Focusing Freshwater Efforts in Specific Locations

Documents and Papers:

Strategically focusing efforts at specific locations

Documents on Measuring Success and Adaptive Management

Related Information:

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Site Stories: Lessons Learned

Conservation practitioners are attracted to specific places for a particular reason—it has a particular assemblage of species worthy of conservation, it's patterns and processes are relatively intact, there is great local interest in conservation issues, etc. Such places may also be identified by rigorous analysis of regional data, patterns, and information about intact processes. The Nature Conservancy has identified hundreds of conservation areas through ecoregional conservation planning where it is or will work with multi-disciplinary teams to pursue breakthroughs and abate threats to freshwater biodiversity.

Once a place and the underlying biodiversity and ecosystem functions of interest to conservation practitioners have been identified, practitioners need to determine how best to conserve both the biota and the environmental conditions and biotic interactions that sustain them in their watershed context. For more information about the process adopted by The Nature Conservancy, please see our documents on how to strategically focus efforts at specific locations as well as our documents on measuring success and adaptive management.

Developing Breakthrough Conservation Strategies
In communities across the Americas, Conservancy site teams are working with private and public partners-from farmers to federal water managers-to reduce the most pervasive threats to freshwater ecosystems: altered natural water flows, altered water quality, and non-native aquatic species. Solving these complex problems requires creative and innovative strategies, consensus building and significant resources. By making strategic investments in demonstration projects that serve as practical models for more widespread adoption by others, we have been able to magnify our conservation impact.

The Conservancy has been testing and improving freshwater conservation practices at over 40 freshwater conservation areas in the United States, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Many of these conservation areas have made substantial progress in conservation planning, building partnerships, assessing alternative management strategies, setting appropriate conservation goals, and implementing innovative and appropriately-scaled strategies and cost-effective monitoring programs. Notable successes include progress in getting water managers to modify dam operations and getting farmers to reduce pollution by applying innovative new approaches at the scale necessary to demonstrate measurable improvement in ecological conditions. Please learn more about these stories and lessons learned through the following links:

Map of Conservancy Freshwater Conservation Action Areas
Stories and Lessons Learned:

Links to additional web resources related to specific system types or strategy areas
A wide range of useful information exists accessible through the internet on topics which are critical to freshwater biodiversity conservation. The following categories include links to some of the more useful information currently available and relevant to meeting the challenge of freshwater biodiversity conservation.