RIVERS WITHOUT BORDERS

Coordinating Efforts to Protect the Taku

Wild salmon advocates from both Canada and the U.S. are calling on the province of British Columbia and the Taku River Tlingit First Nation to put the ecological needs of salmon foremost in the ongoing land use planning process.  Alarming reports of salmon declines in the Fraser River have been a wake up call for efforts to protect salmon habitat in the Taku. 

The Taku watershed is widely recognized as the B.C.–Alaska transboundary region’s most significant salmon system.  Hosting robust populations of the five Pacific salmon species, it is fully intact and nearly pristine (some acid mine drainage from the abandoned Tulsequah mine site being the notable exception).  The Taku requires little management other than the vision to keep it the extraordinary salmon asset that it is. 

This has been the basic message of the Wild Salmon Center, the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, the Pacific Salmon Foundation, Watershed Watch Salmon Society, Rivers Without Borders, and others.  Planners are talking about “world class” salmon management for the Taku, and non-government organizations are lining up to help make a tremendous wild salmon conservation opportunity happen. 

 Organizations with broader conservation mandates are also being heard.  They understand that, in a time of climate change, a big, diverse, and totally intact ecosystem like the Taku watershed is the quintessential biological refugia, offering sufficient habitat diversity, linkages, and enduring features for fauna and flora to continue thriving despite climate change pressures. 

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Update from the Atlin-Taku Land Use Planning Process

The Taku River Tlingit and the BC Integrated Land Management Bureau released a newsletter update on the Atlin-Taku land use planning process. 

Click here to download the two-page document.

The Taku on display

Last weekend I worked at an Atlin-Taku information table that CPAWS has set up at Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC) in Vancouver. The store wasn’t too busy, as the ski season has been impacted by both the weather – no snow – and the Olympics – fewer places to go, but the people I did talk to were interested in learning more about the area, and many of them signed our letter calling on negotiators in the region’s Land Use Planning Process to put ecological and cultural values foremost in their decisions.

There will be an information table at the Vancouver MEC for the whole month of February, and some of the time people will be there to talk about the issues and answer questions. If you are in the area, please come in for a visit and sign a letter or postcard. Or, you can visit www.takulegacy.org to send a copy or our letter, or write your own.
 

U.S. Taku River users push for protections

Monday, January 25, 2010

Citizens seek proposal to designate part of the river a critical habitat

By Kim Marquis | JUNEAU EMPIRE

  A bankruptcy filing by a mine company proposing to run a hoverbarge on the Taku River laid the controversial request to rest for the time being, but fishermen and environmentalists who fought the proposal are not sitting on their heels.

A group of commercial fishermen joined a river conservation organization and some property owners in a request to the Juneau delegation to pursue higher protections for the river.

"There’s a belief that we were a hair’s breath away from permitting an experimental craft - with no formal use in any other part of the world - and that threat to habitat and rearing of salmon seems unacceptable," United Southeast Alaska Gillnetters Executive Director Chris Knight said.

Knight and others approached Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau, with a proposal to designate part of the river a critical habitat area but came away with a decision to further investigate which type of designation - if any - would best meet river users’ concerns.

The Alaska Legislature can designate Special Use Areas for the protection of fish and wildlife habitat. The Mendenhall River State Game Refuge is a local example.

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Meet Taku the Dog.

The Taku has a new mascot.

I adopted this fine pooch from the SPCA on the Sunshine Coast of B.C. this fall. He came with the name Casey, but the problem was that he wouldn’t come to the name Casey, no matter how many times I called it – not to mention that I really didn’t like it as a name for him. So in December I started trying out new names to see if it would be possible to call him something else. One day I called out ‘Taku’, and zzzoom, he came straight to me.

So Taku it is. It suits him perfectly. He’s gorgeous, healthy, spirited, and he LOVES water. Now I get to call out ‘Taku-Taku’ all the time. I think it can only be a good thing for that to echo through the hills.

This is a photograph of Taku on the beach in Tofino, BC, where he took me so he could see Clayoquot Sound and get some ideas for how to protect the Taku. Oh, and of course to play on the beach. 

The Year of the Salmon

Heralding in the new year is also a time of energizing renewal. And a time for positive change. At RWB, our new year’s resolution is to do everything we can to protect ecological and cultural values in the Taku Watershed. We did our best in 2009, and now we plan to do even more.Watching salmon river stocks plummet in B.C., especially win the once mighty and salmon-rich Fraser River has inspired us to double our efforts to keep this from happening in the Taku River. 

 But we are small and we need some help speaking out to protect key values in this region. A strong constituency speaking for the Taku’s ecological and cultural value could persuade decision makers to recognize these values on the ground, and protect vast, interconnected regions of the Taku from industrial pressure.

Right now, the most powerful way to take action is to send a letter to the decision makers who are currently negotiating a land use plan in the region that will determine areas and values to protect, as well as areas of proposed industrial use. The Taku has the increasingly rare distinction of being a healthy, productive salmon river. And the rich and diverse watershed is host to a myriad of plants and animals – and people.

Help us deliver them a land use plan that protects habitat, culture, fresh water, and the many many other values of the still mighty and incredibly salmon-rich Taku. Visit takulegacy.org for more information.

The Atlin-Taku is essential for biodiversity.

CPAWS B.C. Executive Director says, if it remains as it is, the Atlin-Taku  could be "one of the world’s great “arks” for biodiversity. Untouched, it could act as a magnet for species during climate change. With high mountains and low valleys and everything in between, its landscape could shelter B.C.’s travelling species and those not wiped out by the warming weather. Large, intact, connected ecosystems or arks, like this Atlin-Taku landscape, are rare."

 Read the full story. 

Take Action for the Taku!

The governments of British Columbia and the Taku River Tlingit First Nation are about to make a decision that will determine the fate of the area. Will the Atlin-Taku continue to be a biological sanctuary for thousands of species? Or will it be fragmented by roads and mines?

Your voice is needed to show that there is broad support for a bold conservation vision in the Atlin-Taku. Click here to take action.

For more information go to:

www.takulegacy.org

Gold Glitters in BC’s last intact watershed