AMY BOWERS CORDALIS

Amy Bowers Cordalis is a devoted advocate for Indigenous rights and environmental restoration. A member of the Yurok Tribe from the village of Rek-Woi at the mouth of the Klamath River in Northern California, she is a fisherwoman, attorney, and mother deeply rooted in the traditions of her people. As the co-founder and Executive Director of Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group, Amy leads efforts to support tribes in protecting their sovereignty, lands, and waters, including spearheading the historic Klamath Dam Removal project—one of the world’s largest river restoration and dam removal initiatives.

Amy’s commitment to her people and their rights is part of a family legacy of advocacy. Her family’s landmark Supreme Court case, Mattz v. Arnett, reaffirmed the status of the Yurok Reservation as Indian Country, laying the foundation for the Tribe's sovereignty and federally reserved water and fishing rights. As former General Counsel for the Yurok Tribe and a staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, Amy has championed numerous legal and environmental causes. She has been recognized as a Time 100 climate leader and Grist 50 climate and justice leader. Amy continues to focus her work on Klamath River restoration, including dam removal, water rights, and fisheries issues, and is the author of the upcoming book The Water Remembers.

Undammed

After witnessing a massive fish kill on her ancestral home waters, Yurok tribal attorney Amy Bowers Cordalis dedicated her life to reversing the generations-long destruction wrought by the Klamath River dams. Undammed follows her journey to free the Klamath, from testifying before Congress to passing down fishing traditions within her young family. Now that the Klamath dams are finally coming down, she remains confident that the future of her tribe is bright. “It’s not a test,” Bowers Cordalis says of the largest dam-removal project in US history. “It will work.”

Our Sacred Obligation

Our Sacred Obligation recounts the history of the Yurok Tribe’s struggle against the colonization of the Klamath River, which has sustained them since time immemorial. A land reclamation project and a series of dams have brought the Klamath River salmon populations to the brink of extinction. But the Yurok are fighting back. Propped up by their ancestors, and the recent success of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe on the Elwha River, the Yurok are using their sovereignty to fulfill their sacred obligation to bring the dams down and restore the river.