Bristol Bay is one of the most productive wild salmon fisheries on earth, producing over half of the world’s wild sockeye population. Each year, tens of millions of salmon return to spawn in the region’s rivers and streams, sustaining an extraordinary web of wildlife and one of the world’s most valuable commercial fisheries. For the Yup’ik, Dena’ina and Alutiiq people who have thrived here for thousands of years, the health of these waters is the foundation of their cultures, economies and sacred ways of life.

For over a decade, the United Tribes of Bristol Bay (UTBB), a tribal consortium, has led an effort to shape Bristol Bay’s future: a future where these lands and waters are protected and the people who live here continue to live as Yup’ik, Dena’ina and Alutiiq peoples.

Protecting Waters and Way of Life

UTBB was formed in 2013 and represents 14 federally recognized Tribes. Their founding purpose was to address the threat of Pebble Mine, a large open-pit mine proposed at the headwaters of Bristol Bay’s Nushagak and Kvichak watersheds.

Since that time, UTBB staff and board have led Tribal consultation and public engagement efforts, traveling from their home communities to the halls of Congress to testify on the importance of salmon to their ways of life and the existential threat that large-scale mining presents. 

In 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a Clean Water Act Determination stopping Pebble Mine, a historic victory stemming from decades of advocacy. Since then, UTBB has continued to defend the EPA protections, expand permanent protections to the entire watershed, and build strong, sustainable Native communities. They are the leading force behind partnerships such as the Bristol Bay Defense Fund, a coalition housed by Alaska Venture Fund.

A Vision for Regional Sustainability Rooted in Community

“Alaska Venture Fund has partnered with United Tribes of Bristol Bay since our inception. They are an excellent example of one of the main reasons AVF exists: to get funding to Alaskan people and organizations doing fantastic work for their communities,” says AVF Managing Partner Erin Dovichin. “We are honored to support this work.”

Over the last eight years, AVF has provided over $1.3 million in unrestricted funds to support UTBB, while also connecting and driving philanthropic attention to their work. Beyond direct funding, AVF partners with UTBB on the Bristol Bay Defense Fund and Bristol Bay Forever campaign, and has worked to strengthen UTBB’s core operations and fundraising capacity.

“That partnership is built on trust,” says Alannah. “This work is painstaking – it takes years of navigating systems designed to keep us out. Through it all, we’ve worked with AVF in a partnership built on years of direct work in the region with Tribal leaders. AVF is in it for the long haul and understands that it’s multifaceted work. You can’t just work on certain pieces. It’s all interconnected.”

As UTBB has grown, its focus has expanded beyond the threat of Pebble Mine to advance the sustainability of Yup’ik, Dena’ina and Alutiiq ways of life. Representing Tribes from across the Bristol Bay region, UTBB’s work now addresses four interconnected priorities: ancestral stewardship and protection of subsistence ways of life, community and cultural wellbeing, sustainable economies, and advancing Tribal sovereignty and self-determination. 

These efforts include co-hosting the Bristol Bay Sustainability Summit, an annual forum that brings together community leaders from across the region to advance a shared vision for a thriving Bristol Bay, and building economic opportunities for local workforce development. Through its remote work program, UTBB equips residents with skills and experience to secure jobs that allow them to remain in their home communities. As part of this program, in 2024, UTBB hired 11 community members to serve as Community Outreach Assistants, who worked to improve community and civic engagement across the region.

UTBB is also working with local partners to address the devastating opioid epidemic in culturally centered and destigmatizing ways. After hiring a Wellbeing Director in 2025, the organization is focused on community education, healing and wellbeing efforts that are culturally centered, locally driven and equitably accessible across the region.  

At the same time, UTBB remains vigilant in its focus to protect the region’s land, air and waters as more than 20 active mining claims remain across the Bristol Bay watershed. Still represented by attorneys from the Native American Rights Fund, UTBB is defending EPA’s action in court.  Though Pebble Mine remains thwarted for now, UTBB is focused on securing broader protections for Bristol Bay to permanently ban metallic sulfide mining across the Bristol Bay Fisheries Reserve. 

Photos by Nathaniel Wilder and Bill Kane
Published: April 2026