Klamath River Fund

The Klamath River Fund is a program of Humboldt Area Foundation and Wild Rivers Community Foundation (HAF+WRCF) focused on community-led climate resilience and restorative justice work. Following the unprecedented removal of four dams on the Klamath river in 2023 and 2024, the Klamath River Fund will invest in and amplify restoration and revitalization efforts in the entire Klamath basin in the decade that follows. 

Over the next decade the fund will support projects and initiatives such as:

• Efforts to advance climate and community resilience within the Klamath River watershed.
• Effective grantmaking, strategy coordination, and technical assistance to support Tribal and local community-driven restoration and revitalization priorities. 
• Work to increase philanthropic and public funding for Tribal and rural community needs in the basin. 
• Demonstration of how river restoration, of which dam removal is only the first step, is an investment in climate resilience, community resilience, and restorative justice. 

The Klamath dam removal is the largest dam removal project and largest river restoration project in U.S. history, with monumental impacts for river and ecosystem health, economic and workforce development, revitalization of Tribal and rural communities, and restorative justice to Tribes and Indigenous people. The project will reopen 400 miles of habitat for coho salmon, Chinook salmon, steelhead trout, and other threatened fish species, and allow the lower Klamath River to flow freely for the first time in more than a century. 

The removal of the dams is the result of generations of work by Tribes, activists, landowners, agencies and nonprofits to bring healing to the Klamath River basin. Now we have another generational project ahead of us, restoring the ecosystem so the region can thrive ecologically, culturally, economically, and beyond.  

To learn more about the Klamath River Fund and dam removal project, visit https://hafoundation.org/klamath-fund/.