-based organization, as one always impacts the other.

About the Organizations
 
Kachemak Heritage Land Trust (KHLT):  KHLT, aka “the Land Trust,” is a non-profit dedicated to preserving the natural heritage of the Kenai Peninsula for future generations. The Land Trust works with willing landowners to protect land with important conservation values, monitors and stewards land over time, and engages the community through educational programs. By protecting critical habitats, KHLT ensures the preservation of irreplaceable fish and wildlife habitats, as well as recreational lands, for the future. Since the Land Trust’s inception 35 years ago, nearly 4,000 acres have been protected on the Kenai Peninsula.
 
Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (KBNERR): KBNERR is part of the Alaska Center for Conservation Science at the University of Alaska Anchorage and is one of 30 National Estuarine Research Reserves across the country, with core programs supported through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). KBNERR does not own or manage any lands, yet the 372,000-acre boundary – the largest NERR in the System – overlaps with the Kachemak Bay State Park Critical Habitat Area and supports long-term monitoring, research, education and trainings related to the marine, nearshore, and watershed ecology of the bay. KBNERR’s mission is to enhance the understanding and appreciation of Alaska’s coastal ecosystems to ensure they remain healthy and productive. KBNERR engages with community volunteers to monitor for invasive European green crab and harmful algal blooms, offers weekly estuary walks in Beluga Slough, and engages in collaborative research efforts with the University of South Florida and Smithsonian Institution (like Fish Need Land Too!) to monitor and preserve the unique habitats in Kachemak Bay.
 
Salmon Sisters: Salmon Sisters is Homer-based company run by co-founders, fishermen, and sisters Emma and Claire, with support from their small team. Their family makes their livelihood harvesting wild fish from Alaskan waters and their company markets Alaska seafood in their local brick-and-mortar shops and their e-commerce site. By joining KHLT and KBNERR for the Fish Need Land Too event, the Salmon Sisters team explored the efforts these organizations undertake to protect future fishing grounds for generations to come and how their values align with and enhance these efforts. They were eager to learn how to engage with stewardship in their local watershed and to help educate visitors passing through their shops about the importance of healthy coastal ecosystems and how they relate to salmon, the namesake of their company.
 
About the Field Trip
 
Our field trip began at the Stariski Creek bridge along the Sterling Highway where we gathered to carpool to our first field site — an upstream channel of Stariski Creek, overlooking property owned by the Land Trust which we call “Stariski Meadows.”
 
Here, KBNERR scientists hopped in the small stream to corral baby fish using a large net called a stream seine, and then transferred them into photariums for easy viewing. We were able to see young Coho salmon, steelhead trout, and even a juvenile sculpin! By finding that baby salmon live here, it became immediately apparent that salmon require these small, inconspicuous, freshwater streams to start their lives.

KBNERR scientists taught us about how the plants, insects, minerals, and water temperature all play a role in supporting life for baby salmon and are all influenced by the surrounding land. Marie, KHLT’s Executive Director, told us about how the Land Trust came to own the property and how some parts of it were in pretty bad shape (lots of rubbish laying around) when we first took ownership.
 
After examining the juvenile salmon (and safely returning them to their stream), we proceeded up the road to the Stariski peatlands field site – another piece of the property owned and protected by the Land Trust.
 
We carefully marched into the wide open, spongey wetlands. We noticed the many tiny plants, like sundews and bog orchids, underfoot. A KBNERR technician then plunged a metal soil corer into the earth, pulling out a sample of peat. We got to touch the rich, cool, wet soil which provides a critical role in the salmon habitat. Twenty years of collaborative KBNERR watershed ecology research have revealed that nitrogen and carbon – the building blocks of nutrition for the fish we love – originate from alders and peatlands and then flow from the small headwater streams out to the estuaries and marine ecosystems.
 
That thick, cool earth rich in organic matter and carbon is called a peatland, which is a type of terrestrial wetland. Peatlands act like an insulating blanket – as water filters though, it collects important nutrients, and it keeps the groundwater that is entering streams cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Baby fish need this temperature-controlled water while they are growing up until they can brave the ocean. 
 
It’s easy to think of protecting fish populations as a water-only issue, but by examining the activity in small streams miles from the ocean, we can see the importance of land to salmon. Can you imagine what it would do to our fish population if every area that housed streams and wetlands were paved, damaged, or buried under buildings? Without enough protected land, we would lose the space and the ecosystems where juvenile fish grow up safely, jeopardizing future fishing resources.
 
Anytime we get to see baby salmon, we consider it a good day. What was special about this event was the ability to gather some of the salmon’s biggest supporters to highlight how ecological research and protection of land can directly bolster and complement the work of our fishing community.

The Essence of Land Conservation

Land conservation involves safeguarding natural areas to maintain their ecological integrity, ensuring these landscapes support wildlife, mitigate climate change, and offer recreational opportunities. This is achieved through methods such as establishing conservation easements and through land donations. Once land is in our care, it is protected forever. 
What are conservation easements and land donations? These are straightforward and entirely voluntary legal agreements. Conservation easements permanently restrict land uses to preserve its conservation values (like a scenic view or baby salmon habitat) while the landowner retains ownership. Land donations allow owners to contribute their property to Kachemak Heritage Land Trust for perpetual conservation

Both conservation easements and land donations may qualify for tax benefits. 

Why Conservation on the Kenai Peninsula is Critical

• The Kenai Peninsula is a region rich in biodiversity and natural beauty, encompassing diverse ecosystems such as coastal wetlands, forests, and mountains. This area supports a special way of life by allowing access to some of the world’s most valuable (and vulnerable) resources. And as the land supports us, we need to do the same. By caring for our home, we protect our way of life for future generations.
  
  
• Salmon are a crucial part of most Alaskans’ way of life. Whether we’re harvesting for personal stock or fishing commercially, having a healthy habitat for our salmon to spawn and survive is necessary. By protecting areas like wetlands, we can help give our fish the land they need. Yes, fish need land too!
  
  
• Along with salmon, conservation safeguards other wildlife that depend on protected habitats for survival and reproduction. Conserved lands also act as natural buffers against climate impacts and provide essential recreational opportunities.
  
  

Our Impact and Community Involvement

• Community engagement is central to our work. Through events and volunteer opportunities, we raise awareness about our conservation efforts. Your support—through donations, volunteer time, and spreading the word—helps fund land acquisitions, maintenance, and educational programs that ensure these resources thrive.
  
  

Current Project: Protecting the Anchor Point River Habitat

• We’re partnering with The Conservation Fund (TCF) to safeguard 11.6 acres along the Anchor Point River. This area is crucial for Chinook, coho, chum, and pink salmon, as well as moose, bear, and other species.
  
  
• Help us raise $47,000 to cover acquisition, overhead, and long-term management costs.
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Get Involved

Join us in preserving the Kenai Peninsula’s natural legacy.

Your support makes a lasting impact. Contact Executive Director Marie McCarty at [email protected] for more information or to get involved.