Growing Up on Borrowed Water

Water in the Philippines has always seemed borrowed. Borrowed from the monsoon rains that flood the rice paddies. Borrowed from the sea that feeds us but grows warmer and emptier each year. Borrowed, and lately, disappearing.

I didn’t grow up fishing salmon. I grew up on tilapia, bangus (milk fish), and tuna that seem smaller each season. But when I moved to the US and started studying marine biodiversity and conservation, I began to hear about a fish that people here fight for like family: salmon. I heard even more about a river that used to teem with millions of them—a river that was blocked, dammed, and drained—until now.

Because this year, the Klamath River was set free.

The Largest Dam Removal in U.S. History

In October of 2024, following four decades of constant effort led by the Klamath, Hoopa Valley, Karuk, and Yurok Tribes, the final of four old dams along the Klamath River toppled. It’s officially the largest dam removal project in U.S. history, reuniting over 400 miles of salmon habitat that had been closed off for more than a century.

In the Philippines, when a typhoon takes out your fish pens, you rebuild. If the sea becomes too rough, you wait. But what do you do when a wall is built in the middle of your livelihood, and no one listens? That’s what the Klamath Tribes have been facing for generations.

Salmon runs that once brought in millions of fish each year collapsed. In 2021, the Yurok Tribe canceled their entire commercial salmon fishing season to save what few salmon were left.

Imagine being told you can’t farm, can’t fish, can’t feed your family—not because of nature, but because of decisions made far upstream.

When Salmon Die, So Does Culture

For these tribes, salmon isn’t just food. Salmon is an identity. Salmon is a ceremony. Salmon is an economy. “The Klamath salmon are our lifeblood,” said Frankie Myers, vice chairman of the Yurok Tribe.

The numbers show why this fight matters. Before the dams, approximately 880,000 adult salmon made their way back to the Klamath annually. At their worst, runs fell as low as less than 10% of that, according to California Trout.

It wasn’t just the fish that suffered. Poor water quality behind the dams fueled toxic algal blooms. These blooms didn’t just kill fish—they killed people.

Why This Matters Beyond the Klamath

So why should a kid from the Philippines care? Why should people learning about coral reefs and climate change pay attention?

Because this is what winning looks like.

The River is a blueprint for the world today. costly. Klamath down. Too negotiations, and starts. Scientists Too complex. Too grassroots activism, late. the But river through 20 now flows They said the never come years free. dams now would leadership, the actual lawsuits, recovery of tribal And anticipate salmon runs to double or triple within a few years as habitat is restored (NOAA Fisheries).

Globally, we face the same story on repeat. Rivers are blocked. Fish disappearing. Communities left behind. In my community, fishers talk about how coastal development has stripped away the mangroves and wetlands we once relied on to protect us from storms and breed fish. What the Klamath shows us is that it’s not over. There’s still time to repair what we’ve broken— if we’re willing to listen.

How Klamath Speaks to the Rest of the World

The Klamath is not solely a local success. It is something to be studied abroad about how indigenous communities, indigenous leadership, and science and turn them to one goal: restoring a river. To me, to take having witnessed in my childhood in islands where entire villages are in peril because of sea level rise and fisheries are lost because of overexploitation and increased temperatures, the Klamath is not only inspiring, but something to be done in each and every corner.

Across the world, there are thousands of rivers blocked by dams that no longer serve the purpose they were built for. According to the World Fish Migration Foundation, over 1.2 million barriers fragment Europe’s rivers alone, many of them obsolete. These dams block migratory fish like eels, sturgeon, and salmon from completing their life cycles, just like the Klamath dams did.Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia, massive dam projects are cutting off the Mekong River, threatening millions who depend on its fisheries for food and income.

Klamath teaches us that removal isn’t just possible—it works. It’s proof that ecosystem repair can happen at the scale we need. But more importantly, it shows that restoration only succeeds when the people most impacted lead the way. What if governments worldwide took that lesson seriously? What if we viewed every dam, seawall, or levee through the lens of equity, food security, and cultural survival—not just power production or flood control?

The Emotional Weight of Restoration

What strikes me most about the Klamath story is how restoration isn’t just about fixing ecosystems—it’s about repairing relationships. For over a century, these dams represented more than physical barriers; they were symbols of dismissal. Dismissal of tribal sovereignty. Dismissal of ecological balance. Dismissal of the knowledge held by people who have stewarded these lands and waters for millennia.

When I mentioned Klamath to my family back in the Philippines, they immediately understood. They know what it feels like to watch outsiders make decisions about your home without your consent. They know what it means to watch natural abundance slip away because of policies written in distant rooms by people who will never see the damage firsthand.

That’s why the Klamath story feels so important to me. It reminds me that restoration is more than a process of taking down infrastructure or planting trees. It’s a process of giving power back. Of asking, who does this water belong to? and then acting accordingly.

If the Klamath can heal, maybe the rest of us can, too. But only if we make space for the people who have been fighting for these places all along.

What’s Next for the Klamath River and Its People

Dam removal wasn’t the finish line. Now begins the even harder work: rebuilding the river’s ecosystem, restoring fish populations, and making sure tribal communities thrive after decades of loss. Salmon runs won’t rebound overnight.

Decades of sediment build-up from behind the dams are now flowing downstream, clouding the water. Experts predict that water quality will be rough at first, and the river’s recovery could take years to stabilize (NOAA Fisheries, 2023).

But tribes like the Yurok and Karuk are already preparing. They’ve built hatcheries to support juvenile fish through the transition. They’re restoring riparian habitat and replanting native vegetation to stabilize riverbanks. This isn’t just ecological work—it’s cultural revitalization. Restoring the salmon means restoring traditional fishing practices, ceremonies, and food systems that have been starved for generations.

The Klamath’s future also depends on policy. State and federal governments must keep supporting the tribes through funding, co-management rights, and long-term monitoring. Without that, the risk of backsliding is real. We’ve seen it happen elsewhere: ambitious restoration projects that spark hope but lose momentum once the headlines fade and the funding dries up.

But if done right, this can become one of the greatest ecological recovery stories in U.S. history. And it will belong, first and foremost, to the people who never stopped fighting for the river in the first place.

Because in the end, this story isn’t just about salmon or water or dams. It’s about what’s possible when we listen. When we trust Indigenous leadership. When we believe in recovery, even after a century of damage.

If we want a future where rivers can run free and communities can thrive, we don’t have to look far for the roadmap. The Klamath has been showing us the way all along.

Written by Justin Funa, MBC class of 2025