Click the link to read the article on the AZCentral website (Debra Utacia Krol). Here’s an excerpt:
December 29, 2025
Key Points
- A new intertribal land trust has acquired 10,000 acres of land along the Klamath River from former dam operator PacifiCorp.
- The land transfer is a key step in restoring the river basin’s ecosystem following the removal of four dams.
- Indigenous values and traditional practices will guide the restoration of the land, which includes important salmon habitat.
Another milestone in restoring the Klamath River Basin has been reached. A new land trust received title to land on Dec. 22 that includes important salmon habitat and lands upstream of and adjacent to four now-removed dams and the shallow reservoirs that impeded fish and nurtured deadly algae in northern California and southern Oregon. The Klamath Indigenous Land Trust was formed by a coalition of members from four basin tribes after the historic 2002 fish kill to remove the dams as the beginning of a long-term effort to restore health to one of the West’s most imperiled rivers. PacifiCorp, the previous landowner and former hydropower operator, agreed to sell 10,000 acres to the land trust to return stewardship to the tribes who fought for decades to remove the dams as the first step in river recovery. Indigenous values and millennial-long practices which once made the basin one of the West Coast’s largest salmon habitats will direct the job of restoring the ecology of the area, which is the size of West Virginia. The Catena Foundation, the Community Foundation of New Jersey and an anonymous donor provided the funding for the purchase, which is one of the largest such purchases by an Indigenous-led land trust to date…
“Dam removal allowed the salmon to return home,” said Molli Myers, the land trust’s board president and member of the Karuk Tribe. “Returning these lands to Indigenous care ensures that home will be a place where they can flourish and recover.”
“PacifiCorp is pleased to see these lands transition to a stewardship model that honors their cultural and ecological significance,” said Ryan Flynn, president of Pacific Power, the division of PacifiCorp that serves customers in the Northwest.
