Salmon photo courtesy of the National Marine Fisheries Service/Southwest Fisheries Science Center.
Sustainable Conservation recently submitted a San Francisco Chronicle letter to the editor in response to its story, “Marin County ghost town cleared away to save Lagunitas Creek’s coho salmon.” We wanted to educate readers about the population and habitat struggles many of the state’s hundreds of imperiled species, especially iconic salmon, still face – and how Sustainable Conservation is helping brighten their future.
Ashley Boren, Executive Director, Sustainable Conservation
San Francisco, Calif. – (September 10, 2018) It was encouraging to read recently about the important habitat restoration happening in Marin County.
Salmon are among over 350 iconic California species struggling to survive. The 2017 “State of the Salmonids” report from UC Davis and California Trout shows that almost half of California’s native salmon are on track to extinction within 50 years.
Over the last century, we’ve destroyed 90% of the state’s streamside forests and aquatic habitats. Bad news for waterways, fish and people.
There’s hope, though.
Many Californians, from private landowners to conservation groups to public agencies, are helping restore important habitat and bringing species back from the brink.
But, these stewards need a faster, easier way to get their projects approved, while also ensuring vital environmental safeguards are met. That’s why local, state and federal allies like Sustainable Conservation and the NOAA Restoration Center, the agency that green-lighted the exciting Lagunitas Creek project, continue to simplify the permitting process to help more restoration happen now – not years from now.
The fate of struggling fish and other species requires making it easy for committed land stewards to do the right thing. We hope more allies join us to accelerate restoration across the state.