The Nature Conservancy Releases Preliminary Study on Critical Actions needed in the Upper Mississippi River Basin
Chicago, Ill.—30 Sept. 2004—The Upper Mississippi River (UMR) basin, with its vast network of freshwater lakes, marshes and rivers, is a destination, an essential link for communities and a means of commercial transportation. The river is experiencing severe habitat loss and degradation, resulting in harm to plants and animals, causing lost opportunities for communities in the basin.
The Nature Conservancy, with the contribution of partners representing 22 organizations, undertook a large-scale study to identify actions critical to protecting the large network of freshwater diversity in the UMR basin. The preliminary results, summarized in the plan “Restoring the Upper Mississippi River and its Networks of Tributaries,” are being shared with others throughout the basin.
“Working together and continuing to build these partnerships is critical to protecting this vital resource,” said Conservancy President Steve McCormick. “A system-wide perspective brings into context the importance of looking past borders and boundaries, past individual organizations and agencies, to determine what actions are best for the basin, what is best for the species that depend on the natural ebb and flow of the vast river system,” McCormick said.
Building on previous scientific work and input from contributing partners, the study looks at the current health and threats to freshwater biodiversity. Preliminary findings identified main threats as: incompatible operation of the waterway system, invasive species, loss and isolation of floodplain habitats, incompatible agricultural field practices, and climate change. Critical attributes of the ecosystem have been altered, but are restorable.
Actions that could protect and conserve the freshwater biodiversity of the UMR basin include reducing sediment, nutrient and chemical loads; restoring ecological functions on the floodplains; naturalizing the flow regime in priority areas; restoring connectivity by enhancing fish passage; and by reducing ecological degradation caused by invasive species.
“A challenge faced by groups working to protect the UMR is to direct resources more effectively to priority sites, while at the same time safeguarding the larger ecosystem connecting and sustaining those sites,” said Michael Reuter, Upper Mississippi River coordinator for The Nature Conservancy. “Working together on this plan, we learned a great deal about what our goals and priorities must be to conserve this great ecosystem. On a system this large and complex, it will be a challenge measuring the impact of our actions and adapting our approach as we learn more information,” he said.
The plan is the second step in the strategic, science-based planning process the Conservancy uses called Conservation by Design. Last fall, the Conservancy and NatureServe released the first step, a two-year study titled “Conservation Priorities for Freshwater Biodiversity in the Upper Mississippi River Basin,” that identified the highest priority places for conservation in the seven-state region. It was the first comprehensive study of the freshwater ecosystems of the entire UMR basin.
Over the next few years the plan will evolve, as the Conservancy and the other partners consider how to implement a shared and rigorous adaptive management plan for the river ecosystem.
The UMR basin includes a vast network of rivers and streams, from Lake Itasca in Minnesota to Cairo, Illinois, including the Illinois River. One of the largest and most-complex floodplain-river systems in the world, the basin contains critical conservation areas in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
The preliminary conservation plan was released in September at a joint meeting of Conservancy trustees from Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin. The plan can be downloaded by accessing http://nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/illinois/files/umr_plan_final.pdf
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