Remember the joy of playing in creeks as a kid—building structures with sticks, stones, mud and a lot of imagination? That same spirit of curiosity and creativity is driving a quiet revolution across the western United States, where TNC, partners and local communities are restoring wet meadows and riparian corridors in the face of climate change.
On a crisp morning in northwest Colorado, Joseph Leonhard, The Nature Conservancy’s Riparian Restoration Project Manager, wades into Yellow Creek—a tributary of the White River. With deliberate care, he places sticks and mud in a pattern that echoes the engineering genius of beavers, which once shaped this landscape. His work slows the rush of snowmelt and summer rains, allowing sediment to settle and water to linger. Over time, these simple, hand-built structures begin to transform the ecosystem—nurturing native plants, attracting wildlife, reducing wildfire risk and bolstering resilience to drought.
This is low-tech process based restoration (LTPBR), and it’s reshaping the future of fresh water in Colorado and beyond. Through partnership and collaboration, TNC is advancing LTPBR and other nature-based solutions in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. We are focused on landscapes that would benefit from slowing down and spreading out water in order to combat the impacts of drought and climate change and to enable restoration and resilience.
Sometimes, nature gives us positive feedback on our efforts. At Coldharbour Ranch in Colorado’s Gunnison Basin, TNC supported a project to restore habitat in a dry pasture. Crews installed 10 beaver mimicry structures to slow water flow through the area. The ranch team planned to expand the project with some heavy earth-moving equipment but ended up not needing to do so as North American beavers appeared and began to expand the human-built structures on their own! Their work resulted in significant improvement in the habitat, and workers at the ranch recently spotted moose coming back to that area of the Basin.
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Having won wildlife’s stamp of approval, TNC is pursuing ways to use nature-based solutions wisely in a variety of settings.
Leonhard, based in Grand Junction, leads low-tech riparian restoration projects for TNC in the Yampa and White River basins on Colorado’s Western Slope. This year, TNC hosted three field-based restoration events with volunteers and field crews that improved an estimated 3.7 river miles. Work happened in Meadow, Yellow and Willow creeks on the Western Slope. TNC has also begun sponsoring an annual LTPBR workshop to train local leaders and natural resource professionals in using these techniques so that we can build partner capacity to implement restoration across the state.
“It’s easy to overlook small tributaries,” says Leonhard. “Yet, work from each community across our seven states adds up to a cumulative impact that benefits waterways as large and important as the Colorado River.”
Plans are in the works to install nearly 200 LTPBR structures in the Yampa and White River basins next year. We’re also supporting LTPBR projects in Southwest Colorado’s San Miguel River Basin and in the Upper South Platte watershed on the Front Range. We want to expand the type of landscapes—from forests to the sagebrush sea—where LTPBR can be used to build resilience to disasters, benefit fish and wildlife, and support sustainable ranching and other local economies.
As climate change impacts Colorado and the West, understanding how to apply the right tool at the right time can make a measurable difference in the ability of Colorado’s watersheds and communities to adapt.
Our Work in Colorado
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