The Alaska Department of Fish and Game Division of Sport Fish is accepting proposals for the 2023 Kenai Peninsula Habitat Restoration & Protection Cost-Share. The Kenai Peninsula Habitat Rehabilitation & Protection Cost-Share is a financial incentive and educational outreach program directed towards private landowners and public land managers.
The program provides technical expertise about rehabilitation practices, state and federal permitting assistance, and funding for salmon habitat rehabilitation and protection projects along streambanks on the Kenai Peninsula. Funds are limited and not all projects can be funded; but, selected landowners could have up to 50% the cost of their project reimbursed. ADF&G staff also provides educational opportunities to landowners, public land managers, and the general public on the techniques and the value of fish habitat. The program uses and funds techniques such as willow plantings, cabled spruce trees, and elevated light penetrating walkways (among others).
Habitat Biologist Jessica Johnson wrote:
“Summer is here, and salmon are returning to the rivers, and landowners are gearing up to fish for salmon. Now is the time that they start to notice erosional issues along their bank. Landowners who participate in the program will not only learn the importance of healthy streambanks, but they will be doing their part to support and maintain healthy juvenile salmon habitat and populations.”
The Kenai project was established in the 90s and, since its inception, over 500 shoreline rehabilitation and protection projects have been installed throughout the Kenai Peninsula. That’s included over 4,000 feet of structures that were detrimental to juvenile salmon, sustaining fish habitat on over nine miles of shoreline and rehabilitating over three miles of shoreline. ADF&G partners with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, nonprofit organizations, local governments, and landowners to conduct projects to rehabilitate and sustain salmon habitat in watersheds on the Kenai Peninsula.
The submission deadline is 5:00 p.m. Friday, September 30, 2022.
Click here for more information.
