The Yaak Headwaters Restoration Partnership Project was initiated by YVFC in 1999 for the purpose of building collaborative relationships with the end goal of improving habitat for the sensitive and nearly extirpated redband rainbow trout.  Headwaters Group project partners include YVFC, USFS, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Trout Unlimited, and Cutthroat Trout Foundation.

Since 1999,  YVFC has coordinated over 400 miles of stream surveys that are carried out by trained, local residents, as well as numerous stream bank stabilization projects to reduce sediment load in these mountain streams.

The Headwaters Project has helped YVFC create local training, job, and business opportunities based in restoration rather than extraction, while building relationships with local residents as well as state and federal agency land managers.  Through our Headwaters Project we continue to employ over half a dozen local residents throughout much of the summer with work directly involved with habitat restoration and data collection activities.  In addition, myriad local contractors, from excavator operators to revegetation crews worked on field projects directly related to the Headwaters Project. 

In 2004 over $70,000 in restoration specific grant funding was secured and utilized within the community and within the ecosystem for data collection and field implementation activities.   The amount of restoration dollars that YVFC and other Headwaters Group partners have have secured through this project over the past five years is nearly $250,000.

Also in 2004, the Headwaters Group decommissioned a five-mile highly degraded road that was identified as one of the largest sources of sediment in the entire East Fork of the Yaak River, which is one of very few remaining strongholds for native redband trout.  Much of the road was recontoured, revegetated, and converted into a non-motorized trail that runs through grizzly bear core recovery habitat.

In 2005 we began a large scale habitat restoration project in the North Callahan watershed, just south of the Yaak Valley, that will decommission over 24 miles of degraded logging roads between two roadless areas in a watershed that is a bulltrout and redband fishery.

We have just ended another successful year with the completion of the Callahan Creek Restoration project, Phase II. Overall, the 2006 work plan included 365 water bars, 70 stream crossings, 53 culvert removals, 1 bridge removal and 2 miles of trail construction. We are in the process of compiling the final reports on this work and gathering up our photos and will share this information in our spring 2007 newsletter. We completed our sediment source surveys for the headwaters of the Yaak River. Next steps for this part of the project will be to input the new data and update existing data bases, merging them into a GIS mapping system that will both identify problem areas that still need our attention, and track restoration work that has been completed.

This past spring, we along with other interested groups convened a meeting with interested parties to discuss the potential and possibilities for a transboundary restoration project. We identified areas of concern along the Montana, Idaho and Canadian borders. After reviewing maps, discussing on-going projects and how they connect to each other, we decided to begin small and initiate a Yahk to Yaak project which would link Yahk, BC and Yaak, Montana. Next steps for this project will be to establish the boundaries of the project area and map, contact other groups working in the project area, and define and prioritize restoration projects within the set boundaries. Our next meeting will be November 2006. An update on the progress of this new project will be included in our spring newsletter.