In honor of Indigenous Peoples' day we're sharing this episode about how Indigenous communities are bringing good fire back to the land and heralding in a new era of landscape and wildfire management.

In recent years a new season has cemented itself into the western calendar: Wildfire Season. Research shows that wildfires are three times more frequent and four times larger than they were in the 80's and 90's. A big reason for this is the fire suppression policies that have been in place for the last century to encourage the growth of timber production. Indigenous communities used to tend to the landscape by conducting controlled burns but since the government made it illegal for them to do so, forests in the West have grown unchecked make it easy for wildfires to spread with unprecedented speed and ferocity.

And the Klamath Basin is no exception. The McKinney Fire consumed more than 50,000 acres the Klamath National Forest in less than 36 hours in 2022. The heavy rains which followed and fell onto the burn scar caused flooding and debris flow and killed tens of thousands of fish in the Klamath River and its tributaries.

But things are changing. There is increasing appreciation for the necessity of prescribed and controlled burns and Indigenous communities are reclaiming the ability to tend to their lands with fire. And some of the most exciting progress in this area is happening in the Klamath basin. In this episode I talk with Lenya Quinn-Davidson and Margo Robbins about what fire has to do with river health, and how they're working to bring good fire back to the landscape and to the Yurok people.

This podcast was made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.

Spring Chinook are treasured by Indigenous communities in the Klamath basin, who have long recognized the distinction between spring and fall Chinook runs. However, the view of Western science has been that spring Chinook could easily re-evolve from fall Chinook if they disappear, and as a result, there have been no special conservation provisions for spring Chinook. But a few years ago a team of researchers made a discovery that could completely change the way we see these salmon and how they should be protected. In this episode, we'll dive into the Salmon River, which is a tributary to the Klamath, with the annual Spring Chinook and Summer Steelhead snorkel survey, which aims to track these fish populations and understand how they are changing. And we'll explore what fish and river conservation could look like if it's led by people with a deep understanding of these systems and what they need to thrive.

This podcast was made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.

When it comes to conversations about water, farmers are usually pitted against tribes and conservationists. The tensions between farmers and tribes in the Klamath basin have developed over decades and, in some instances, have teetered on the edge of violence. Today, many farmers recognize the plight of the salmon but are worried that if dam removal doesn't restore fish populations, especially in the short term, they will be the ones to pay the price and lose their water access, which could spell disaster for farm operations. In this episode, I pay a visit to Ryan Walker's farm in Siskiyou County, California where a small but mighty creek with a surprising history has a lot to tell us about why farmers are concerned about dam removal. But it also may hold some lessons about the opportunities for river restoration projects that everyone can get behind.

This podcast was made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.