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Frequently Asked
Questions
1.
What is the Southwest Alaska Salmon Habitat
Partnership?
 The
Southwest Alaska Salmon Habitat Partnership (Partnership) is an
unincorporated partnership of local communities, Native
organizations, subsistence users, anglers, hunters, commercial
fishing interests, lodge owners, hunting and fishing guides,
tourism interests, non-profit organizations, federal, state, and
local agencies and corporations and foundations working
cooperatively to conserve fish, wildlife and habitat and
perpetuate the uses they support in Southwest Alaska. The
Partnership serves as clearinghouse, coordinator and point of
synergy to increase habitat conservation, fund raising and
education. Projects are accomplished through the
coordinated work of partners. Several of the Partnership
Partners are 501(c)3 non-profit organizations and are the
recipient's of charitable contributions to support the
Partnerships work..
2. What geographic area does SWACC
cover?
The Partnership focuses throughout Southwest
Alaska, including the Alaska Peninsula, all Bristol Bay
watersheds and the watersheds flowing into the Kuskowkim River
from the south and east up to and including the Aniak River, an
area of 39.8 million acres. Southwest Alaska includes six
National Wildlife Refuges in whole or in part, three National
Parks and the largest state park in the United States. They
comprise 23.5 million acres. Large tracts of Native Corporation
land, State designated critical habitat areas and other federal,
state, and local lands complement these conservation areas.
Because the ecology, subsistence, economy and other uses of
natural lands are driven by the fisheries, primarily anadromous,
the Partnership focuses on land conservation along rivers, lakes,
and streams to achieve its goals and objectives.
3. What are the Partnership’s vision,
goals and objectives?
Vision:
The Southwest Alaska Salmon Habitat Partnership envisions naturally
sustainable fish and wildlife populations, in all their
biodiversity, thereby perpetually supporting compatible human
uses throughout Southwest Alaska.
Goal:
The goal of the Partnership, working through partners, is to sustain
healthy fish and wildlife populations and thereby perpetuate the
cultural, economic, recreational, social, and aesthetic uses
they support through voluntary habitat conservation throughout
Southwest Alaska.
Objectives:
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Conserve riparian habitats in drainages
supporting anadromous and resident fish.
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Strengthen local communities by perpetuating
fish, wildlife, and compatible human uses.
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Support historic uses of fish and wildlife
through habitat conservation.
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Restore and enhance riparian habitat and
associated uplands on public and private lands.
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Improve habitat management on publicly and
privately owned riparian habitat and associated uplands
through the use of cooperative management agreements and
voluntary incentive programs.
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Reduce land management conflicts through
habitat conservation.
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Identify, prioritize, and conserve important
habitat.
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Support monitoring and evaluation of existing
restoration projects, as well as pertinent research studies,
to improve future restoration projects.
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Ensure traditional access points remain
available to the public.
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Strengthen existing and promote new funding
sources for habitat conservation.
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Encourage cooperation between the Partnership’s
partners and other regional initiatives that have the
potential for habitat conservation.
4. Why focus on wild salmon?
Salmon are the heart of Southwest Alaska, forming
the basis for the ecology, economy, and culture. Nowhere else
in the world do such robust fisheries flourish, supporting
commercial, subsistence and sport fishing. Their abundance over
such a grand area is unrivaled. The millions of returning
salmon feed bears and bald eagles, their spawn feeds rainbow
trout and char, their decaying carcasses release the nutrients,
which allow the annual cycle to continue, and their presence
nourishes the human body and soul.
5.
What is the SWACC’s strategy?
Using an integrated,
non-regulatory approach and an ecosystem perspective, the
Partnership seeks to 1) create partnerships to complete habitat
projects that benefit fish, wildlife, habitat and the full
spectrum of uses they support, 2) leverage resources, and 3)
develop new funding sources and match existing ones. Because
the ecology, economy, subsistence harvest, and other uses of natural
lands are driven by the fisheries, primarily anadromous, the
Partnership focuses on land conservation along rivers, lakes, and
streams to achieve its goals and objectives. The Partnership works
through its partners to complete on-the-ground habitat projects
and provides a forum to share skills, funding and information.
6.
What is a conservation easement?
A
conservation easement is a legal agreement that binds a property
owner’s conservation intentions to the land in perpetuity. A
landowner who sells or donates a conservation easement retains
title to the property. An owner generally grants an easement to protect his or her land's
conservation values. A conservation easement runs with the title to the
property regardless of changes in future ownership.
Granting an easement can yield tax savings. Think
of land ownership as holding a bundle of rights that may include
the right to subdivide, construct buildings, harvest timber or
restrict access. A landowner may sell or donate the whole bundle
of rights or just one or two of those rights.
To commit certain rights for the purpose of
conservation, while retaining others, a property owner donates
or sells the right(s) which are recorded in a deed of
conservation easement to a non-profit organization like the
Nushagak-Mulchatna Wood-Tikchik Land Trust. The donation of an
easement may qualify as a charitable contribution. As such, it
may reduce income, estate and gift taxes.
A conservation easement is only one method of
protecting land. If you are a landowner and want to learn more,
please
contact us.
7.
How to help?
The partners of the Southwest Alaska Salmon Habitat
Partnership have undertaken an ambitious challenge. We need your
help, which you can provide in several ways:
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Join one or more of the non-profit partners who
are completing the on the ground conservation agreements. Go to
the Partners page and click on any of the non-profit
organizations to be directed to their home pages.
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Contribute directly to SWACC. Donations are
received by the Partnership’s Coordinator, a representative of a
501(c)3 non-profit and placed in an account established for
habitat conservation projects. You are welcome to direct your
donation for a specific project.
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Advise others of this ongoing conservation effort
and encourage them to join.
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Contact us if you know of landowners who may be
interested in conservation agreements on their property located
along anadromous fish streams, rivers and lakes.
- Please join
us in protecting the earth's last great bastion of wild salmon
and all they support.
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