Vision

We envision the diverse communities of the Klamath Basin working together to restore our watershed resources to their historic abundance and function so that our children and their children will have the opportunity to live here with sustainable livelihoods.

Goals

1) Increase awareness and understanding of Klamath River issues, locally and nationally, through education.

2) Identify and facilitate restoration of the natural and cultural resources of the Mid Klamath watershed, including aquatic, riparian and upslope conditions.

3) Facilitate coordinated involvement in regional land management amongst diverse stakeholders.

4) Promote community stability by encouraging cultural and economic activities that further the sustained productivity of our watershed resources.

5) Provide community fire safety.


Are California's Salmon Facing Extinction?: Measuring the Benefits of Coho Habitat Restoration: A Field Report from the Middle Section of the Klamath River
August 11, 2011
Since 2006, the Mid Klamath Watershed Council (MKWC) and the Karuk Tribe Fisheries Program (KTFP) have been collaborating on implementing coho habitat enhancement and restoration projects that address key limiting factors of coho life histories in the Klamath River system. With a handful of folks implementing these projects on limited time and resources, reporting the benefits of this work often gets less attention than it should. Especially considering the results are what make the long road of assessing, permitting, implementing and monitoring restoration projects ultimately worthwhile. (read more)


State of the Salmonids: Restoring Coho Salmon in the Klamath River, One Beaver At A Time
November 16, 2010
After a sleepless full moon night with our 18-month-old daughter, I bundled her onto my back and walked down to the Klamath River in the pre-dawn light, fishing pole in one hand, balancing out the diaper bag in the other. I had a spot in mind, just downstream of the Orleans Bar River Access, where the river slides over a broad riffle so shallow that the fish are forced into a narrow slot that one could cast across, even with a groggy, grumpy, sleep-deprived toddler strapped to one's back. (read more)


Freshwater Mussels of the Klamath River
December 18, 2009
Ask someone to name a threatened species that makes its home in the Klamath River, and odds are the answer you'll hear will be "salmon," followed by "suckerfish" or "sturgeon." While it's true that Klamath populations of these fish species are facing severe threats stemming from human activity, fish aren't the only aquatic creatures in danger of extinction. In fact, the majority of the organisms threatened by human impact on freshwater ecosystems like the Klamath are invertebrates. One of the least-known but most important Klamath invertebrate groups may be the freshwater mussels. And, until 2007, the Klamath's mussels were almost entirely unknown to Western science! Mussels, which are North America's most endangered group of organisms, are an important bio-indicator of aquatic ecosystem health and a cultural resource for indigenous peoples worldwide. (read more)


Watershed Recovery: Fisheries and Upslope Restoration in the Middle Klamath
August 19, 2009
The section of the Klamath River watershed from the confluence with the Trinity River up to Iron Gate Dam ranges from wild, rugged, and pristine to settled, roaded, and burned to a crisp. Land jurisdictions are split in the middle with mostly national forest lands and small private and tribal inholdings to the west and checkerboard grading to private agricultural lands in the east. In the past few years, nearly a quarter of this landscape has burned in a series of large wildfires predominantly on the national forest, having both positive and negative effects on the fishery depending on fire intensity and soil type. Anadromous1 runs of salmon and steelhead have continued to struggle with low flows and poor water quality in the Klamath River mainstem and major tributaries, including the Scott and Shasta Rivers. Limiting factors to salmonid production in the Klamath River include lack of instream flow (and subsequent elevated temperatures), access to spawning areas and both summer and winter refugia, elevated rates of fish diseases associated with mainstem dams, and nutrient loading (to name a few). (read more)


Obama Administration Cancels Bush-Era Plan to Clearcut Oregon Forests: Salmon, Clean Water, and Old-Growth Forests Big Winners
August 19, 2009
On July 17 of this year, the Obama administration announced a decision to cancel a Bush-era plan that would have nearly quadrupled logging on public lands in western Oregon. The Bush plan, called the Western Oregon Plan Revision, or WOPR, re-zoned 2.6 million acres of federal public forests in Oregon managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The announcement came in response to a lawsuit filed by the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild) and twelve other conservation organizations challenging the Bush-era logging plan. Obama officials said the Bush plan ignored requirements to protect endangered species living in the forests and could not be defended in court. (read more)



Contact Information

Email: luna@mkwc.org
Web Site: www.mkwc.org
Phone: (530) 627-3202 - Fax: (866) 323-5561
P.O. Box 409 Orleans, CA 95556