The Matanuska-Susitna Basin, or Mat-Su, covers 24,500 square miles in southcentral Alaska, roughly the combined size of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. The basin supports thriving populations of chinook, coho, sockeye, pink and chum salmon as well as world-class rainbow trout, char, and grayling, making it one of the country’s premier sportfishing and wildlife viewing destinations. Salmon and other fish are at the heart of Alaskan ecosystems, economy, and culture.

View the 2009 Mat-Su Basin Salmon Habitat Partnership Fact Sheet

View the 2009 Mat-Su Basin Salmon Habitat Partnership Brochure

View the Strategic Plan of the Mat-Su Basin Salmon Habitat Partnership (2008)

The Driftless Area is a 24,000 square-mile area that encompasses portions of southeast Minnesota, northeast Iowa, southwest Wisconsin and northwest Illinois bypassed by the last continental glacier. The region has a high concentration of spring-fed coldwater streams and is recognized for its high diversity of plants, animals, and habitats. The Driftless Area Restoration Effort (DARE) partnership formed to address habitat degradation, loss, and alteration that are the primary factors contributing to the decline of fish populations in this unique region. 

Driftless Area Restoration Effort website

Driftless Area Restoration Effort Strategic Plan

Outreach Plan

Driftless Area Angling Economic Report 

Driftless Area Angling Economic Report (Summary)

Driftless Area Habitat Guide

In 2005, in recognition of the need to address regional and range-wide threats to brook trout, a group of public and private entities formed the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture (EBTJV) to halt the decline of brook trout and restore fishable populations of this iconic species. The EBTJV directs locally-driven efforts that build partnerships to improve fish habitat, working to ensure healthy, fishable brook trout populations throughout their historic eastern United States range.

Trout are important as an “indicator species” of a watershed. When a watershed is in trouble, the trout are the first to die. Species like the greenback cutthroat, gila, and westslope cutthroat trout thrived in Western watersheds until their habitats were altered because of roads, dams, agriculture, and logging. Human introduction of non-native trout species, such as rainbow, brown and brook trout put further pressure on native species by out-competing them for food and by eating native fry. Conservation of Western native trout and their habitats is critical in maintaining their cultural, scientific and recreational value.

View the August 2008 WNTI Newsletter 

The Southwest Alaska Salmon Habitat Partnership is a made up of local communities, Native organizations, subsistence users, anglers, hunters, commercial fishing interests, lodge owners, hunting and fishing guides, tourism interests, non-profit organizations, federal, state, and local agencies and corporations and foundations working cooperatively to conserve fish, wildlife and habitat and perpetuate the uses they support through voluntary habitat conservation in Southwest Alaska.

Glacial lakes are natural lakes that were formed by glacial activity and are an abundant and recognizable feature of the landscape over much of the upper Midwest.  For example, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin each boast of more than 10,000 natural lakes over 10-acres in size within their respective boundaries. The Prairie Pothole Region of the county is an important waterfowl production area for North America and includes portions of eastern Dakotas, western Minnesota, and northwestern Iowa. Clearly, these glacial lakes are a regionally and nationally significant economic and cultural natural resource and yet they are increasingly threatened by a number of human-driven factors affecting sustainable fish and wildlife habitats. These drivers are not universally distributed across the region, but rather most intensely affect glacial lakes on a gradient generally oriented from south to north.

The Hawaii Fish Habitat Partnership is composed of a diverse group of partners that have the capacity to plan and implement a technically sound statewide aquatic habitat restoration program. In addition to state and federal resource agencies, our partners include:

Local watershed partnerships throughout the main Hawaiian Islands who are interested in developing capacity to increase effective stewardship of riparian and aquatic habitats within their geographic areas of responsibility.

The Hanalei Watershed Hui, an established American Heritage River program on the North Shore of Kauai,
which is a community-driven partnership with a
watershed-wide focus.

The geographic extent of the ACFHP stretches from Maine to the Florida Keys, including
all or part of 16 States. It covers 476,357 square miles, including land areas inland to the
headwaters of coastal rivers, and ocean areas outward to the continental slope. The
ACFHP plans to work throughout the region, but will focus on estuarine environmentsand place less emphasis on coastal headwaters and offshore marine ecosystems.

The Atlantic coast is home to some of the most populous and fastest growing areas of theUnited States. Aquatic habitats of the Atlantic coast are being heavily impacted by avariety of human disturbances.

The ACFHP will strive to achieve sufficiently healthyhabitats to support the survival and sustainability of the many species that utilize Atlantic coastal habitats for some portion of their life history. These species provide recreational opportunities and an economic resource for commercial fishermen, processing plants, and
food fish markets locally and across the U.S.

Atlantic Coastal Fish Habitat Partnership Website

The international Great Lakes Basin is a unique and biologically diverse region
containing the largest surface freshwater system in the world, with sport and commercial
fisheries valued at over $7 billion annually. The fishery and aquatic resources of the
Great Lakes have suffered detrimental effects of invasive species, loss of biodiversity,
poor water quality, contaminants, loss or degradation of coastal wetlands, land use
changes, and other factors.

The Basin includes all of Michigan; portions of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in the U.S. and Ontario and Quebec in Canada. It covers 295,710 square miles, including 94,250 square miles of surface water and 201,460
square miles of land in the U.S. and Canada. The Great Lakes and connecting waters have over 11,000 miles of coastline.

The Basin is home to 10% and 31% of the human
population in the U.S. and Canada, respectively, with over 43 million people relying on the Great Lakes as a source of drinking water. More than 300 species of fish and other aquatic organisms inhabit the rivers, streams, coastal areas, and open waters.

Great Lakes Basin Fish Habitat Partnership Website

The Ohio River Basin Fish Habitat Partnership was formed to protect, restore, and enhance priority habitat for fish and mussels in the watersheds of the Ohio River Basin.  We pursue this mission for the benefit of the public, but what brings us to the table is as diverse as the basin itself.  Whether it is sport fish, mussels, imperiled fish, water quality, or one of many other drivers, what bonds us is the Basin and our desire to work together to protect, restore, and enhance her aquatic resources.

The partnership encompasses the entire 981 miles of the Ohio River mainstem (the second largest river in the U.S. as measured by annual discharge) and 143,550 square miles of the watershed.  A decision was made to exclude the Tennessee-Cumberland sub-basin to limit overlap with SARP.  

The Ohio River drainage contains at least 350 species of fish ranging from endemic darters and dace in the headwaters to a suite of great river fish (e.g., paddlefish, blue sucker, lake sturgeon, and shovelnose sturgeon) and more than 120 mussel species, including a number that are federally listed.  These figures approach half of the freshwater fishes and over a third of all mussel species found in the United States.  A number of the rivers in the Ohio River Basin also support outstanding smallmouth or spotted bass angling.

Streams of the Great Plains are home to a wide diversity of aquatic fauna adapted to harsh changes in temperature and water availability.  Low human population density has enabled many Great Plains streams to remain relatively unimpaired, yet aquatic species have experienced a slow but steady decline in abundance and diversity during the 20th Century and continue to face challenges that threaten their viability.

Existing habitat loss are attributed to numerous factors including the conversion of native prairie to land uses for agriculture, energy development, and urbanization, which are reflected in degraded water quality, water quantity, fragmentation, and isolation of rivers from their floodplains. Climate change and invasive species are also factors affecting Great Plains stream habitat.

Great Plains Fish Habitat Partnership website

Reservoirs are inextricable parts of our natural landscapes; they cannot be isolated or dismissed in conservation management. Constructed to meet a variety of human needs, they impact almost every major river system in the United States, affecting to various degrees habitat for fish and other aquatic species and, in turn, affected by the health of the watershed in which they reside. Reservoirs, their associated watersheds, and their downstream flows constitute interdependent, functioning systems. Effective management of these reservoir systems – maintaining their ecological function and biological health – is essential to the conservation of our nation’s aquatic resources and their habitats. It requires that we minimize the adverse impacts of reservoirs on their watersheds (and watersheds upon reservoirs) and maximize their utility for aquatic habitat.


Click HERE to visit the Reservoir Fisheries Habitat Partnership webpage

Kenai Peninsula Fish Habitat Partnership is a conservation partnership developing on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. This partnership is working with the National Fish Habitat Action Plan to protect, restore, and enhance our area's fish and aquatic communities.

Kenai Peninsula Fish Habitat Partnership website

Currently (January 2010) six "Candidate" Fish Habitat Partnerships have stated their intent to apply for recognition as an official partner under the National Fish Habitat Action Plan. The only partnership to state their intent to apply for recognition during the 2009 NFHAP calendar year was the Pacific Marine and Esturine Fish Habitat Partnership.  Below is a current listing  of "Candidate" FHP's:

Salmon In The City
North American Salmon Stronghold Partnership
California Fish Passage Forum
Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee
Fishers and Farmers Partnership
Pacific Marine and Estuarine Fish Habitat Partnership

POWER POINT PRESENTATIONS
Fishers and Farmers Partnership