In its approach to river conservation, Forever Our Rivers is not unlike a river system itself, channeling resources from various sources into programs that sustain the entire watershed.
“Forever Our Rivers was started by a group of people who had done river restoration projects throughout the Southwest,” said Executive Director Ann Johnston. “During discussions about the gap in funding to meet the endless needs of river conservation projects, the group’s founders decided to focus on developing additional funding streams to support closing that gap.”
Formed in 2018, Forever Our Rivers focuses on two primary programs: Community Grants and Southwest Rivers Grants. The funds that Forever Our Rivers raises are given to high-performing local nonprofits in the Southwest working on river restoration projects at the watershed level. 2022 Southwest Rivers grantees include the Gila Watershed Partnership of Arizona, Friends of the Verde River, Grand Staircase Escalante Partners, and RiversEdge West. 2022 Community grant recipients include Colorado Canyons Association, Colorado West Land Trust, High Country Conservation Advocates, and the Western Slope Conservation Center.
By acquiring funding, collecting and sharing data, and distributing funding through grants, Forever Our Rivers connects businesses and individuals wanting to make a difference with proven river restoration projects.
Creating the next generation of river conservationists
Community grants focus on improving wetlands and wildlife habitat, sustaining flows, and connecting communities—including introducing kids to river experiences, which is part of the group’s diversity equity initiatives. Johnston said she’d recently seen a statement from NOAA that “Most Americans live within a mile of a river or a stream,” and it brought to mind Forever Our Rivers’ intent to focus on equitable river conservation.
“We want to ensure that a waterway in an inner city receives as much concern and care as a river in a beautiful, pristine area,” she said. “That’s part of why we want to get kids out on rivers. We want them to come from diverse communities and have knowledge of their local river. You can’t love something that you don’t know. If we can get them out enjoying rivers and understanding how beneficial they are, we can create the next generation of conservationists.”
Even for families who don’t have the financial resources to invest in gear like paddleboards and kayaks, Johnston has seen one-day events spark interest that she believes will bring benefits in their lives beyond that day.
“One of my favorite moments was seeing a young boy getting out on the water on a paddleboard,” she said. “He was really intimidated, he didn’t have the same clothing that other paddlers did. But when he got out there and paddled a bit, he had the brightest smile. He just lit up.”
Focus on monitoring and maintenance sparks interest from Walton Family Foundation
Forever Our Rivers created its second grant program, the Southwest Rivers Stewardship Fund, after its work with community programs caught the attention of the Walton Family Foundation. The Foundation’s initial investment of $1.5 million, in addition to individual donations, funds restoration projects in four ecologically significant tributaries to the Colorado River in the Southwest—the Dolores River in Colorado, the Escalante River in Utah, and the Gila and Verde Rivers in New Mexico and Arizona. The Southwest Rivers program focuses on removing invasive species and supporting native species.
Johnston said that Forever Our Rivers’ focus on monitoring and maintenance—one of the mundane but essential elements of a success restoration program—drove the partnership with the Walton Family Foundation.
“Monitoring and maintenance is the non-sexy piece of a project,” Johnston said. “When you’re pitching a project to a donor, sometimes you can connect with them by talking about the joy that this project will bring to a child or how much habitat this project is going to restore and how important it’s going to be for wildlife.”
But after a project is completed and the results celebrated comes the hard work of ensuring that the gains don’t erode over time.
“Rivers are always moving and the weather is always changing,” said Johnston. “If you don’t monitor the project, you could lose the value of the project. Monitoring involves consistently visiting the project to determine whether changes that have occurred are good changes or something that needs to be addressed. Maintenance is a similar effort. For example, with the removal of the invasive tamarisk, you’ll get re-sprouts, so you need to go back in and treat those new sprouts. The Walton Family Foundation has put millions of dollars into the Colorado River system, and by monitoring and maintaining, we’re extending that financial investment so those projects don’t revert back to the way they used to be.”
Building dams the way the beavers would
Some recent Forever Our Rivers projects that have excited Johnston use low-tech process-based restoration (LT-PBR), a technique that involves using natural materials (rocks, mud, grasses) and very few tools to mimic natural processes that aren’t working because of changes in the environment.
“As one example, in Colorado a group was creating beaver dam analogs and sod bumps in degraded drainages that were historic wetlands,” said Johnston. “The beavers were extirpated, so this group mimicked natural beaver dams to slow and spread the water so that the floodplain and riparian areas could reconnect to the river.
Happily, a couple of years after that project started, a couple of beavers had returned to the area. “That’s exactly what you want to have happen,” she said. “The long-term success of this project depends on beavers.”
Another example of LT-PBR in projects in Forever Our Rivers’ project bank is building Zuni bowls, a riparian restoration technique using rocks and water to slow the water flow in an ephemeral stream that’s eroding.
“A Zuni bowl is built with rocks where a stream is head-cutting,” said Johnston. “Layers of drops are created that slow and spread water, improving soil moisture content so that the native vegetation can grow, lessening erosion and sediment contributions.”
Making watersheds more resilient
Forever Our Rivers’ focus for 2023 will remain making watersheds more resilient—particularly as the frequency of wildfires increases—through steady growth, especially in its community grants program. Aside from the Walton Family Foundation grant and a few other foundations, Forever Our Rivers receives funding primarily from individuals.
One innovative funding source that Forever Our Rivers uses is cause marketing, which connects corporations with environmentally conscious consumers interested in river conservation.
“It’s a win-win,” said Johnston. “We created a trademarked logo and offer that to companies to display in exchange for a financial gift. If there are two companies selling the same items, many customers would prefer to buy from the one that they can see is supporting river conservation.”
Johnston said that Forever Our Rivers is focused on growth —through foundation grants, cause-marketing efforts, and individual donations.
“We just want to get more of these great projects funded,” Johnston said. “The need right now couldn’t be more critical. This is what we need to be working on here as a nation. We need to be protecting our rivers and watersheds.”
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