Yurok tribal attorney chronicles family’s fight to save the Klamath River and a way of life
As a University of Oregon student focused on politics and the environment, Amy Bowers Cordalis had every right to feel defeated in 2002 when she returned home and saw evidence of the largest salmon kill in the Klamath River.The lifelong fisherwoman and member of the Yurok Tribe learned the cause was avoidable: A federal order diverted water just as salmon were spawning. For generations, destructive dams, logging, mining and development had already impacted the ecosystem of the Klamath River, which once had the third largest salmon runs in all of the lower continental United States. Cordalis, then 22, decided to change course while she was in her boat, surveying the depth of the salmon die off.Now 45, the Ashland attorney, activist and environmental defender serves on the front lines of conservation. As lead lawyer for the Yurok Tribe, she was present at the signing of the agreement that in 2024 resulted in the Klamath River flowing freely from southern Oregon to Northern California for the first time in a century.The dismantling of four hydroelectric dams that had impacted ancestral lands, altered the ecology, degraded the water quality and disrupted once-prolific salmon runs is considered the world’s largest dam removal project.A month after the last dam was demolished, thousands of salmon, a cornerstone species for overall ecological health, began repopulating. “The salmon have come home,” Cordalis said. “We are starting to move back into balance.”In her just-released memoir, “The Water Remembers: My Indigenous Family’s Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life,” Cordalis tells the story of her family’s multigenerational struggle to protect the Klamath River and their legal successes to preserve the Yurok people’s sustainable relationship with nature. In 1973, her great-uncle Aawok Raymond Mattz forced the landmark Supreme Court case reaffirming the Yurok Tribe’s rights to land, water, fish and sovereignty. Cordalis devotes a chapter of her memoir to her great-grandmother Geneva’s protests in the 1970s, inspired by the Civil Rights movement, to end the Salmon Wars, the government’s crackdowns on tribal fishing rights.In 2019, Cordalis led the effort for the Yurok people to declare personhood rights for the Klamath River. For the first time, a North American river has legal right to flourish, free from human-caused climate change impacts and contamination.She also worked for the Yurok people to recover 73 square miles along the eastern side of the lower Klamath River, now known as Blue Creek Salmon Sanctuary and Yurok Tribal Community Forest.The area, logged for a century, was acquired over time by the environmental nonprofit Western Rivers Conservancy for $56 million. The transfer to the Yurok people in June is the largest single “land back” deal in California history.Cordalis continues to litigate to protect the rights of Indigenous people and the natural and cultural resources that are part of their identity and sovereignty. That includes salmon. She still works to save coho salmon, a listed Endangered Species Act species on the Klamath River. Through her former work as Yurok general counsel and an attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, and since 2020 as the executive director of the Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group, Cordalis’ message is clear: Respect the earth. Listen to the rivers, protect the land.Treat the earth, Cordalis said, not as a resource, but as a relative. Changing courseAmy Bowers Cordalis and her siblings gillnet fishing at Brooks Riffle, Klamath River, 2023Little, Brown and CompanyIn 2002, Cordalis spent her summer break from college interning for Yurok Fisheries Department near her family’s ancestral home in the Northern California village of Rek-Woi.That September, she witnessed the salmon kill. Water diverted upstream to farmers and ranchers by federal orders had lowered the river flows, increased the water temperature and allowed diseases to spread to spawning salmon.Cordalis saw the salmon kill as ecocide, the end of a way of life for the Yurok people and destruction of their principles of respect, responsibility and reciprocity with all of creation. She vowed to fight through the courts, as her family had in the past. She earned a law degree at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law and became the Yurok Tribe’s general counsel.In 2020, she and other representatives of Native American communities with historic ties to the Klamath River faced the owner of the four hydroelectric dams: Berkshire Hathaway, one of the biggest and best known U.S. conglomerates.Its subsidiary, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, owns PacifiCorp, which operated the four Klamath River dams.The Indigenous-led coalition told the energy holding company’s executives they would never stop fighting for the river’s restoration. The meeting took place at Blue Creek, one of the most important tributaries on the Lower Klamath River and a salmon sanctuary with spiritual significance, recently returned to the Yurok Tribe.The coalition handed the executives a document that outlined the key terms and conditions of their proposed agreement. They talked about their proposal and then let the river speak for itself, according to Cordalis.The next business day, both parties were in discussion. In the end, the $550 million agreement to dismantle the aging dams cost less than it would to upgrade them to meet modern environmental standards.Cordalis said that the dam removal, one of the largest nature-based solution projects in the world thus far, can be replicated for environmental and economic gain.“When we choose to work together toward sustainability, we can create different outcomes that are better for the planet, better for people,” Cordalis said. “We don’t have to accept that the only path to prosperity is industrializing nature,” she said. “We can adjust our practices, find nature-based solutions” and continue to enjoy a modern lifestyle, while working to heal nature.This is a historic time, she said.“We are at a tipping point and what we do matters,” she said. Clean air and water, and natural, nutritious food are needed for life to survive.Ripple effects Cordalis’ work and motivations are captured in the 2024 Patagonia Films documentary, “Undammed: Amy Bowers Cordalis and the fight to free the Klamath,” which plays on a screen inside the Yurok Country Visitor Center in downtown Klamath, a small coastal city in California.Cordalis has been recognized by various groups for her involvement with the largest river restoration project in history. She received the United Nation’s highest environmental honor, UN Champion of the Earth, and was named 2024 Time magazine’s 100 most influential climate leaders. In October, she was announced as one of 10 change makers in the 20th L’Oreal Paris Women of Worth philanthropic program.The $25,000 award, given for her climate action work that fuses law, policy and Indigenous knowledge, will help Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group, the nonprofit she co-founded in 2022 with Karuk Tribal member Molli Myers, continue to work on life-changing restoration projects. “The L’Oreal Paris Woman of Worth award is a tremendous opportunity because it will uplift our work and expand our partnerships,” Cordalis said. “The power of being in partnership, collaborating and combining resources and efforts, expands and strengthens the scope of all of our work.”She said one of her greatest joys is hearing about people restoring nature in their community and the worldwide “ripple effects” of those efforts.Cordalis titled her book “The Water Remembers” because the river and people remember the salmon. “We have ancestral knowledge about what it was like to live on a healthy planet,” she said. When the Klamath River’s ecosystem started collapsing, “that put us into this culture of scarcity,” she said. “Rebuilding ecosystem resiliency lets us recover from the colonial period and move toward a culture of abundance.”Today, tribal members are restoring the Klamath River’s almost 400 miles of historic salmon spawning habitat. Revegetation efforts include hand planting native seeds, trees, shrubs and grasses. “When we rebuild salmon runs, we help the ocean, the river, humans and all the creatures who are dependent upon the salmon,” Cordalis said.She writes in her book that the Yurok people are observing the river healing by spending time on it, listening to it.“And when we start using nature-based solutions to restore ecosystems those solutions work their magic,” she said, “and the salmon come home in a blink of an eye.”If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
"Treat the earth, not as a resource, but as a relative," said Ashland resident Amy Bowers Cordalis, who has written a memoir about her family's generations-long efforts for the river that now flows freely.
As a University of Oregon student focused on politics and the environment, Amy Bowers Cordalis had every right to feel defeated in 2002 when she returned home and saw evidence of the largest salmon kill in the Klamath River.
The lifelong fisherwoman and member of the Yurok Tribe learned the cause was avoidable: A federal order diverted water just as salmon were spawning.
For generations, destructive dams, logging, mining and development had already impacted the ecosystem of the Klamath River, which once had the third largest salmon runs in all of the lower continental United States.
Cordalis, then 22, decided to change course while she was in her boat, surveying the depth of the salmon die off.
Now 45, the Ashland attorney, activist and environmental defender serves on the front lines of conservation.
As lead lawyer for the Yurok Tribe, she was present at the signing of the agreement that in 2024 resulted in the Klamath River flowing freely from southern Oregon to Northern California for the first time in a century.
The dismantling of four hydroelectric dams that had impacted ancestral lands, altered the ecology, degraded the water quality and disrupted once-prolific salmon runs is considered the world’s largest dam removal project.
A month after the last dam was demolished, thousands of salmon, a cornerstone species for overall ecological health, began repopulating.
“The salmon have come home,” Cordalis said. “We are starting to move back into balance.”
In her just-released memoir, “The Water Remembers: My Indigenous Family’s Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life,” Cordalis tells the story of her family’s multigenerational struggle to protect the Klamath River and their legal successes to preserve the Yurok people’s sustainable relationship with nature.
In 1973, her great-uncle Aawok Raymond Mattz forced the landmark Supreme Court case reaffirming the Yurok Tribe’s rights to land, water, fish and sovereignty.
Cordalis devotes a chapter of her memoir to her great-grandmother Geneva’s protests in the 1970s, inspired by the Civil Rights movement, to end the Salmon Wars, the government’s crackdowns on tribal fishing rights.
In 2019, Cordalis led the effort for the Yurok people to declare personhood rights for the Klamath River. For the first time, a North American river has legal right to flourish, free from human-caused climate change impacts and contamination.
She also worked for the Yurok people to recover 73 square miles along the eastern side of the lower Klamath River, now known as Blue Creek Salmon Sanctuary and Yurok Tribal Community Forest.
The area, logged for a century, was acquired over time by the environmental nonprofit Western Rivers Conservancy for $56 million. The transfer to the Yurok people in June is the largest single “land back” deal in California history.
Cordalis continues to litigate to protect the rights of Indigenous people and the natural and cultural resources that are part of their identity and sovereignty. That includes salmon. She still works to save coho salmon, a listed Endangered Species Act species on the Klamath River.
Through her former work as Yurok general counsel and an attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, and since 2020 as the executive director of the Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group, Cordalis’ message is clear: Respect the earth. Listen to the rivers, protect the land.
Treat the earth, Cordalis said, not as a resource, but as a relative.
Changing course
In 2002, Cordalis spent her summer break from college interning for Yurok Fisheries Department near her family’s ancestral home in the Northern California village of Rek-Woi.
That September, she witnessed the salmon kill. Water diverted upstream to farmers and ranchers by federal orders had lowered the river flows, increased the water temperature and allowed diseases to spread to spawning salmon.
Cordalis saw the salmon kill as ecocide, the end of a way of life for the Yurok people and destruction of their principles of respect, responsibility and reciprocity with all of creation.
She vowed to fight through the courts, as her family had in the past. She earned a law degree at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law and became the Yurok Tribe’s general counsel.
In 2020, she and other representatives of Native American communities with historic ties to the Klamath River faced the owner of the four hydroelectric dams: Berkshire Hathaway, one of the biggest and best known U.S. conglomerates.
Its subsidiary, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, owns PacifiCorp, which operated the four Klamath River dams.
The Indigenous-led coalition told the energy holding company’s executives they would never stop fighting for the river’s restoration.
The meeting took place at Blue Creek, one of the most important tributaries on the Lower Klamath River and a salmon sanctuary with spiritual significance, recently returned to the Yurok Tribe.
The coalition handed the executives a document that outlined the key terms and conditions of their proposed agreement. They talked about their proposal and then let the river speak for itself, according to Cordalis.
The next business day, both parties were in discussion. In the end, the $550 million agreement to dismantle the aging dams cost less than it would to upgrade them to meet modern environmental standards.
Cordalis said that the dam removal, one of the largest nature-based solution projects in the world thus far, can be replicated for environmental and economic gain.
“When we choose to work together toward sustainability, we can create different outcomes that are better for the planet, better for people,” Cordalis said.
“We don’t have to accept that the only path to prosperity is industrializing nature,” she said. “We can adjust our practices, find nature-based solutions” and continue to enjoy a modern lifestyle, while working to heal nature.
This is a historic time, she said.
“We are at a tipping point and what we do matters,” she said. Clean air and water, and natural, nutritious food are needed for life to survive.
Ripple effects
Cordalis’ work and motivations are captured in the 2024 Patagonia Films documentary, “Undammed: Amy Bowers Cordalis and the fight to free the Klamath,” which plays on a screen inside the Yurok Country Visitor Center in downtown Klamath, a small coastal city in California.
Cordalis has been recognized by various groups for her involvement with the largest river restoration project in history.
She received the United Nation’s highest environmental honor, UN Champion of the Earth, and was named 2024 Time magazine’s 100 most influential climate leaders.
In October, she was announced as one of 10 change makers in the 20th L’Oreal Paris Women of Worth philanthropic program.
The $25,000 award, given for her climate action work that fuses law, policy and Indigenous knowledge, will help Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group, the nonprofit she co-founded in 2022 with Karuk Tribal member Molli Myers, continue to work on life-changing restoration projects.
“The L’Oreal Paris Woman of Worth award is a tremendous opportunity because it will uplift our work and expand our partnerships,” Cordalis said. “The power of being in partnership, collaborating and combining resources and efforts, expands and strengthens the scope of all of our work.”
She said one of her greatest joys is hearing about people restoring nature in their community and the worldwide “ripple effects” of those efforts.
Cordalis titled her book “The Water Remembers” because the river and people remember the salmon. “We have ancestral knowledge about what it was like to live on a healthy planet,” she said.
When the Klamath River’s ecosystem started collapsing, “that put us into this culture of scarcity,” she said. “Rebuilding ecosystem resiliency lets us recover from the colonial period and move toward a culture of abundance.”
Today, tribal members are restoring the Klamath River’s almost 400 miles of historic salmon spawning habitat. Revegetation efforts include hand planting native seeds, trees, shrubs and grasses.
“When we rebuild salmon runs, we help the ocean, the river, humans and all the creatures who are dependent upon the salmon,” Cordalis said.
She writes in her book that the Yurok people are observing the river healing by spending time on it, listening to it.
“And when we start using nature-based solutions to restore ecosystems those solutions work their magic,” she said, “and the salmon come home in a blink of an eye.”
If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.