The Klamath River Dam removal, slated for early 2024, is a significant milestone in the journey towards bringing back healthy rivers in the United States. This action will restore nearly 300 miles of river habitat in the Klamath and its tributaries across Southern Oregon and Northern California, allowing salmon, a critical source of economic and nutritional value for the local communities, to return. As the world’s largest dam removal and river restoration project in history, this project will have lasting impacts on the health of this river and represents an opportunity for building momentum to continue global river protection and restoration.

Dams and Disconnection

The importance of removing the Klamath River Dam comes down to the consequences of damming rivers in the first place. Healthy rivers are able to flow freely throughout their paths, moving sediment and providing habitat and migratory pathways for aquatic species. In recent history, rivers have been valued primarily as water sources for cities, irrigation and hydropower. But rivers provide a broader set of services that deliver immense benefits to economies and people. These “hidden” benefits, such as freshwater fish stocks, stable deltas, fertile floodplains, flood mitigation, spiritual, and mental well-being are often not easily quantified, understood, or maintained—and thus are not a priority for management. Until they are lost, that is.

Infrastructure, such as hydroelectric dams, is the biggest culprit in interfering with the flow and connectivity of a river. The wrong dam in the wrong place not only changes how a river flows, but also fragments the river into sections that are disconnected from one another. Around the world, widespread construction of dams and other water infrastructure has left only a third of long rivers free-flowing.  Dams also change the natural movement of water from rivers to their floodplains, impacting species movement, floodplain agriculture, soil nutrient replenishment, and more.

Yet changes to river connectivity impact more than the landscape. Animals that use rivers to find food, reproduce, or seek new habitat as the seasons change—such as migratory fish like salmon, river dolphins, river turtles, otters, and many other species—can no longer do so. Aquatic animal populations are in dire need of help. Populations of freshwater species have declined by 83 percent on average since 1970, and nearly one-third of all freshwater fish are facing extinction. Degradation of rivers is a major cause of these declines. And there is the human cost as well. The people who depend on rivers as a source of food or income are also highly impacted by these changes to the river.

Planning to Protect and Restore

These losses are not inevitable and unavoidable. River protection and restoration, including through dam removal, can play a major role in bringing rivers back to their full potential. Given the critical state of rivers and freshwater species, protecting the remaining free-flowing rivers and restoring fragmented ones are actions best taken sooner rather than later.

The Klamath River project is part of a growing movement to do so. It will be added to a growing list of rivers with its dams removed, including close to 7,000 in Europe. The U.S. was an early adopter of this strategy, and it is expanding its commitment to dam removals and river ecosystem restoration (with the support of the Uncommon Dialogue) through  $800 million of funding allocated for dam removal in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and key hydropower legislation introduced in 2021.

The Uncommon Dialogue is a coalition of state and federal government agencies, NGOs, academics, Native Nations, and hydropower experts seeking to address the twin challenges of climate change and river conservation. Their goal is to advance the renewable energy and storage benefits of hydropower and the environmental and economic benefits of healthy rivers through rehabilitating, retrofitting, and/or removing dams across the US.

With the looming uncertainty of climate change growing every year, protecting and restoring existing natural resources, such as rivers, wetlands, and other inland waters, is necessary on a larger scale across the US and the world. So in an effort to address this demand and scale up conservation more broadly, the U.S. government launched the America the Beautiful initiative to conserve, connect, and restore 30 percent of its national lands and waters by 2030. The shift to protection and restoration is larger than any single nation, however. That is why WWF and others are proposing a similar global commitment in the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) of the Convention on Biological Diversity being negotiated this month. This includes championing freshwater ecosystem restoration and adopting key numerical targets: at least 300,000 kilometers (roughly 200,000 miles) of rivers, and at least 350 million hectares of wetland and other freshwater (inland water) habitats should be under restoration by 2030 to reverse freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem loss. This would mean that countries that sign on to the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework will be committing to protecting and restoring rivers and other inland waters, bringing back invaluable benefits to people and nature.

Foregrounding Freshwater Systems

Thus far, freshwater systems have been neglected in these larger protection efforts. By being treated as an add-on to land protections, freshwater ecosystems have received insufficient attention, which has led to drastic species declines. Explicit inclusion of freshwater ecosystems in area-based conservation targets, indicators, and implementation mechanisms in the GBF is critical to recover and safeguard some of the most threatened ecosystems and biodiversity on the planet.

Progress towards the goals of 30 percent of freshwater habitat protected and 300,000 kilometers restored may come in a variety of forms, as there will likely be no single silver bullet to solve this challenge. It will take global action and leadership. That is why the U.S. should continue its actions to protect and restore freshwater ecosystems domestically and support the inclusion of similar targets in the GBF and the implementation of these goals globally. Investments can and should be aligned to deliver solutions across related global treaties and commitments, including the Ramsar Convention, Sustainable Development Goals, and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change—and in line with goals of the forthcoming 2023 UN Water Conference.

The Klamath River dam removal is a major win for environmentalists, Native and local communities, and freshwater species. But we cannot and should not stop here. We have many more steps along this path to reach our goal of renewing rivers and vital freshwater habitats.