Pedro Bay Rivers Project

The Pedro Bay Rivers project needs your help to protect over 44,000 acres in the world-renown Bristol Bay region before the end of 2022. It’s home to the largest wild salmon fishery in the world and supports over 15,000 jobs annually. These lands and waters are also critically important for subsistence use by Alaska Native Peoples, the sportfish tourism industry, archaeological research, and cultural and historic preservation.

 Protecting the Watersheds

  • The Pedro Bay Rivers project is a partnership between the Pedro Bay Corporation, the Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust, and The Conservation Fund to protect over 44,000 acres of exceptional fish and wildlife habitat along the Iliamna River, Pile River, and Knutson Creek on the northeast end of Iliamna Lake.

  • This region of Iliamna Lake provides critical spawning and rearing habitat for a large part of the sockeye salmon run that is essential to the health and vitality of the Bristol Bay region, the people who live there, and the world-renowned commercial salmon and sport fishing industries.

  • The Conservation Fund has entered into an agreement to purchase three conservation easements from the Pedro Bay Corporation, an Alaska Native village corporation, to prevent destructive development and ensure these Iliamna Lake watersheds are permanently protected and able support the extraordinary returns of sockeye salmon year after year.

The Pedro Bay Rivers Project will:

  • Conserve the most productive spawning and rearing habitat for sockeye salmon in the Iliamna Lake watershed, as well as conserve important habitat for birds, moose, bear, wolf, rainbow trout, Dolly Varden, coho salmon, pink salmon, chum salmon, and Chinook salmon.

  • Permanently maintain subsistence uses, traditional activities, and cultural resources important to Alaska Natives, and provide the Pedro Bay Corporation an opportunity to improve long term financial stability and reliable benefits to its shareholders, who are of Dena’ina Athabascan descent and the original stewards of these lands.

  • Protect critical watershed habitat from the threat that the Pebble Mine project poses by prohibiting construction of the industrial transportation corridor that would connect the mine site to the Pacific Ocean.

Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust Executive Director Tim Troll discusses the Pedro Bay Project from Knutson Bay in Lake Iliamna.

“In 2016, The Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust, The Conservation Fund and the Pedro Bay Corporation began discussing a partnership to preserve critical salmon habitat on lands owned by the corporation on Lake Iliamna. Those discussions led to a conservation easement in 2017 protecting over 12,600 acres across an estimated 143 islands that support a unique genetic group of island beach spawning sockeye and haul-outs for one of only five populations of freshwater seals in the world. Now that same partnership is engaged in an effort to preserve an additional 44,100 acres. The Board of Directors of the Land Trust is excited and proud to be part of this continuing cooperative effort to assure the future of salmon in Bristol Bay, and the future of the subsistence, recreational and commercial fisheries that depend upon those salmon.” — Tim Troll, Executive Director, Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust

How you Can help

There’s no silver bullet when it comes to ensuring that Pebble cannot return in the future. However, defending the 2020 permit denial, advancing Clean Water Act 404(c) safeguards, advocating for legislative protections, and supporting land agreements like the Pedro Bay Rivers Project together have the power to ensure the most prolific sockeye salmon fishery can continue for generations to come. Making a donation is the best way you can help advance these tactics to forever protect Bristol Bay.