SEAKFHP’s FY25 Request for Project Concept Proposals is Open! DEADLINE EXTENDED to Apply is 5pm MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2024
The Southeast Alaska Fish Habitat Partnership (SEAKFHP, www.seakfhp.org) is soliciting project concept proposals for FY25 NFHP project funding. SEAKFHP works to foster cooperative fish habitat conservation in freshwater and coastal ecosystems across the southern panhandle of Alaska and is a fully recognized coastal partnership under the National Fish Habitat Partnership (NFHP, www.fishhabitat.org).
Critical to our success is connecting key partners and providing information needed to make sound decisions about conservation of our region’s aquatic resources and habitats. Additionally, our partnership works to address threats impacting fish and their habitats and has a strong interest in building resiliency across the region to support overall productivity and health of fish in this unique part of Alaska.
As one of 20 federally recognized National Fish Habitat Partnerships, SEAKFHP is eligible to solicit projects for potential project funding made available to grantees annually through oversite and direction of the NFHP Board.
Eligible Projects: Projects considered for funding address science-based habitat protection, restoration, and enhancement activities that benefit freshwater and coastal aquatic habitats in Southeast Alaska and are addressed under SEAKFHP’s Strategic Action Plan. NFHP funds can be used for on-the-ground habitat projects and related project assessment, design, monitoring and outreach activities. Eligible projects may include riparian or instream habitat protection, restoration, and enhancement; barrier removal or construction; range-wide population or watershed habitat assessments to prioritize and plan habitat conservation; and habitat-related community outreach and education actions.
We look forward to receiving project proposals to further protect, restore, and enhance our productive freshwater and coastal fish habitats! For any questions, please contact Deborah Hart, SEAKFHP Coordinator, at coordinator@sealaskafishhabitat.org.
The complete funding announcement and all relevant documentation can be found here:
Please note: we will convene a webinar on Monday, February 12, 2024 from 2-3pm Alaska Time to discuss the funding opportunity: join us at this Zoom link to learn more….
Greetings all – Saturday, September 17th is International Coastal Clean-up Day. Here in Juneau, Alaska we are pitching in to clean-up the Switzer Creek Watershed. Please join us at 9am to gather trash bags – supplied from our friends at Alaska Brewing Co. (via their Coastal Code efforts). We are joining in with our partners at the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition, Juneau Audubon Society, Ratchet Constructs, and Juneau Makerspace to clean-up this important watershed as well as other coastal areas around town. Here are more details:
On May 21 – 2022 we celebrate the 5th World Fish Migration Day and at this point over 340 events have been registered from over 55 countries. Together with our colleagues around the world we want to save migratory fish in rivers and create real impact for the sake of rivers, fish, wildlife and people. Feel free to register an event too via www.worldfishmigrationday.com. The bigger this movement becomes the more impact we can make.
The Southeast Alaska Fish Habitat Partnership (SEAKFHP, www.seakfhp.org) and partners will be hosting many regional and local events. Including a walk across the Juneau-Douglas Bridge to raise awareness to fish friendly road-stream crossings and a virtual film festival (details are included in the attached file).
On Saturday morning, May 21, 2022 a number of SEAKFHP partners gathered to celebrate World Fish Migration Day by walking over the Juneau-Douglas bridge to help raise awareness to fish-friendly road-stream crossings! Huge thanks to our many partners who shared their loveable mascots with us (USFS’s Smokey Bear and NOAA’s Ocean Guardian School sea creatures).
Our international partners invite you to join the BREAK FREE Live show on May 21, 2022, with guest appearance from Jeremy Wade (Host River Monsters) and Zeb Hogan (Host Monster Fish). Start: 16:30 hours and End: 18:00 hours (Central European Summertime).
Description: Sharing what we are learning through the use of film continues to be an exceptional way to communicate advances in science and fisheries management, showcase ways communities are engaging in local fisheries and stewardship efforts, and capture the beauty and diversity of fish across Alaska. To accompany this year’s AFS Alaska Chapter meeting we are hosting a film festival inspired by this year’s meeting title: Changing Tides – Outlook for the Future | Insights from the Past. In addition to films that highlight the work of our membership, we will share films that capture a historical perspective of fish use in Alaska and highlight advances made in learning from the past to advance how we expand knowledge of our fisheries resources and manage for a vibrant future.
Contributed by: Court Pegus, AFS Alaska Student Member: ccpegus@alaska.edu (UAF College of Rural and Community Development, Kuskokwim Campus and Orutsararmiut Native Council)
Brief film description: Several authors report that teaching styles which frame Western learning concepts in a cultural context are an effective means to engage Indigenous students in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) focused educational curriculum. Native Hawaiian children and Alaska Native rural middle school students were observed to perform better on subjects in which teaching methods incorporated principles of cultural congruence. Alaska Native students are the smallest demographic of students enrolled in college and represent approximately 250,000 of the 19 million college students attending schools in the United States and experience some of the highest dropout rates. This pattern prevails throughout all stages of the educational process (kindergarten-college) in almost all public schools in Alaska. Educational ceilings faced by Alaska Native youth hinder advancement to college and reduce opportunities to pursue research careers. The COVID-19 pandemic global outbreak has spread worldwide within the last two years creating observable changes to social practices including teaching customs within a relatively short time scale. In response to this deadly virus, many educational institutes have shifted teaching practices from face-to-face education to remote learning. While live-stream class sessions can be an efficient means of lecturing to large groups of widely dispersed students, this teaching style may not ensure adequate inclusion of physical or cultural activities to enhance the learning experience. It remains unclear how this new digitally-based format of teaching will be perceived by non-traditional and Indigenous students. As a collaborative effort, The Orutsararmiut Native Council and the University of Alaska Fairbanks hosted a science summer course to a diverse cohort of Native students. Course work focused on marine science and STEM education using teaching styles that included face-to-face education as well as remote learning (ZOOM classes). This short documentary presented captures teaching styles that contextualize STEM in a culturally relevant frame of reference and provide an outline and guide for other educators that teach in rural communities. A follow-up study from this effort will examine the instructor’s perceptions of student’s responses to the two forms of teaching styles as well as challenges associated with placing teaching activities in a cultural framework.
Brief film description: Along the Yukon River, NOAA, Alaska DF&G, the Yukon Delta Fisheries Development Association, and local fishermen have collaborated to study Chinook salmon for years. In 2020, the pandemic shut down these efforts, so the local communities initiated a citizen science project to fill the gap. There is also a web-story that goes along with this: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/community-steps-continue-yukon-river-salmon-research-during-pandemic
Mosaic – The Salmon Wilderness of Bristol Bay, Alaska
Contributed by: Daniel Schindler, Jason Ching, and Chris Boatright; University of Washington – Alaska Salmon Program; cboat@uw.edu, 206-930-8979
Brief Film Description: The film highlights the connection between habitat and the long term stability of Bristol Bay’s salmon populations and fisheries productivity.
*Both videos can be found on the Ecosystem Status Report webpage. This web page also contains the actual Ecosystem Status Reports and In Briefs for the three LME’s of Alaska.
Brief Film Description: The Alaska coastal rainforest center teams up with organizations around the world to understand the incredible forest of and ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest.
Brief Film Description: Community Forests and locally driven workforce are the crux of the Hoonah Native Forest Partnership. This video dives into why stream restoration is needed and how its linked to maintaining healthy fish, people and communities.
Brief Film Description: During the summer of 2021, a team from the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition (SAWC) worked with the Angoon Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) to remove a culvert from a remote area on Admiralty Island. This fantastic group of youths did a lot of work, alongside SAWC staff, to dig, carry, saw, and finally, remove a culvert that was blocking fish passage near Cube Cove. This project is part of a larger initiative to improve fish habitat across Admiralty Island.
To kick off 2022, the Southeast Alaska Fish Habitat Partnership will begin to review and update it’s strategic action plan. Updates on the revision process will be shared on this page. You can find our current action plan here: SEAKFHP Strategic Action Plan | Southeast Alaska Fish Habitat Partnership.
If you would like to be a part of the planning effort reach out to our coordinator at: coordinator@sealaskafishhabitat.org.
One part of our review process will be to explore other aquatic conservation planning efforts and include relevant information in our updated plan. Here is a running list of plans we will be reviewing (this list will be continually updated over the review period):
America’s Conservation Enhancement Act – signed into law in October of 2020, this Act codifies the National Fish Habitat Action Plan and lays out expectations for Fish Habitat Partnerships (which SEAKFHP is one of 20 currently recognized by the NFHP Board). Learn more here:
Takshanuk Watershed Council (TWC) recently published a report on historic aquatic habitat projects in the Haines area. You can find the report here: Haines Habitat Project Inventory
The goal of this project is to: 1. Develop a habitat improvement project inventory 2. Evaluate a subset of the projects to inform future habitat improvement practices 3. Identify projects that require additional habitat improvement actions
This report is intended to be a “living” document. Over time, existing projects will be re-evaluated, and new projects will be assessed and added to the inventory.
This project originated as an inquiry from members of the Upper Lynn Canal Fish and Game Advisory Committee, who were looking for a resource to inform their assessments of the ongoing Haines Highway reconstruction and the associated habitat mitigation projects. Funding was provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Special thanks to Neil Stichert, now with the US Forest Service, for helping to get things off the ground; and also to Jenn Hamblen, who now works for USGS, for doing the initial “field work” gathering together hundreds of old fish habitat permits from the ADF&G Habitat Section offices in Juneau. Any comments on this report, or suggestions for future efforts, are always welcome.
Contact for more details: Derek Poinsette, Executive Director Takshanuk Watershed Council 907-766-3542 derek@takshanuk.org
The Southeast Alaska Fish Habitat Partnership (SEAKFHP, www.seakfhp.org) brings together partner groups from across the region to collaboratively protect and restore fish habitat in freshwater and coastal ecosystems across the southern panhandle of Alaska. Critical to their success is connecting key partners, sharing information, and leveraging resources needed to address conservation of the region’s aquatic habitats. They are one of twenty partnerships recognized under the National Fish Habitat Partnership (NFHAP; www.fishhabitat.org) and, with the passage of the America’s Conservation and Enhancement Act in the fall of 2020, are helping bring new habitat conservation funding to the region.
To assist in this work, SEAKFHP has created a data repository for our partners. Aquatic information and associated landscape data sources have been collected from a variety of partners and are available in our SEAKFHP ArcGIS online account. In addition, for the more casual data user, SEAKFHP has also created a data hub to showcase data sources that can inform habitat restoration activities for the region. The hub site can be found at the Southeast Alaska Fish Habitat Data Portal. You can also explore the SEAKFHP resources tab on our website for help in navigating to these resources and for other relevant data archives.
Also, check out our SE AK Coastal Data Mapper – this interactive data application can be used with the WESPAK-SE rapid wetlands assessment tool and help navigate to data resources important for decisions on coastal areas of Southeast Alaska.
If you would like to join our user group in ArcGIS online, contact our project associate Khrystl Brouillette at khrystl@sawcak.org for more information. If you would like to learn more about the partnership reach out to the SEAKFHP Coordinator, Deborah Hart at coordinator@sealaskafishhabitat.org.
The Prince of Wales communities of Klawock and Craig both share salmon resources from the Klawock Lake Watershed, and have continued to express a concern for the sockeye salmon populations in recent years. In 2016, Woll and Prussian (2016) finalized the Klawock Lake Sockeye Salmon Retrospective Analysis, which was the basis for forming a stakeholder group (including the community of Klawock) to identify the next best steps. A stakeholder meeting was held in November of 2017, with a recommendation for stakeholders to stay engaged (you can find details on this meeting here). This lead to the development of a Klawock Lake Sockeye Salmon Action Plan which includes developing a comprehensive project list, and prioritizing projects that can move forward in the near future with the following vision: “To promote healthy and sustainable sockeye salmon populations in Klawock Lake for local communities.”
Healthy Habitat is What Makes the Fish Magic Happen!
