Photo:  The Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the fastest growing community in Alaska, is nestled between the Chugach, Talkeetna, and Alaska mountain ranges.

Each summer, millions of ocean-bright salmon – chinook, coho, sockeye, pink and chum – pour into the Matanuska and Susitna rivers, feeding everything from world-class rainbow trout to bald eagles, brown bears, and humans.  Salmon are an integral part of life in the Mat-Su: people travel from around the world to fish for Mat-Su salmon and to view the wildlife – particularly the brown bears and eagles – that feed on them. Alaskans depend on salmon for subsistence, sport and commercial fishing and the economic benefits of tourism.

North America’s highest mountain – Denali – and the Alaska Range form a dramatic backdrop to the upper watersheds of the Mat-Su, some of the wildest lands in the entire country.  Yet the lower watersheds of the basin are home to the fastest growing area in Alaska, with more people moving here all the time to take advantage of a high quality rural lifestyle and commuting proximity to Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage. While this accelerated growth is economically desirable for the community, it makes the region’s rich salmon and wildlife habitat vulnerable to residential, commercial and natural resource development.

Salmon are at the core of our program because the species is at the heart of the Alaska way of life, economy, and ecology. We are building partnerships, mapping salmon habitat, analyzing river flows and salmon habitat that would be changed by hydropower, and creating decision-making tools to ensure that as the Mat-Su continues to grow, residents and decision-makers take into consideration the waters and lands that healthy salmon populations rely on for survival. The Matanuska-Susitna Basin is the best place in Alaska to show that housing and urban development do not have to ruin salmon habitat and thus salmon populations and to address the potential of large-scale hydropower as an energy source for the state.