Saving Coldwater Fisheries with Chris Jordan, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Northwest Fisheries Science Center

<p>Chris Jordan has some unwelcome news for the watershed and fisheries restoration movement. Restoring robust populations of salmonids and other fish species in degraded rivers and wetlands is much more complex than we could have ever imagined, and we've been doing it wrong for decades. Most of us, even those of us who view our fishing and our rivers as a kind of religion, don't even know what a truly healthy river looks like.</p> <p>But Chris also has some welcome news, though, and it's the subject of today's podcast: we know how to restore functioning watersheds for coldwater fisheries now, and it's imminently achievable. Real watershed restoration that can last and bring back healthy cold water fisheries – it's called "process-based restoration" – is the future. It's not just about removing archaic dams and putting curves and woody debris back into broken and degraded creeks. It's about beavers, muck and mire and willow thickets, floodplains and aquifers, wildfire and wetlands, gra...