For anyone who’s caught, smoked, or eaten salmon, crab, shrimp, or seaweed, it almost goes without saying. Here in Southeast Alaska, we have an incredibly rich and increasingly rare resource. We call it clean water.

Clean water is what makes Southeast Alaska strong. Which is why in the summer of 2014, the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council initiated its Inside Passage Waterkeeper program to focus exclusively on our most sacred resource.

Inside Passage Waterkeeper is part of the International Waterkeeper Alliance, an alliance of small, grassroots groups who care for, protect, and restore their local bodies of water. Other chapters include the Puget Soundkeeper and Klamath Riverkeeper down south, and the Cook Inletkeeper on the Kenai Peninsula. The Southeast Alaska chapter is focused only on local issues with an advisory council of Southeast fishermen, fish eaters, Alaska Native tribal members, and biologists. Its mission is straightforward and simple: to keep Southeast Alaska’s clean water clean.

Inside Passage Waterkeeper makes it easy to join the people-powered movement to protect clean water in Southeast. Got a sec? Sign the petition. Got cool skills or extra time? Volunteer. Got money? Donate.