Why we blew up four dams — and saved a river | Amy Bowers Cordalis

For thousands of years, the Klamath River in Northern California was home to one of the continent’s great salmon runs, creating abundance for the native Yurok Tribe … until a series of dams and a century of extraction nearly destroyed it. Indigenous advocate Amy Bowers Cordalis helped lead the fight to take down those dams — the largest removal of its kind in US history. She offers a roadmap for communities everywhere working to protect and restore the places they call home.

(Following her talk, Cordalis joins Elise Hu to talk about her journey becoming a lawyer to fight for the Klamath River dam removal. She shared a story about the time her grandmother and great-grandmother faced down a team of federal marshals from a tiny rowboat, in a standoff that somehow involved… underwear.)