Bristol Bay sockeye, Alaksa© Ben Knight

Our Strategy

Our Strategy

We are the leading group working to protect the strongest wild salmon rivers across the North Pacific.

We work from northern California and the Pacific Northwest, up to British Columbia and Alaska and across to the Western Pacific (see Where We Work).

We focus on salmon because they are an iconic and powerful conservation symbol, wild to the core, with an incredible life story. When you protect salmon, you protect a whole watershed and everything in it, including people. The most beautiful and important rivers of the North Pacific all depend on salmon and the nutrients they carry inland from the ocean.

We focus on wild salmon

If we want salmon around for our kids and grandkids, we have to protect wild salmon—they are among the most adaptable creatures on the planet. Wild-born fish are the best equipped to survive in the face of industrial development, population increases, and climate change.

We focus on “strongholds”

We target salmon strongholds —the richest, strongest salmon rivers in the Pacific—because it’s easier to protect rivers while they are still healthy and thriving. History tells us it’s incredibly difficult and expensive to fix a river once it’s dammed, mined, diverted, or otherwise broken.

We build powerful alliances

We build alliances with the most effective local and regional partners working in the North Pacific’s salmon strongholds. We help these groups design and implement winning strategies built on our scientific, political, legal, fundraising and communications expertise.

Our strategy at work

Since 1992, we and our partners have together secured 89 rivers and over 7 million acres in protected areas or special wild fish management areas.

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