Klamath Indigenous Land Trust purchases 10,000 acres on Klamath River from PacifiCorp

By Dan Bacher

As salmon return to the headwaters of the Klamath River for the first time in more than 100 years, the newly formed Klamath Indigenous Land Trust and PacifiCorp just announced a landmark purchase of 10,000 acres in and around the former reservoir reach of the river.

Representatives from the trust, also known as KILT, say the transaction represents one of the largest private land purchases by an Indigenous-led land trust in U.S. history.

“Dam removal allowed the salmon to return home,” Molli Myers (Karuk), president of KILT’s board of directors, said in a statement. “Returning these lands to Indigenous care ensures that home will be a place where they can flourish and recover. Our communities spent generations fighting for this moment and we honor our ancestors who carried this vision forward. The healing that’s underway is real, and this acquisition reflects the future we’re building together as people of the Klamath Basin.” 

Myers added that the purchase includes lands upstream and adjacent to PacifiCorp’s former hydropower project, allowing the ongoing health of the river and its fisheries to be “guided by Indigenous values and ecological restoration goals.”

Ryan Flynn, president of Pacific Power – the division of PacifiCorp that serves customers in California, Oregon and Washington – also celebrated the milestone.

“PacifiCorp is gratified to see these lands transition to a stewardship model that honors their cultural and ecological significance,” Flynn told the media. “We recognize the leadership of the Klamath Basin Tribes and KILT in shaping a restoration vision that will benefit the entire region.”

Wendy Ferris-George (Hupa/Karuk), the vice chair of the trust, noted that the achievement came after tribes in area witnessed fish die-offs in the past.

“KILT was formed by indigenous leaders from four different Klamath Basin tribes who met after the 2002 Fish Kill and spent the next two decades committed to the grassroots movement to un-dam the Klamath and bring their salmon home,” Ferris-George explained. “We are from different Tribes and we each have our own cultural traditions, but it was through working together and by bringing Tribal People from all over the Basin together that created this moment.”

The trust says that, with the acquisition complete, its next steps include creating wholistic land management plans with feedback from area tribes. Topics being explored are habitat recovery, cultural resource protection, fire management and public access considerations.

“This is the next chapter in the Klamath River’s renewal,” KILT Board member Jeff Mitchell (Klamath/Modoc) observed. “It’s proof that Indigenous leadership and community partnerships can achieve transformational change at a landscape scale.”

The Klamath-Trinity River watershed has historically been the second largest producer of Chinook salmon in California next to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River watershed. In the past, the Klamath also has supported big runs of coho salmon, steelhead, Pacific lamprey, green sturgeon and other fish species. Funding for the purchase was provided by The Catena Foundation, the Community Foundation of New Jersey, and an anonymous donor.