NRCS offers technical and financial assistance to help private landowners improve salmon habitat.
Are you interested in improving habitat for salmon and other aquatic species in Alaska? USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) may be able to help.
We offer technical and financial assistance to farmers, ranchers, forest landowners, Tribes and other private landowners to install conservation practices on private land. Participation in our programs is entirely voluntary. We can tailor the practices to suit the unique needs of your property.
NRCS can help remove barriers that restrict salmon access to historical spawning and rearing habitat, such as removing undersized or failing culverts and replacing them with salmon-friendly culverts or bridges. We provide engineering design assistance to ensure fish passage projects address the conservation need and meet landowner objectives.
Other salmon-friendly conservation practices include forestry and upland activities that improve water quality and habitat.
In the remote village of Hoonah, located near the capital of Juneau in Southeast Alaska, the Huna Tlingit people and local residents have cultural roots that are deeply entwined in the land and waters surrounding their community. Recognizing the importance of protecting, conserving and maintaining the stream and forest habitats that are so integral to the Hoonah way of life, the Hoonah Native Forest Partnership (HNFP) was formed in 2015. This partnership has accomplished critical habitat restoration to improve salmon habitat and forest health, while also supporting economic development in the community. WATCH VIDEO: Restoring Healthy Streams and Forests in Hoonah, Alaska (6:55)
Popular Conservation Practices for Salmon Habitat
Aquatic Organism Passage
Modification or removal of barriers that restrict or impede movement of fish and other aquatic species, including replacing the object with a culvert, bridge or crossing.
Benefits:
- Enhances fish habitat
- Can improve fish populations by restoring access to habitat
- Provides management options to enhance long-term stream function
Obstruction Removal
Disposal of structures, vegetation, landscape features, trash and other material. Typically used as a supporting practice and not a stand-alone practice.
Benefits:
- Improves water quality for surface and ground water
- Prevents future flood damage
- Facilitates other conservation practices
Access Road
An established route for equipment and vehicles. Typically installed over a culvert replacement.
- Facilitates human access to areas where access is required to accomplish conservation activities.
- Provides a fixed route for vehicle travel
- Minimizes points of human disturbance
Stream Habitat Improvement and Management
Improving, restoring, or maintaining the ecological functions of a stream and its adjacent floodplain and riparian area.
Benefits:
- Restores stream and riparian area function by utilizing natural materials
- Maintains adequate in-stream flows to sustain diverse habitats for fish and other aquatic species
Streambank Protection
Treatment used to stabilize and protect banks of streams or constructed channels and shorelines.
Benefits:
- Prevents loss of land or damage to land uses adjacent to streambanks
- Maintains flow capacity of streams or channels
- Reduces offsite or downstream effects of sediment resulting from bank erosion
- Improves stream corridor for fish and wildlife habitat
Forest Stand Improvement
Manipulating tree composition, stand structure and density by cutting or killing selected trees and understory vegetation.
Benefits:
- Improves forest health and productivity
- Restore or maintain natural plant communities
- Improves understory habitat for wildlife
- Reduces risk of catastrophic wildfire
Riparian Forest Buffer
Trees and shrubs planted adjacent to a river, stream, wetland or water body.
Benefits:
- Protects near-stream soils from over-bank flows
- Traps harmful chemicals or sediment transported by surface and subsurface flows from adjacent land uses
- Provides shade and woody debris to benefit in-stream ecologic functions
Tree/Shrub Establishment
Planting seedlings or cuttings; seeding; or creating conditions that promote natural regeneration.
Benefits:
- Establishes forest cover
- Enhances wildlife habitat
- Controls erosion
- Improves water quality
- Captures and stores carbon
Road/Trail/Landing Closure and Treatment
The closure, decommissioning, or abandonment of roads, trails and/or landings to achieve conservation objectives.
- Controls erosion and spread of chemical residue
- Restores land to a productive state by re-establishing habitat and reconnecting wildlife migration corridors
- Minimizes human impacts to sensitive areas
- Improves wildlife habitat
Trails and Walkways
A constructed path with a vegetated, earthen, gravel, paved, or other hard surface to facilitate the
movement of animals, people, or off-road vehicles.
Benefits:
- Protects ecologically sensitive sites
- Reduces erosion
- Provides pedestrian or off-road vehicle access for agricultural operations
- Provides human access to recreation sites
Conservation partners teamed up to install the largest fish passage culvert in Alaska to support salmon habitat in the Native Village of Tyonek. This project complements multiple fish passage projects in Tyonek completed with assistance from NRCS and many other partners. WATCH VIDEO: Improving Fish Passage in Tyonek, Alaska (15:57)