RFA List

RFA River Blogs

The Rivers Foundation is pleased to introduce new blog oportunities to our site. In addition to our founder Pete Lavigne's "President's Blog", we have expanded the blogging capability of the site and blogs are now available to organizations and activists whom RFA supports directly with funds and other activities in our strategic watersheds.

RFA Financials

We use your donations expertly and efficiently to reach our goals. Ensuring that your donations are wisely spent is the cornerstone of our values, vision and strategy for future growth. Approximately 75% of our revenues go directly to programs, 14% to fundraising and 12% on administration, rent and similar items. These are good ratios for any organization and great ones for a small, new organization like ours. See our IRS Form 990 Returns below (990s are returns of organizations exempt from income tax).

RFA 990 FY 2002.pdf

RFA 990 FY 2003.pdf

RFA 990 FY 2004.pdf

RFA 990 FY 2005.pdf

We need your vision and help to reach our financial and program goals. The last few years have proven to be tough for new organizations with big international visions.

When we opened our operations in August of 2001, we had a $1 million endowment pledge in hand and invitations to apply for a total of $500,000 in start-up operating funds for 2002. Then came September 11th. By the end of October 2001, the operating fund invitations had been withdrawn and the dot com company that had given the endowment pledge went bankrupt. We've certainly had our ups and downs, as evidenced by our Income vs. Expenditure Chart 2002-2004.pdf.

We've persevered and built a substantial array of programs and publications, and supported a handful of organizations by building a loyal small donor base and using thousands of hours of donated expertise. You can help us rocket off this base by making a major donation to our operating or endowment funds.

We thank you for your generosity! All gifts, huge or tiny, make a difference.

The Rivers Foundation of the Americas' Pledge

Our Promises To You...

Our goal is to forge a long-term partnership with you and your family. By treating you with respect, we hope to become the international foundation you trust to put your beliefs into action for a healthy world. This is the pledge that we make to you:

1. We will use your gift in the most efficient way possible.
2. We will offer various communication options, so you can choose how, and how often, you hear from us.
3. We will remove your name from our mailing list, email list or telephone solicitation list at any time, at your request.
4. We take your Internet privacy very seriously. You can opt-out of our email list at any time, and we will not share your email address with any other organization or business.
5. We post our Privacy Policy on our website. To view it, click here.
6. We will honor your confidence in us by maintaining the highest standards in our fundraising and program operations.
7. We will publish a summary of our financial statement each year on our webpage.
8. Our complete financial statement is available upon request at any time.

If you would like to speak to us about any of the options listed above, or if you have any questions, please call 503-274-7704 or email

Frequently Asked Questions

“How is the Rivers Foundation different from River Network or International Rivers Network or American Rivers or my local river group?”
RFA is totally different from these organizations. We are a public foundation (also known as a community foundation). This means that we are establishing endowment funds in order to solicit proposals from and give grants to groups like (and possibly including) some of those listed above. We will use our staff and board expertise working with these groups and many others like them to give grants for effective river conservation, protection and restoration in critical areas throughout North, Central and South America. Our board and staff combined has over 150 years experience working on river watershed protection and restoration. We have learned what works and where innovative approaches to environmental and human health problems and biodiversity protection can make a big difference.

By contrast, River Network and American Rivers are national river protection groups in the United States. River Network concentrates on providing technical, strategic and fundraising experience to local and statewide river watershed groups throughout the United States. American Rivers largely works on national policy in Congress. International Rivers Network (IRN - co-founded by RFA Board member Mark Dubois) works on river protection strategies throughout the world. RFA President Peter Lavigne has worked for both River Network and American Rivers, and has also worked closely with IRN on various river campaigns over the years. RFA will bring new sources of funds to support the work of these and like-minded groups throughout the Americas.

“What is a "public" or "community" foundation?”
You may be familiar with private foundations like the Ford or the Gates Foundations. These are privately funded organizations, "internally" supported by the family or corporation they represent. Public foundations rely on funding from a variety of individuals and companies and are governed by an independent Board of Directors. The funds are combined in permanent endowments which provide interest income used for grant making in perpetuity - new grants year after year, decade after decade. RFA's 'community' is broad and diverse - the peoples and places of North, Central and South America.

“Who is on the Rivers Foundation team?”
Our team includes national and international visionaries:

• Trudy Coxe, the former executive director of SAVE THE BAY, former Republican Secretary of Environmental Affairs in Massachusetts and former director of the Office of Coastal Resources Management of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington DC.

• Mark Dubois cofounder of Friends of the River in California and International Rivers Network, and "etc"--Environmental Traveling Companions--which guides inner city and disabled youth down whitewater rivers.

• Chuck Hudson, a Hidatsa tribe member who was flooded out of his family home by the Fort Berthold reservoir in North Dakota as a young child, and who currently serves as the Public Affairs Manager of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.

“What else is special about the Rivers Foundation?”
We will bring new sources of funds to underserved groups and areas. The RFA Board of Directors has adopted three significant policies regarding our grant making and support efforts:

• Focus on the Americas - First, we focus on all the Americas and it is our policy that over time approximately two-thirds of our funding will go to Central and South America.

• Indigenous Peoples - Second, it is our goal that a priority of our funding overall in North, Central and South America is to support the efforts of indigenous peoples and organizations for conservation, protection and restoration of rivers and their watersheds in the Americas.

• Systemic Solutions: Human Health, Sustainable Population and Biodiversity Protection. - Third, we are committed to the idea that all people deserve to breathe clean air, live on uncontaminated lands and drink clean life-generating water. That simple statement includes the idea that a healthy environment leads to healthy, happy and prosperous people. We believe that in many areas throughout the Americas human health, population and quality of life concerns have to be integrated with biodiversity protection and ecosystem restoration. To put it another way, until we deal with human health problems and population growth, in many areas there is no way to ensure environmental health.

“I still don't understand, what is so special about the Rivers Foundation that makes it worth donating my money to?”
Our implementation team—Board of Directors, CEO and Advisory Board—has an extraordinary record of producing results throughout the Americas and around the world. We know how to locate and leverage River CPR leaders, and we know why and how to strategically supply grants and support for those leaders in critical areas of opportunity throughout the Americas.

We will provide grants to groups and areas which are not being reached by existing funding sources and where that new source of money can make a significant difference in river protection and restoration. This means that we will target carefully selected river watersheds for grant requests. The best way to ensure permanent environmental protection and restoration efforts in critical areas is to work with groups and people who care about specific rivers and who have the vision to work with diverse strategies to protect those resources.

“How do you decide where to invest your endowments?”
Our Board has adopted an investment policy providing for:

• Strong fiduciary control of over all investments and cash by the Foundation's appointed custodians;
• Investments consistent with the Foundation's mission;
• Continual growth and secure preservation of capital
• Avoidance of inappropriate concentrations of investments, and
• Adequate liquidity to meet funding requirements.

We have also established an expert Investment Committee chaired by our Board Treasurer Hal T. Nelson, C.F.A. and which includes three outside experts in socially responsible and large fund investing.

“Are you establishing donor-advised funds like some other community foundations do?”
Many community foundations allow "donor advised funds" where the donor decides the specific use of the investment income from donations. Instead of creating potentially hundreds of small donor advised funds with high tracking and administrative costs, RFA has created three different River CPR endowments (Conservation, Preservation and Restoration funds) which give donors a comfortable array of activities to choose from.

“How much of my donation investment will actually go to river protection and restoration work?”
The RFA Board is dedicated to keeping overhead low and making sure that our endowment funds are used wisely for grants. When initial endowments are complete, our expert board and efficient staff and volunteers will keep RFA administrative costs below 15% of total annual expenditures.

“I noticed that you had a number of dignitaries and experts on your Advisory Board. What is the function of RFA's Advisory board?”
Our advisory board brings the significant experience and connections of people like former Governor of Oregon Barbara Roberts, renowned educator and environmental expert Professor David W. Orr, and Kevin Coyle, former president of American Rivers and current President of the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation to the service of the Rivers Foundation. Quite often, members of the Advisory Board will take a more active role by eventually joining the Board of Directors.

Privacy Policy

Our goal at the Rivers Foundation of the Americas (RFA) is to extend trust and respect to you on the web. We are committed to respecting the privacy rights of all visitors to our website. The following information details RFA's collection, protection, and use of the data we receive from visitors to this website.

Our goal at the Rivers Foundation of the Americas (RFA) is to extend trust and respect to you on the web. We are committed to respecting the privacy rights of all visitors to our website. The following information details RFA's collection, protection, and use of the data we receive from visitors to this website.

Information Collection

• While browsing - You browse riversfoundation.org anonymously. RFA does NOT use cookies (electronic information stored on your computer's hard drive). However, we do track overall traffic patterns at riversfoundation.org and through links clicked on our email communications. We use this information to gauge public interest and to help us serve you better.
• Email updates - RFA program updates provide information on RFA's mission to promote and fund river protection and restoration throughout the Americas. In order to receive these updates you must provide RFA with your email address. Rest assured, your email will be used for RFA program purposes only, and we will NOT sell, rent or trade this information to a third party. Certain email update promotional activities may require your name for database recognition purposes. This information will be held in complete confidence, and it will NOT be sold, rented or traded. In addition, you will be given the option to remove your name from our email list at the bottom of each email update, on our site at the 'email update' section, or by emailing the webmaster with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line.
• Online donations - Our goal is to forge a long-term partnership with you. Your donations make the RFA mission possible. We value and appreciate the trust that accompanies your online donation. The information you provide (your name, address, email, etc.) is stored in a secure location and protected by security procedures. It will never be sold or rented to a third party. To serve you better, we may contact you in the future to inform you about RFA' response to the needs of river protection and restoration in North, Central and South America. We will offer various mailing options, so you can choose how often you hear from us. RFA will remove your name from our mailing list, email list or telephone solicitation list at any time, at your request. We also publish a summary of our financial statements each year in our Annual Report, and our complete financial statement will be available upon request at any time. RFA uses the services of outside vendors to complete the online donation process. These vendors adhere to RFA' commitment to privacy and security. However, if you should have a concern please contact us directly, and we will do our utmost to correct the problem.

Thank you for your interest in RFA and our privacy policy. If you would like more information about the options discussed herein or simply have questions, please feel free to contact us via email at info@riversfoundation.org or call us at 503-274-7704.

News Archive

Search RFA's archived news database.

Rivers Foundation History

Read about the inception and development of the Rivers Foundation. Through the dedication and hard work of the board, staff, and volunteers, RFA is becoming a force in watershed conservation, protection, and restoration.

The Rivers Foundation of the Americas was conceived in 2000 with the goal of forming a large initial endowment upon which we would base our grant making, organizational policy and program work. Our business plan relied upon several invitations from large foundations for seed funding to hire staff and launch our programs and endowment campaign. We also received a pledge for a $1 million dollar endowment donation from a Portland, Oregon based dot com company.

We opened our office in August 2001 and the worldwide economic and security collapses that followed in September quickly rendered our business plan irrelevant. The operating grant invitations were withdrawn, and the million dollar endowment pledge vanished into that dot com company’s bankruptcy.

We regrouped and reprioritized and since 2001 a remarkably accomplished and committed board, staff and large core of volunteers has built the infrastructure and programs of the Rivers Foundation of the Americas into a substantial and growing core of programs and accomplishments.

We received over 4800 hours of volunteer labor from our CEO, board members and various other highly skilled and committed volunteers in FY 2003. Our infrastructure now includes 5 fully outfitted computer workstations, a sophisticated internal network, and a new web and email communications plan which is being implemented with assistance from ONE/Northwest and Nterrobang Design through 2004.

We are expanding and changing the nature of our board of directors to reflect our changes in focus in 2001-2004 while keeping our eyes on the permanent goal of the Rivers Foundation of the Americas: to bring substantial new funds, organizational and policy support to the efforts of innovative and effective individuals and their organizations in critical large watersheds throughout North, Central and South America.

Why Give to RFA?

Think of the great rivers of the Americas—the Yukon, Columbia, Colorado, Mississippi, the Usumacincta, Azul, and Coco, the Orinoco, Amazon, and Parana. Now think of the millions of people who live, work and play along side these rivers. Such rivers and hundreds of others are the life-sustaining arteries of the Earth. Sadly their pulse is weakening.

The once stable life-sustaining arteries of the Americas are now clogged and hurting. In many areas they are in grave danger of stroke and collapse. The gradual demise of our rivers threatens the integrity of the land they sustain:

• Most years the Colorado River no longer reaches the Gulf of California. The Colorado Delta and estuary, which only 80 years ago was glowing with a wealth of fish and fowl, is now a nearly lifeless dry stretch of salt covered desert.
• The Mississippi River carries and delivers so many pollutants through its arteries that the water discharged by it producesa huge biological "dead zone" in the heart ofthe Gulf of Mexico.
• The fires ignited to clear the Amazon rainforest wreak havoc on the water supply and are so massive that they can be seen from space.
• Through the persistence of dams, diversions, developmentand pollution, the lives and cultures of native peoples from the Arctic Circle to the Tierra del Fuego are threatened.
• Economic improvement in the Willamette River valley in Oregon from 1995-2000 nearly doubled legal discharges of poisonous chemicals to over 8.5 million pounds annually. (Source: Under the Surface: Willamette Riverkeeper's State of the Willamette, 2000. More info at Willamette Riverkeeper)

FRESHWATERFACTS Only 2.5% of the Earth's water is fresh. Of that only 0.6% available for use - only 0.3% is annually renewable. 1 out of 6 people worldwide do not have safe drinking water. Half the world's population suffers water services inferior to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Groundwater aquifers are depleting as the rate of pumping exceeds the rate of replenishment throughout the Americas. More than 40% of all freshwater fish are rare or endangered in the United States. 51% of crayfish and 67% of mollusks are rare, extinct or highly endangered.

The wonderful biodiversity of life many take for granted is in danger of living only in our memories and history books. Even the simple, yet vital ability to provide our children with clean and healthy drinking water is impossible for approximately 100 million people in the Americas and more than 1 billion people around the world.

This is where the Rivers Foundation of the Americas steps in. RFA employs extensive knowledge of ecosystem protection, human health and social justice issues, and river watershed organizations to implement strategic objectives through discerning grantmaking. The "Watershed Approach" guides the Foundation's activities. This method recognizes that threats to a river's integrity can come from a variety of sources: roads and automobiles, dams and reservoirs, urban runoff, agriculture, natural resource extraction, inefficient energy use, population growth, political inequities, and the cumulative effect of legal industrial effluents among many other threats.

By looking at the big picture, the Rivers Foundation of the Americas can fund and leverage a variety of programs that traditional riverbank approaches would not have recognized. The Foundation works closely with a diverse network of experts and watershed and other conservation groups to address the problems that diverse modern societies place on river ecosystems. RFA is dedicated to promoting and funding the protection and restoration of rivers in the Americas.

Three Major Catastrophic Trends

Our ecosystems are being overwhelmed by three trends resulting in massive ecological disruption:

Your Age	World Pop. When Born (in billions)	Pop. Increase Since Born
10	5.20	17%
20	4.27	39%
30	3.62	68%
40	2.96	105%
50	2.48	145%
60	2.19	177%
70	2.05	197%
80	1.91	219%

• Human population growth
  Worldwide population hit six billion people in 1999 with projections of another two to six billion people by 2050, depending on various catastrophic scenarios.
• Pollution runoff
  Polluted or poisonous runoff is the greatest source of water quality problems in the United States. Poisonous runoff includes: Fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, animal waste, salts from evaporated irrigation water, and silt from deforestation runoff from land and flow into ground and surface water. Agriculture is the most extensive source of water pollution, affecting 70% of impaired rivers and streams.
• The chemicalization of the land
  In 1960, prior to the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, roughly 3.3 pounds of pesticides and herbicides were used perperson in the United States. The population of the UnitedStates has nearly doubled since 1960 . . . in 1990 weapplied over 8 pounds of herbicides and pesticides perperson in this country. (See Our Stolen Future, Theo Colburn, John Peterson Myers, Diane Dumanoski.) We have now chemicalized our soils to a level that is almost inconceivable resulting in the loss of the soil's vibrancy.

Bequests & Planned Giving

Where there's a will, there's a way. By including The Rivers Foundation of the Americas in your will you could protect a river for years.

The Leave a Legacy Program

The Rivers Foundation of the Americas is pleased to announce our participation in the Leave a Legacy Program. The goal of the Leave a Legacy Program is simple: A campaign to help educate people from all walks of life as to the possibility and importance of making a charitable bequest in their will to the charity of their choice. It is not to highlight any one nonprofit in our area.

We have all heard stories of how a charitable bequest benefited a nonprofit in our area. We want you to know that the Rivers Foundation of the Americas can receive and will benefit from these types of gifts. The more people who become aware of this valuable type of giving the more it can impact the nonprofits like us.

Americans are very generous people. Annually, we donate billions to charities - and the amount increases about 10% each year. However, less than 6% of this donated money comes through bequests from wills or estate gifts. In the years ahead, over $10 trillion nationally will be inherited by middle-aged children from their parents. Both these heirs and charities can benefit from a charitable gift to nonprofits. Such gifts provide a decrease to ultimate Estate Tax collected by the government.

Many of us are able to give generously of our time and sometimes of our talents and treasure during our lifetime. With a thoughtful, well-planned gift such as a bequest by will, we can discover ways to make a significant gift to charities like ours. Gifts may be in the form of money, property, investments or a portion of an estate. Tax benefits for you, your estate, and ultimately your heirs may be a result of this type of gift. We encourage you to consult your attorney, accountant or financial advisor to help determine the type of gift that is right for you.

To ensure that your gift reverts to the Rivers Foundation of the Americas, we suggest the following wording be included in your Will or any Trust document:

“I devise to (or Upon the Dissolution of this Trust) (or make as Beneficiary) Rivers Foundation of the Americas, an Oregon Non-Profit Corporation, IRS EID #: 93-1310665 the sum of $____ (or the __% of the Estate) (or all the rest, residue and remainder of my Estate or Trust) to be used for carrying out its mission. (or specify a bequest to one or more of our three River CPR(tm) endowment funds: Conservation Endowment, Preservation Endowment, Restoration Endowment)”

Structuring an Estate Plan

The most important part of an Estate Plan is your own preparedness before writing or updating an actual plan. A poorly conceived Estate Plan can lead to added taxes, unhappy heirs and could possibly eliminate your charitable intents, such as a bequest/provision to the Rivers Foundation of the Americas.

Some basic rules of Estate Planning:

1. Choose Your Advisors. Retain advisors familiar with and who can clearly explain changing IRS regulations. A lawyer, CPA or Financial Planner specializing in estate and tax law should be able to explain the ramifications of types of Planned Gifts to reduce your estate taxes and benefit charities you support in easy to understand terms.
2. Come Prepared. Have your accounts and paperwork in order. Failure to give your advisor updated records - assets, accounts, life insurance, and personal property of value can result in unclaimed funds that would benefit your heirs and charities of your choice.
3. Give Thought on the Executor. Choose a Personal Representative that you trust and that will be able to complete the task of inventory, managing and acting in your best interest. Name an alternate also, in case that person cannot serve when time comes to execute your Estate Plan.
4. Anticipate Problems. Conflicts may arise from your Estate Plan. Leave directives to sell your personal property rather than have squabbles between your heirs on who should receive what items. Seek advise from your advisor on common difficulties.
5. Keep it simple. Your Estate Plan can be streamlined by thoughtful planning and guidance from professionals familiar with roadblocks that have happened to other poorly planned Estates.
6. Leave a Legacy. If you care about the Rivers Foundation of the Americas, plan to help "Endow An Annual Gift" to us in your Estate Plan. Simply multiply by '20' the annual donation you would like us to receive and make that provision or Bequest in your plan.

We encourage you to consult with your insurance, legal, or financial advisor on the feasibility of any type of Estate Plan that would benefit both you, your heirs and the Rivers Foundation of the Americas.

Updating Your Will

Once you have established your Estate Plan, it is tempting to file it away until it is needed. Instead, your Will, letters of instructions and documents need to be reviewed over the years. These plans should change to accommodate changes in your family, marital relationships, your financial assets and changing laws.

• Why Do I Need A Will? Making a Will shows awareness of the importance of proper planning. Your loved ones' needs can be met in ways best suited to each individual. Taxes and estate settlement costs also can be minimized with a valid and current Will.

  Statistics show that almost half of all Americans die without valid Wills. The unfortunate result is often wasted time and money for the surviving families. If you die without a valid Will or Estate Plan any property you own in your name is distributed according to state laws. Your Will lets you expand beyond this circle of relatives to include designated gifts to particular family members or friends and to make a charitable bequest to non-profits such as the Rivers Foundation of the Americas.

• When Should I Update My Will? Your Will assures that your wishes are followed when you die. If your family increases, or decreases, or your financial assets change, it is important that your Will reflect the current situation. Ideally, your Will and Estate Plan should be reviewed each year. It is a wise habit to ask your attorney to assist you in this regular process. You may need to update your affairs more frequently if your family, finances or charitable wishes change.

  No matter who you verbally tell of your new intentions about how you wish your funeral arrangement, financial assets and estate handled, it will make no difference to the probate court.

  Sometimes your personal situations are dramatically changed, but your family or beneficiaries can have their situation change. A regular review of your Will and your designated recipients can adjust for others life situations changing. A review can also be viewed with the changes in estate taxes that can dramatically affect the total worth of your assets passed through your Will.

• Is It Hard To Update My Will? Updating your Will need not be a time-consuming or costly process. If often requires only the addition of an amendment to your existing Will.

  The amendment to your Will is called a Codicil. It is a supplement to your Will that can modify, further explain, add, delete or revoke provisions in your valid Will. A Codicil is a legal document and should be written by your attorney in accordance with the state laws. If you need to adjust many parts of your Will according to your new wishes, interests and family situation, it may be best to have a new Will drafted. Both Codicils and new Will documents should be drafted by your attorney.

• How Can I Include Rivers Foundation of the Americas in My Will? Charitable bequests by Will can be an important source of help to Rivers Foundation of the Americas. There are several ways you may include when you update your Will:

  1. An outright bequest can be made for either a set amount or a percentage of your estate or percentage of any remainder after other distributions.

  2. Rivers Foundation of the Americas can receive your household furnishings or other valuables.

  3. Gifts by Will can be designated for a particular endowment fund at Rivers Foundation of the Americas, or left as unrestricted and used for the greatest need.

  4. To ensure that your gift reverts to RFA, we suggest that the following wording in your Will or Trust document:

     “I devise to (or Upon the Dissolution of this Trust) (or make as Beneficiary) Rivers Foundation of the Americas, an Oregon Non-Profit Corporation, IRS EID #: 93-1310665, the sum of $____ (or the __% of the Estate) (or all the rest, residue and remainder of my Estate or Trust) to be used for carrying out its mission. the sum of $____ (or the __% of the Estate) (or all the rest, residue and remainder of my Estate or Trust) to be used for carrying out its mission.”

Life Income Gifts

• Charitable Remainder Trusts: A charitable remainder trust is a separate trust established by a donor with a trustee of the donor's choosing. Two highly structured plans are describe in the Tax Reform Act of 1969: the Charitable Remainder Unitrust and the Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust. In each case, the donor make an irrevocable transfer of property to the trust; the donor retains the right to receive income and/or create an income interest for another person; the donor receives a partial income tax deduction in the year of the gift; the donor realizes no immediate capital gain tax on the transfer to or subsequent sale by the trust of appreciated property; and, at the end of the trust, usually at the death of the last income beneficiary, the remaining trust assets are added to or used to add to endowment funds RFA.

• Charitable Lead Trust: Under a charitable lead trust, the initial income beneficiary is RFA, but its interest terminates at a specified time and the trust continues for the benefit of or terminates in favor of one or more individuals, such as the donor's children or grandchildren.

• Charitable Gift Annuity: A charitable gift annuity is a contract between the donor and RFA. The donor transfers property (cash or marketable securities) to RFA in exchange for a fixed dollar payment to be received quarterly, semi-annually, or annually. The donor can name him/herself sole annuitant or designate another annuitant, either solely, concurrently, or consecutively. The donor may designate that, upon the death of the last annuitant, the unused portion be added to RFA's endowment funds.

Legal Requirements

If you intend to make a gift to RFA, please notify Peter Lavigne, President and CEO by calling (503) 274-7704. If necessary, we will talk with you and your legal advisor to structure and complete the type of gift that will benefit both you and our services and programs.

To ensure that your Planned Gift reverts to the Rivers Foundation of the Americas, please use the following designation language on any document:

1. Legal Name: Rivers Foundation of the Americas, Inc.

2. Tax Id Number: 93-1310665.

President’s Council

Steve Blackmer

President, Northern Forest Center. Former Director of Policy for the Appalachian Mountain Club; former VP Policy of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire's Forests; former Concord City Councilor.

David Bolling

Writer, Producer, Editor, Former Publisher, Whole Earth magazine. Film Producer, Living and Dying on Everest, 2001. Author, How to Save A River, Island Press 1994. Former newspaper editor and publisher.

Robert Dawson

Photographer and director of the Water in the West Project. Author Robert Dawson's Photographs; Co-author of the large format books Farewell Promised Land: Waking From the American Dream and The Great Central Valley: California's Heartland. Portfolios of his work have appeared in (among others) Between Home and Heaven: Contemporary American Landscape Photography, (Smithsonian Institution 1992); A River Too Far: The Past and Future of the Arid West; and Arid Waters: Photographs from the Water In the West Project. Dawson's photographs are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

John Echeverria, J.D.

Director of the Environmental Policy Project of the Georgetown University School of Law. Former General Counsel, National Audubon Society. Former Vice President Conservation of American Rivers. National expert on land use and 'takings' law.

John Gardiner, Ph.D., P.E., MBE

Director of WaterCycle LLC: Watershed Management for Ecosystem Integrity. Former Professor of Environmental Management in London and former Principal of the Pacific Northwest Branch of Philip Williams and Associates, San Francisco. Twenty-eight years experience in land and river management with the UK's National Rivers Authority and overseas. Author and editor of many publications, e.g., River Projects and Conservation: a Manual for Holistic Appraisal (1991). John has lectured widely in Europe, the USA, Argentina, Australia, China and Japan. In 1994, Queen Elizabeth II honored John for his contributions to the environment with an M.B.E. designation.

Peter Kirsch, J.D.

Partner, Kaplan, Kirsch and Rockwell, LLP, Denver, Colorado. Author of numerous articles in law reviews and other publications including High Country News. Pro bono lead counsel for the Kennebec Coalition and American Rivers regarding the Edwards Dam relicensing and removal case and pro bono counsel and argued in the U.S. Supreme Court the successful effort to stop the Two Forks Dam on the South Platte River. Former Board chair, River Network and General Counsel for Friends of the Earth, Washington D.C.

Edward C. Mattes, Jr.

Edward joined the Ogdon Partnership, an executive search firm, as a Partner in 1997. Ed's practice is focused on media, communications, entertainment and the Internet. Before joining Ogdon, he founded and headed UNISTAR, the private sector consulting arm of the United Nations. There his operation spanned more than seventy countries, advising private, state-owned and privatized companies in general management, marketing, strategic planning and product development since 1986.

Ed is Co-Chairman of the New York State Bar Association Committee of the United Nations, co-owner of the Ogden Raptors minor league baseball club, a Trustee of Vermont Law School and the Tuxedo Park School, and is a member of the Explorers Club. Ed served as EMT and member of the 1998 NASA/Yale/MIT Mt. Everest Extreme Expedition. Ed holds a J.D. from Vermont Law School, a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and participated in advanced studies at Cambridge University.

David W. Orr, Ph.D.

Professor and Director of Environmental Studies, Oberlin College. Education Editor for Conservation Biology Journal. Author of numerous articles and books including Ecological Literacy, Earth in Mind, and Design with Nature. Former Director and co-founder of the Meadowcreek Project in Arkansas.

Nancy Gaile Parent, NCTM

Vocal Coach, Piano Professor, Musician, Composer and Educator. Former performer of comic opera and cabaret songs in Portland, and Boston and other Eastern venues. Former faculty member of Portland State University and Cascade College. Owner, Parent Music Studio and co-owner Music Together of Lake Oswego and Tualatin.

Christine Perala, Ph.D.

Biogeomorphologist, Facilitator and President of WaterCycle LLC. Specialist in watershed assessment, soil bioengineering research, habitat integration and contemporary river engineering. Adjunct Professor of Watershed Management Professional Program, Executive Leadership Institute, Portland State University.

Brian Posewitz, J.D.

Attorney in private practice in Portland, Oregon. Brian includes pro bono conservation work in his practice. In a water rights case for WaterWatch, Brian successfully prevented the issuance of water use permits on three upper tributaries to the Middle Fork of the Malheur River in Eastern Oregon. Brian currently serves on the Board of WaterWatch of Oregon and on the ACLU of Oregon Lawyer's Committee. He has worked as a reporter for community newspapers in Clackamas County, Oregon, and as a correspondent for The Oregonian. He is a graduate of Willamette University and the University of Oregon Law School. A Montana native, Brian enjoys fishing, hunting and exploring Oregon's rivers by raft.

Mark Ritchie

Elected Minnesota's Secretary of State in November 2006, Mark Ritchie is the former president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. IATP promotes resilient family farms, rural communities, and ecosystems throughout the world through research, education, science, advocacy, and technology. IATP has programs in Agriculture and Environment, Fish and Marine Conservation, Food and Agriculture, Food and Health, Forestry, Global Governance, and Trade and Agriculture. Mark has served as Executive Director of the Center For Rural Studies, and policy analyst at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. He is the author of numerous books, articles, and studies on a wide range of agriculture, food, environment, forestry, human rights and trade issues. During the past several years he has served as Vice President of the Organic Buyers and Growers Association, on the board of the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture, on the US Trade Representative Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee and as chair of the Board of Directors of Sustainable America. He is the chair of the International Forum on Food and Agriculture, an initiative of the International Forum on Globalization. A graduate of Iowa State University, Mark holds a master's degree in International Public Law from the University of Amsterdam.

Barbara Roberts

Governor of Oregon 1991-1995. Associate Director of Leadership Development, Executive Leadership Institute, Portland State University and Director of the Legacy Program for State and Local Public Service Leaders. Senior Fellow to the Women and Public Policy Program, John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Past Director of the Harvard Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government. Oregon Secretary of State 1985-1991. (In Oregon, the Secretary of State also serves function of Lt. Governor and State Auditor). Oregon House of Representatives, 1981-1985. Majority Leader 1983-1984. Past service as a county commissioner, elected school board member and elected community college board member.

One of the most environmentally conscious Governors in the nation, Governor Roberts led funding efforts for expansion of the light rail line linking Multnomah County to Washington County in the Portland Metropolitan area. As a Multnomah County Commissioner in 1978, she helped start the first light rail in the Portland metro area. Her belief that environmental responsibility and economic health can exist side-by-side was strengthened during her four-year tenure as state CEO. When Roberts finished her term, Oregon had the lowest unemployment in 25 years and the highest investment in the state's history while preserving Oregon's comprehensive land use system, stopping construction of two unneeded dams and supporting the Endangered Species Act and the NW Forest Plan.

Paul Winter

Paul Winter's musical realm Living Music Records has long embraced the traditions of the world's cultures, as well as the extraordinary voices of what he refers to as "the greater symphony of the Earth." His concert tours and recording expeditions have taken him to thirty-seven countries and to wilderness areas on six continents, into which he has traveled on rafts, mules, dog sleds, horses, kayaks, sailboats, steamers, tug-boats and Land Rovers.

Winner of four Grammy Awards and six Grammy nominations, the timeless music of Living Music Records is usually recorded in Winter's barn-studio surrounded by protected woodland, sometimes in natural acoustic spaces such as the Grand Canyon, and frequently beneath the vaults of the Cathedral of St John the Divine, the world's largest Gothic cathedral where the Consort are artists-in-residence. It is here under the vast spans of the Cathedral that the Consort perform their major annual celebrations. "People get a sense of community - a sense of the whole wide community of life, which is one of the best things we could do with our music", says Winter, whose Winter and Summer Solstice Celebrations, and Earth Mass performed each Feast of St Francis, are among the most popular seasonal events in New York City. In recognition of his musical contributions to the environment, Winter has received a Global 500 Award from the United Nations, the Award of Excellence from the United Nations Environment Program, the Joseph Wood Krutch Medal for service to animals from the United States Humane Society, and the Peace Abbey's Courage of Conscience Award, among others. Recently his work as musician and as musical ambassador for the natural world has been honored with the Connecticut Music Educators' Association Music Advocate of the Year Award, an Alumni Merit Award from Northwestern University, the National Arbor Day's Promise to the Earth Award, an honorary doctorate from Juniata College, Pennsylvania, and the Spirit of the City Award presented at New York's Cathedral of St John the Divine.

Board of Directors

Board members are selected from throughout the nation for their knowledge of and active involvement in watershed conservation, preservation, and restoration. The directors make grant decisions and supervise investment of the Foundation's assets. They serve three-year terms for a maximum of three terms.

Jacqui Reisner Bostrom

Jacqui is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin where she majored in political science and history, and she has an MA in International Relations - Latin America from the University of the Americas aka Mexico City College. She is the mother of five adult children and has been a volunteer for many causes for the last three decades including Planned Parenthood, a nature center in Wisconsin, The League of Women Voters, The Association of Retarded Citizens, the Educational Service District of Clackamas County where she has been a Board Member since 1982, and on the Citizens Advisory Committee for Special Education for the Lake Oswego Schools. She also served as chair of the Tryon Creek Board and leads hikes for the Friends of Tryon Creek all over the Columbia River Gorge and Mt. Hood. Jacqui is an avid sea kayaker and river rafter whose interest in the Rivers Foundation was sparked by her motivation to "carry on in some small way" the work and ideals of her deceased brother, Marc Reisner, the author of Cadillac Desert and other books.

Dennis Burkhart

Dennis lives in Oregon, and has produced and shot over 40 films. In addition to developing DVD content he works with his commercial and educational clients. As a Producer, Director and Director of Photography, Dennis travels the world - Nepal, Australia, Alaska, Cook Islands, Easter Island, France, England, Kenya, India, Egypt, and China - documenting culture, people, wildlife and landscape. The resulting collection of entertaining programs explore many fascinating places on earth. Recent projects as Director of Photography include four High Definition Programs for the Travel Channel in 2003 "Secrets of Glacier" and "Secrets of Hawaii Volcanoes ", "Secrets of Denali" and "Best of the National Parks" that used state of the art Sony camera and lens. His dramatization of "Sacagawea" (Lewis and Clark) is a 2004 educational release for New Dimensions Media. As Director of Photography for "Yoga Vacations and Retreats" he filmed in Hawaii, Costa Rica, Mexico and many domestic locations. Dennis is currently a Field Producer for the Martha Stewart Living television program, creating show segments on a wide variety of topics and activities. One of his areas of expertise is documenting National Parks of the United States. He filmed two PBS Pledge Special programs about the National Parks that were co-produced with Oregon Public Broadcasting. "Our National Parks - Sunrise to Sunset" and "The Four Seasons" were completed and released to PBS Stations in 2000. Piloting his plane to assignments brings a unique aerial viewpoint. "The Story of Yosemite" and "Hidden Treasures of America's National Parks" air on Public Television stations. "The Story of America's Canyon Country", "The Story of America's Great Northwest", "The Story of America's Great Volcanoes", and "The Story of America's Last Frontier - Alaska" were shown on the Discovery Channel. Other productions include "Hawaii -The Pacific Paradise", a two hour special on Hawaiian history, also being shown by Discovery Channel, and "Symphony to America the Beautiful", a musical exploration of America through the seasons. A 1995 release is "America's National Parks - The Story of all 53 National Parks." This three hour video is the culmination of a decade old dream to document the National Parks of America in one program. The Learning Channel bought the rights for a four hour broadcast version called "America's Natural Heritage." In 1996 and 1997, Dennis filmed Paris for NBC. He also produced and directed a commercial program on sternwheelers. In 1997 he produced and directed "Great Parks of Alaska." as well as producing "Great Parks of Hawaii" for Questar. In addition he filmed a one hour special on China and Hong Kong sponsored by the China National Tourism Authority. In 1998 he produced and directed "San Francisco - City by the Bay".

Matthew C. Donahue, Esq.

Matthew presently practices law in Lowell, Massachusetts at Eno, Boulay, Martin and Donahue P.C. where he focuses on environmental, municipal law and business litigation. Matthew is a former assistant district attorney in Middlesex County and former Lowell City Councilor. He is the founder of the Lowell Parks and Conservation Trust and formerly served on the board of the Merrimack River Watershed Council. Matt teaches regional and local environmental law and policy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. In 1998, he founded UMass Lowell Environmental Management Systems Service Program. He is a graduate of Colby College, B.A., Suffolk University, J.D. and Vermont Law School where he received a Masters degree in Environmental Law cum laude.

Mark Dubois

Mark is the co-founder and board member emeritus of Friends of the River, California's statewide organization working for the protection of rivers, their flora and fauna and for sustainable water development. Mark also co-founded International Rivers Network. He organized the first international dam-fighters conference - a five-day conference and tour with 70 NGO leaders from 25 countries. Mark served as International Coordinator for Earth Day 1990 and Earth Day 2000; Mark coordinated global outreach and developed the seven-person international staff plus the International Council and International Strategic Partners. Mark also is the founder and director of WorldWise. Before his career as an environmental organizer and activist, Mark co-founded and operated "etc", the Environmental Traveling Companions where he organized and guided inner-city youth and disabled, down whitewater rivers.

Tom B. K. Goldtooth

Tom (Dine' and Mdewakanton Dakota) is the national director of the Indigenous Environmental Network at Bemidji, Minnesota. He has been a leader in Native social, economic, and environmental justice issues for over 30 years. You can reach the Indigenous Environmental Network at PO Box 485, Bemidji, MN 56619. 218-751-4967

Charles Hudson

Charles is a 1983 graduate of Washington State University. He has spent several years working in media and Native American Education in the Pacific Northwest. He is currently the Public Affairs Manager for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, the policy and technical coordinating agency for the Columbia River Treaty Tribes (Umatilla, Warm Springs, Yakama and Nez Perce) in Portland, Oregon. He also serves on the board of the Oregon Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility and is a member of the Hidatsa Tribe from Fort Berthold, North Dakota. His passion for river protection and restoration work comes in part from his experience of being flooded off his family's tribal homelands by the rising waters of the Fort Berthold reservoir when he was four years of age.

Pamela Hyde

Chair

Pamela has been involved with rivers in the Southwest for fourteen years and is one of the region's top experts on the Colorado River watershed. In the early 1990's, as the Arizona Streams and Wetlands Coordinator at Arizona State Parks, she conducted a statewide rivers assessment for the state of Arizona. She worked on river protection issues in the Southwest for over four years at the Southwest Regional Office of American Rivers, serving two and a half years as Southwest Regional Director. In 1999 she joined the Glen Canyon Institute, where she served as that organization's first Executive Director for over a year before leaving to form Southwest Rivers. Pam serves on the advisory board for the Water Education Foundation's Colorado River Project, and speaks throughout the West on Colorado River conservation and legal issues. She is also an avid whitewater boater, and enjoys rafting the rivers of the Colorado River watershed. Pam received her B.A., magna cum laude, from Amherst College in 1985. She received her J.D. from Duke University School of Law and her M.A. in Natural Resource Economics and Policy from Duke University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, both in 1989. She is a member of the State Bar of Arizona.

Peter Lavigne, Founder

Pete was the founding director of River Network's River Leadership Program in 1992, where he spent four years traveling 2-3 weeks each month throughout North America recruiting leaders and funding them with small grants to create a powerful watershed protection movement. Peter has served as executive director of the Westport River Watershed Alliance and the Merrimack River Watershed Council, as Deputy Director of For the Sake of the Salmon, and as a lobbyist for the Vermont Natural Resources Council. In addition to co-founding the Coalition for Buzzards Bay and the New England Coastal Campaign, he coordinated issues in Quebec, New England and New York for American Rivers and has worked internationally in Canada, Turkey and Bolivia. Two outstanding projects were initiation, design and implementation of the National Leadership Development Program with the support of the George Gund Foundation and the National Watershed Innovators Project developed with Ted Smith at the Henry P. Kendall Foundation. Peter received a master's degree cum laude in Environmental Law and Policy, and a Juris Doctor degree at Vermont Law School and a B.A. in government and geology from Oberlin College. He is the founding director of the Watershed Management Professional Program and current Senior Fellow of the Executive Leadership Institute at Portland State University. He is co-author of a book on land use policy, Vermont Townscape, and chapters have appeared in the books Voices For the Watershed: Environmental Issues in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Basin and Forest Communities, Community Forests. His articles have appeared in publications as diverse as the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy, River Voices and The New York Times. In 2006, Peter accepted a full-time faculty postion at Western State College of Colorado where he teaches environmental studies and serves as Director of the Colorado Water Workshop.

David Leiter

David Leiter, Vice President of Government Relations for ML Strategies, LLC, has more than twenty years' experience as a senior manager, political strategist and policy advisor. He was a senior political appointee in the Clinton-Gore Administration and a senior advisor to two United States senators and a lieutenant governor. In addition, he has consulted on all aspects of campaign strategy, including tactics, media, fund-raising, and polling, and was the principal architect in raising over $18 million for three political campaigns. David was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for the Department of Energy where he oversaw a staff of over 600 and a budget of $1.2 billion. David also served as the Eastern Regional Director for Foresight Energy Company. David served as Chief of Staff to United States Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, directing all operations in the Washington and state offices. This included overseeing a professional staff of 50 and annual budgets of nearly $2 million. David received a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Providence College and Masters in Public Administration from American University.

Hal Thomas Nelson Ph.D.

Hal completed his Ph.D. in Public Administration and Policy, with an emphasis on Climate Policy at the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University in 2006. In March 2001, he co-authored Extended Producer Responsibility and Product Take-Back: A Program and Policy Assessment for the PSU Center for Watershed and Community Health. He received his degree in Finance from the University of Idaho in 1989 and moved to Chicago to become a member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange where he was an institutional futures and options broker and analyst. He received the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1998. A water enthusiast, Hal was the Idaho state champion in the breaststroke as a youth and is now an avid river rafter on the Middle Fork of the Salmon and other rivers in Idaho.

Dr. Peter Paquet

Peter is the director of the Watershed Management Professional Program in the Executive Leadership Institute at Portland State University. He retired in early 2003 as the Fish and Wildlife Division Manager of the Northwest Power Planning Council, a regional agency overseeing the Columbia River watershed hydroelectric system. Peter has been on the Council staff since 1983. Initially he was responsible for the water budget and Council dealings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He was lead staffer in the development of protected areas and is currently taking the lead in wildlife mitigation planning. He came to the Council from the Oregon Department of Energy where he served as an environmental specialist. Before that, Peter worked for NASA and taught biology at Santa Clara University in California. Peter has undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology and a Ph.D. in environmental science and natural resources from Portland State University. He is the author or co-author of numerous articles including "Adaptive Strategies for the Management of Ecosystems: The Columbia River Experience" published by the American Fisheries Society. In January 2000, Dr. Paquet represented PSU and the Watershed Management Professional Program as an advisor to the G.A.P. Project on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Turkey. In addition to his role as the WMPP Director, Dr. Paquet teaches the WMPP Columbia Watershed Salmon and the Endangered Species Act course.

In Kind Donations

Listed is a "wish list" of items and services needed by the Rivers Foundation. Please let us know if you have something on the list to donate or if you are able to purchase an item for the Rivers Foundation office.

Office Equipment & Materials:

• Six 2-line phones
• Paper Folding machine
• Set of 6-8 Conference Table Chairs
• Insulation for Office - Blow-in and Sheet Style
• 3 Sheets ¾" Finish Plywood

Presentation Equipment:

• Lightweight Digital Projector (2000+ lumens)
• 25" or 27" Television for Video Use
• Digital camera: 5 mega pixels or better
• Two display easels
• Premier International CD Map Collection

Computer Equipment:

• Two 160GB external hard drives
• Two PC Desktop computers - 1.2 GHz or better
• Laptop computer - 1.2 GHz or better

People:

• Services of a Carpenter for 2 Days
• Volunteers for Grant Writing, Bookkeeping, Photoshop and Slide Scanning projects

RFA is Unique … and Effective

(RFA is Unique summary)

Many donors give like they manage their own enterprises: fast, focused and accountable. RFA bridges the gap between the "culture of results" and a traditional nonprofit organization "culture of sentiment." RFA strives to bring value-added, high intensity focus to addressing core issues. Here are some reasons to add your support to a growing community of people who care about free-flowing rivers, clean water, healthy lands, abundant wildlife, and sustainable ecosystems.

Value - RFA will give donors a great (and perpetual) return on their investment. Once the initial endowment is complete, RFA will maintain administrative costs not to exceed 15% of its endowment income capital. Our endowments will be managed by an experienced team of independent financial experts. They will help us maximize returns while minimizing risks and investing in financial vehicles consistent with RFA's vision and commitments.

Effectiveness - By collaborating closely with river restoration and protection organizations receiving grants from RFA, and with other funding sources, RFA will be able to leverage and document progress made. The Foundation's expertise in grant making will ensure that the money hits the ground and desirable measurable results are produced.

Feedback - Provide donors regular feedback on project successes, failures and achievements through email, our web site, occasional events, and letters. When it makes sense we may partner donors with receivers of RFA grants.

Connectedness - Provide requested recognition or anonymity. Create meaningful connectedness with donors.

Flexibility - RFA has three endowment funds from which donors can specify the particular fund he or she would wish to make the contribution.

S.M.A.R.T.! - Grants and support work sponsored by the RFA are attentively evaluated using the S.M.A.R.T. system. That is, Specific, Measurable, Achievable (winnable, accountable), Realistic (and innovative), and Time specific results. Our experience is that people and organizations who use and aim for specific measurable results are more likely to achieve their goals and we intend to support and require organizations receiving our grant funds and staff support to focus on specific accountable results.

Eleven outstanding experts serve with Pete Lavigne on the Board of Directors including Chuck Hudson, Peter Paquet, Trudy Coxe, and Mark Dubois. Our advisory board, called the President's Council, includes such accomplished leaders as former Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts; the widely acclaimed novelist and essayist David James Duncan; Kevin Coyle, President of the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation; David W. Orr, Ph.D., Director of Environmental Studies at Oberlin College, writer and trustee of the Compton Foundation. We do not have space here to give complete backgrounds on each of our RFA leaders, but we can tell you, every single person is known for their wisdom, integrity and leadership.

Our implementation team—Board of Directors, CEO, and President's Council—has an extraordinary record of fundraising and producing desirable environmental and social justice results throughout the Americas and around the world. We know how to locate and leverage River CPR™ leaders, and we know why and how to strategically supply funds and support for those leaders in critical areas of opportunity throughout the Americas.

Community foundations are public foundations. Unlike individual family or corporate private foundations, community foundation funds come from a variety of sources and are governed by an independent Board of Directors. Under RFA's model, these funds are combined in three permanent endowments which provide interest income used for grant making in perpetuity—new grants year after year, decade after decade.

RFA’s 'community' is broad and diverse—the peoples and places of North, Central and South America. We will bring new sources of funds to under-served regions and people. We have adopted a policy that at least 50% of our tribes' efforts in ecosystem protection and restoration. We also intend that at least two-thirds of our grants will be directed to Central and South America.

RFA will use its extensive knowledge of the issues involved in watershed conservation to direct funding to watershed conservation, preservation and restoration efforts in the Americas. The Rivers Foundation will also cooperate with other national and regional endowments to leverage our efforts. RFA employs extensive knowledge of ecosystem protection, human health and social justice issues, and river watershed organizations to implement strategic objectives through discerning grant making. The "Watershed Approach" guides the Foundation's activities. This method recognizes that threats to a river's integrity can come from a variety of sources: roads and automobiles, urban runoff, dams and reservoirs, agriculture, natural resource extraction, inefficient energy use, population growth, political inequities, and the cumulative effect of legal industrial effluents among many other threats.

By looking at the big picture, the Rivers Foundation of the Americas can fund and leverage a variety of programs that traditional riverbank approaches would not have recognized. The Foundation works closely with a diverse network of experts and watershed and other conservation groups to address the problems that diverse modern societies place on river ecosystems.

Finally, no other foundation does what we do. We develop and bring new sources of funds to innovative groups and vital areas where those additional funds and support make a significant difference in river ecosystem protection and restoration in the Americas. River protection and restoration isn't just dam fighting or riverbank protection. River protection and restoration is largely a synonym for ecosystem protection and restoration. Protecting rivers means that river organizations can expect over time to address nearly every environmental degradation issue, and work to protect human health and quality of life while working with differing cultural values and preferences.

Gift of Securities

Charitable gifts of publicly traded stocks, shares in mutual funds and similar assets can be especially beneficial to donors.

Charitable gifts of publicly traded stocks, shares in mutual funds and similar assets can be especially beneficial to donors. The following are some answers to common questions about securities:

What are securities? Shares of stock in companies that are publicly traded or mutual funds are the most common securities that are given to a charity. Stocks or shares in closely held or private companies may also be given, but special rules apply to them.

Why give securities? Often stocks or mutual funds will be worth much more than the original purchase price. As appreciated property these are subject to capital gains tax. Making a charitable gift of these securities eliminates the capital gains tax that would be due if they were sold for income.

Gifts of qualified non-cash securities to Rivers Foundation of the Americas are deductible, in most cases, for their current fair market value. This includes your purchase price and any increase in their value over time.

What rules apply to gifts of securities? In order to deduct the current value of appreciated securities, they must be owned by the donor for at least a year and a day. Rivers Foundation of the Americas, as a qualified public charity can receive these type of gifts. The gifts are generally deductible up to 30% of the donor's adjusted gross income in the year of the gift. Excess amounts may be deducted over as many as five succeeding tax years.

To receive the full tax deduction of the cost of the stock or mutual fund as well as its increase or appreciation, the stocks or funds must be transferred to rivers Foundation of the Americas. If the donor sells the shares and contributes the cash amount of the securities, it will be taxed at the current capital gains tax rate for the donor. To determine the value of the stock or mutual fund shares take the average of the highest and lowest share price on the day of the stock transfer.

How can the gift be completed? Contact your stockbroker, mutual fund manager or financial planner and indicate your intention of giving your shares to Rivers Foundation of the Americas. Also, contact Peter Lavigne, President of RFA at (503) 274-7704, to share your intention. Representatives of Rivers Foundation of the Americas will talk with you and your broker to complete the paperwork for the gift. We will send you an acknowledgment of your gift and its amount, which should be retained for your income tax purposes. Our legal name is: Rivers Foundation of the Americas, Inc. and our tax ID #: 93-1310665.

Clean Water, Biodiversity, and Environmental Justice Initiative

This initiative links RFA's policies of supporting indigenous peoples, drumming home the common sense linkages between clean healthy water for human use, strong biodiverse and healthy ecosystems, and environmental justice for indigenous peoples and economically disadvantaged people throughout the Americas. Continue reading below for more about this initiative, or go to Global Water Policy Initiative to learn about RFA's other main initiative.

Clean Water, Biodiversity, and Environmental Justice are three critical elements present in all our work in our first three great watersheds: the Copper River basin in Alaska; the Columbia River and the Pacific Northwest; and the Colorado River in the United States and Mexico. We will expand this work to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence watershed, and then to the Pantanal - the world's largest freshwater wetland system, in the Parana-Paraguay river watershed in South America.

1) Copper River Watershed in Alaska

RFA provides fundraising assistance, small directed grants, along with organizational, policy and planning consultation with an indigenous nonprofit advocacy organization, the Eyak Preservation Council, and fundraising and occasional other assistance to the multi-stakeholder Copper River Watershed Project.

• Clean Water: public awareness will be raised with production of an independent documentary film, "Cultural Survival: Oil, the Arctic Refuge and the Copper River Delta".
• Biodiversity: the Copper River Delta is an enormously important bird nesting area, nursery for salmon and other fisheries, and a relatively unspoiled wilderness area with keystone predators including wolves and grizzlies.
• Environmental Justice: supporting the Eyak Preservation Council in formation and operation of the Native Lands Conservancy, to help regain control of ancestral tribal lands and work for their permanent protection.

Copper River Summer Sojourns:

As a special event, our annual raft trip to the Copper River wilderness brings journalists, donors and activists to the watershed and raises funds and support for the Rivers Foundation and the Eyak Preservation Council.

2) Pacific Northwest: Columbia River in the U.S. and Canada

The Columbia River watershed is a critical link in the mega-linkages of the Pacific flyway and predator migration corridor. It is the nerve center for salmon restoration; world security and nuclear waste safety issues; crossroads for world trade and agricultural policy; and one of the world's most highly manipulated and damaged great river systems. The challenges and opportunities here are huge.

• Clean Water: RFA is working closely with the national Clean Water Network, and local organizations including Willamette Riverkeeper to support a strong federal Clean Water Act and to encourage effective state and local implementation of clean water regulations. We also take an active role in support of critical issues throughout the Columbia River basin including cleanup of combined sewer overflows on the Willamette, participation in various efforts regarding the cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation on the Columbia, forest policy and timber harvest controversies throughout the region, water quality and quantity initiatives including energy and agriculture policy, and other important regional environmental issues as they arise.
• Biodiversity: RFA is opportunistically supporting a variety of efforts to restore damaged ecosystems, protect and restore endangered species, and educate both the general public and watershed management professionals, in addition to working with the Oregon Conservation Network on state and regional legislation and policy initiatives.
• Environmental Justice: RFA coordinates closely with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and other organizations on salmon recovery, public health impacts of toxic pollution, and ratepayer impacts of legislative and corporate policies.

The Encyclopedia of Restoration of Northwest Ecosystems, edited by Dean Apostol and written by a distinguished team of over 30 ecological restoration scientists and environmental lawyers, will be published by Island Press in 2005. The Encyclopedia is perfect example of our mega-linkage focus with its concentration of information covering a diverse series of ecosystems and restoration challenges. It will provide practical, how-to information about restoring our regional ecosystems, with coverage of special topics such as invasive species, traditional ecological knowledge, stream restoration, and others. This will be the first attempt to cover the whole range of restoration activities in this region.

3) The Colorado River Watershed in the U.S. and Mexico

Top among our goals are restoration of the three major symbols of dams run amuck, and their wonderful and critical ecosystem resources - Glen Canyon, Grand Canyon and the Colorado River Delta. We support public awareness of siltation problems, and water lost to evaporation, caused by the Glen Canyon Dam and reservoir operation policies driven by the Colorado River compact and policies of the Bureau of Reclamation. We are also excited by our ability to sponsor the San Diego, California GreenMap Project headed by RFA supporter Suzanne Michel with funding from Colorado River water user the Metropolitan Water District of San Diego. Other innovative approaches to watershed education are in the works and we are constantly open to strategically placed partnerships and other opportunities.

• Clean Water: in the Colorado River basin in the United States and Mexico, we are working to provide a new approach and catalytic ideas to the 'Gordian Knot of Water in the West' - the grossly inequitable, unsustainable and horrendously complicated mismanagement of the Colorado River.
• Biodiversity: we support groups educating the public regarding the 100 years of dams and ecological calamity in the basin, especially focusing on the damage from the cold and widely varying water releases from Glen Canyon dam that are destroying the Grand Canyon's ecosystem. Conversely, wasteful evaporative losses from the Glen Canyon reservoir (Lake Powell) and problems with the enormously inequitable and complicated "Law of the Colorado River" starve the ecosystems of the Colorado River Delta and the Gulf of California.
• Environmental Justice: the Colorado river water system is rife with inequity. RFA's goal is to play a catalytic role in the establishment of just and accurate division of the use of the water of the Colorado among all parties to the river, including the upper and lower basin states, the sovereign nations of native tribes, the United States and Mexico and the needs of critical ecosystem components. We act in part to focusing attention on damage to the Colorado River Delta caused by inequitable sharing of the river between US, Mexico, and the Cocopah Indians and other tribes.

RFA supports the Glen Canyon Institute (based in Salt Lake City), whose goal is restoring Glen and Grand Canyons. We also support other regional entities, including various transboundary and southern California water groups.

As in other areas of our work, we are researching and issuing reports on topics relevant to each region and to our mega-linkages. Recent releases include work on environmental governance and cultural attitudes including "The Movement for American Ecosystem Restoration: Quagmire, Diversion or Our Last, Best Hope?" published in the Tulane Environmental Law Journal Winter 2003; "Watershed Councils East and West: Advocacy, Consensus, and Environmental Progress" in the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy Spring 2004; and "Concrete Results" in the Natural Resources Law Journal of the University of New Mexico School of Law, Summer 2004.

Global Water Policy Initiative

This initiative works at the heart of water policy issues, especially the global debate on the privatization of fresh water resources and growing water supply controversies throughout the United States and the hemisphere. We believe that all children and all people deserve clean water, and that access to a subsistence level of water is a basic human obligation. Continue reading below for more about this initiative, or go to Clean Water, Biodiversity, and Environmental Justice to learn about RFA's other main initiative.

The US-Canada Columbia River treaty has key components coming under review in 2006, and conflicts over various US-Mexico treaties, state compacts and other agreements on the Rio Grande and Colorado are volatile. In addition, although 2003 was the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Year of Water, North American issues were barely touched because the Bush Administration did not participate. Major opportunities include the U.S. Department of Interior's new focus on western water issues, the continuing drought in the North American Southwest, and increasing population pressure combined with climate changes that are straining both urban drinking and industrial water supplies and rural agricultural and ranching uses.

Human Health

Among the many issues related to the water policy initiative, RFA is focusing on links to human health in two areas. First is the disproportionate impact on indigenous peoples of bio-accumulated poisons in their foods. For most tribal cultures, wild foods, particularly fish, form a pivotal part of individual diets and these foods are often central to the spiritual and cultural tribal practices. Numerous studies have documented the increasing concentrations of mercury and many other industrial poisons in reservoirs, lakes and streams and the resulting bio-accumulation of these poisons in fish and other animal tissue. The major pathways for these contaminants include rain deposition of air pollution, direct industrial discharges - both legal and illegal, along with runoff from land surfaces to reservoirs, lakes and streams. Because native peoples eat more fish than the general population their health impacts are more severe. We intend to fund more research and restoration projects, as well as more education campaigns to begin to reverse the increasing amounts of poisons in wild food supplies.

Second, we are actively supporting efforts to limit the use of antibiotics and growth hormones in animal feeds, and to curb unnecessary use of antibiotics for non-responsive medical conditions. The overuse of antibiotics and growth hormones has several negative consequences for water quality and human health. First, the use of antibiotics as growth stimulating compounds in chickens, cattle and pigs leads to antibiotic resistant bacteria and to increasing concentrations of both these bacteria and the antibiotics themselves in our rivers and streams. The use of growth hormones has similar problems. The effects of these water contaminants include interference with the reproductive cycles of some organisms including frogs and toads. We are actively supporting educational and advocacy campaigns seeking to stop misuse of antibiotics and growth hormones to protect their use for treatment of disease.

Information for Grantseekers

RFA is building an endowment and pursuing other funds to begin grant making as soon as possible. The state of the worldwide economy since September 2001 has presented significant challenges to our endowment campaign. We intend to begin soliciting proposals when we reach the stage where endowment and other income provide a reliable source of funds for grant making. In the meantime we are providing policy, organizational and other types of assistance to selected organizations in our targeted watersheds on a by-invitation-only basis. Please watch this space for future announcements.

About Our Logo

Frogs and toads all over the world are disappearing at a horrifying rate. Several species have gone extinct in the last decade and many others have been extirpated from their historical range. Amphibians are truly the "canary in the coal mine" for flowing freshwater ecosystems (read rivers!) in the Americas and throughout the world. Loss of habitat from human encroachment, increased radiation from the thinning of the ozone layer, contamination from endocrine disrupters, predation from non-native species and other factors all add up to a crisis for frogs and toads - and an unfortunate indication of the poor health of many of our freshwater ecosystems.

Thanks to the Designer

Ethan Jewett of Venture 4th design in Portland, Oregon describes it this way: "The logo is simple, clear, and it sends an instantly recognizable message. Over time it will become as recognizable as World Wildlife Fund panda." Ethan designed the frog with an elongated crescent to symbolize the "New World's ties to the Old."

Facts on Frogs and Toads

Since July 2000, eighteen species of frogs, toads and salamanders are listed as either threatened or endangered in the United States and Puerto Rico. Since 1989, scientists have documented four major "hot spots;" for amphibian declines: western North America, Central America, northeast Australia and Puerto Rico. Some of the American declines have occurred in the most unlikely spots— the nation's refuges, parks and wilderness areas.

In the last five years, an increasing number of frogs and toads with severe malformations have been observed throughout the United States and around the world. Surveys conducted in 1997 in the northeast and midwest found malformation rates ranging up to 17.9 percent at some of the refuges

Amphibians are good indicators of significant environmental changes. Frogs and toads are highly sensitive to their environments, since they breathe at least partly through their skin. Scientists are studying a variety of possible causes for the declinesand malformations, including disease and fungal infections, habitat loss, thinning ozone and increased ultraviolet radiation, pollution and other contaminant factors.

Excerpt from What's Happening to the Frogs? by Cindy Hoffman.

Contact Us

The Rivers Foundation of the Americas exists to serve watershed and river protection. We are stable and credible resource through which our donors, grantees, volunteers, and businesses can support causes and organizations that are meaningful to them.

If you would like to learn more about how you can support watershed and river conservation, preservation, and restoration please contact us:

Rivers Foundation of the Americas
P.O. Box 1845 Flagstaff, AZ 86002

Phone: 503-781-9785
Email:

Strategic Plan

The Rivers Foundation of the Americas is the next bold move.

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Strategic Plan Index

• What We Do
• Our Framework: Systems Analysis, Indigenous Peoples, Mega-Linkages.
• Conservation Biology, Mega-Linkages and Re-Wilding
• Fragmentation
• Keystone Species
• Re-Wilding
• RFA's Mega-Linkages
• RFA Initiatives
• Clean Water, Biodiversity and Environmental Justice Initiative
• The Copper River watershed in Alaska
• Pacific Northwest: Columbia River in the U.S. and Canada
• The Colorado River watershed in the U.S. and Mexico
• Global Water Policy Initiative
• Human Health
• The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Watershed in Canada and the United States
• The Colorado River watershed in the U.S. and Mexico
• Rivers Foundation History
• Building Our River CPR Endowments
• Systems Analysis: Clean Water, Biodiversity, Human Health
• Strategic Action Plan 2004-2007: Indigenous Peoples

What We Do

The Rivers Foundation of the Americas (RFA) is a “public foundation” dedicated to promoting and funding the protection and restoration of rivers throughout the Americas.

• We support activists and their organizations with grants, technical and policy support; and in-kind donations.
• We are an operating foundation. That means, in addition to raising an endowment to give grants and other resources to environmental leaders and organizations, we also do projects.
• We actively work to change environmental policies in the Americas.
• Our science and research team works on direct restoration efforts.
• We educate people about the connections between land use, water pollution and ecosystem and human health.

We focus on the Americas because this is the interconnected area of the world in which we live. And where we believe our team can make the most difference. By example, we can amplify our effects elsewhere.

Vast areas of our hemisphere are under tremendous ecological pressure—and the health of these ecosystems is intimately connected through wildlife migration and from resource extraction and development activities of multinational corporations and our new global economy. Bird migration flyways intertie with water pathways and large wetlands and animal migration pathways.

These connections are glaringly obvious in some cases, linking :

• The largest concentration of nesting shorebirds in North America in the Copper River Delta of Alaska
• A key migration stop on Sauvie Island in the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon
• The split delta of the Colorado River on the Gulf of California in Mexico and the Salton Sink of California
• A habitat in Central and South America all the way to the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego

Our Framework: Systems Analysis, Indigenous Peoples, Mega-Linkages.

People are to rivers what they are to their own heartbeats. A strong pulse brings energy and life while a weak pulse foreshadows disaster for the veins and arteries it powers. This is as true for rivers as it is for people. The interconnected relationship of rivers to people and their surrounding lands has long shown the best way to ensure permanent river health is to work with people who care about specific rivers—and who have the vision to use diverse strategies to protect and restore those resources. Our strategies include…

Conservation Biology, Mega-Linkages and Re-Wilding

Our work is grounded in the best conservation and restoration science. We, by necessity, look at a very big picture. Why do we say that? Simply put, scientists have, over the past 20 years, recognized critical “megalinkages” in biodiversity conservation.

"A thing is right, when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community."

- Aldo Leopold

The history of conservation has progressed over the last century from the first designations of “monumental” great places like Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks, and the pretty river canyons of the Wild and Scenic Rivers System. Scientists and policy makers then realized that protection of “biodiversity”—the great sweep of plant and animal species on the earth could not be done through the designation of parks and monuments alone.

Protection of species diversity and all the benefits of fresh air, clean water, productive soils, nutritious food, valuable medicines and other products derived from species diversity had to include protection of a wide variety of habitats and ecosystem types.

Conservation biology and the effort to protect large unmanaged wilderness landscapes in North America evolved from these ideas in the 1920s and 1930s. Those roots, in turn, led to Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic ("A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community") and the efforts to call for an end to government policies that persecute large predators. Groups like the Nature Conservancy arose to preserve first, individual species and then a variety of habitats and species.  Regulatory measures also arose by the 1970s, including the Endangered Species, Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

Fragmentation

Next came the understanding that small isolated populations of animals and plants were highly vulnerable to accidents of population shifts, genetic limitations, climate fluctuations and incremental development and destruction. Connecting these “islands” of biodiversity was seen as necessary for genetic and demographic rescue and for viability of wide ranging species.

We subsequently learned that even areas as large as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem could not provide sufficient resilience and protection for animals such as wolverines and grizzly bears—the “keystone” predators whose role in healthy landscapes and biodiversity protection is only recently becoming understood. Suburbanites well know the ecological and economic damage caused by the proliferation of deer due to the absence of large carnivores like wolves and cougars.

More dramatically, even in the protected “wilderness” of Yellowstone as wolves were eliminated, large populations of elk overgrazed river banks, driving out beavers who had nothing left to eat or build dams with—thus drastically reducing their role in creating and moving wetland habitats and sustaining aquatic diversity. In the few years since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, elk herds don’t dally as long near streams, beaver have begun to re–inhabit large valleys and plant and bird diversity is returning.

Keystone Species: Organisms whose influence on ecosystem function and diversity are disproportionate to their natural abundance.

Recent studies in South America documented by The Wildlands Project show that construction of a large Venezuelan dam caused flooding of a vast area and creation of isolated, though protected, islands. Many of the islands lacked large predators (jaguar, puma, harpy eagles) and on those islands the reproduction and replacement of many species of canopy trees came to a halt. On middle sized islands, though 60-70 species of trees coexist, only a handful of species are represented in young recruits. Scientists note that because herbivores (leaf eating monkeys, ants, rodent seed predators etc.) became superabundant due to the loss of the large predators, the entire island ecosystem began crashing.

Another frequent consequence of the absence of large predators is a remarkable bird-killing increase in the number of small carnivores including house cats, foxes, and opossums, which cause severe declines in many songbirds and other small prey animals.

Re-Wilding

Re-wilding then, calls for reintroduction of keystone species on a landscape scale; often this means the reintroduction of large predators over large areas; and changes in governmental policies and public attitudes toward these predators.

RFA’s Mega-Linkages

At the Rivers Foundation we look at continental mega-linkages in the context of large river basins in North, Central and South America. We are implementing the science developed by the Wildlands Project and others and putting it into practice.

Shown here is a modified version of the major wildlife pathways “mega-linkages” map from The Wildlands Project.

The Rivers Foundation began by constructing a program of mega-linkages in North America.  As we roll out our efforts over the next decade, the structure we have undertaken in North America will expand to embrace Central and South America. Our North America work includes four critical major watersheds and two initiatives…

RFA Initiatives

Clean Water, Biodiversity and Environmental Justice Initiative

The Clean Water, Biodiversity and Environmental Justice Initiative links RFA’s policies of supporting indigenous peoples, drumming home the common sense linkages between clean healthy water for human use, strong biodiverse and healthy ecosystems, and environmental justice for indigenous peoples and economically disadvantaged people throughout the Americas.  These three critical elements are all present in our work in our first three great watersheds--the Copper River basin in Alaska; the Columbia River and the Pacific Northwest; and the Colorado River in the United States and Mexico. In 2004, we will expand this work to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence watershed, and in 2005 to the Pantanal, the world’s largest freshwater wetland system, in the Parana-Paraguay river watershed in South America.

1. The Copper River watershed in Alaska:
   

   RFA provides fundraising assistance, small directed grants, along with organizational, policy and planning consultation with an indigenous nonprofit advocacy organization, the Eyak Preservation Council, and fundraising and occasional other assistance to the multi-stakeholder Copper River Watershed Project.

   Clean Water: public awareness will be raised with production of an independent documentary film, “Cultural Survival: Oil, the Arctic Refuge and the Copper River Delta”.

   Biodiversity: The Copper River Delta is an enormously important bird nesting area, nursery for salmon and other fisheries, and a relatively unspoiled wilderness area with keystone predators including wolves and grizzlies.

   Environmental Justice: supporting the Eyak Preservation Council in formation and operation of the Native Lands Conservancy, to help regain control of ancestral tribal lands and work for their permanent protection.

   Copper River Summer Sojourns: Our annual raft trip to the Copper River wilderness brings journalists, donors and activists to the watershed and raises funds and support for the Rivers Foundation and the Eyak Preservation Council.

2. Pacific Northwest: Columbia River in the U.S. and Canada:
   

   The Columbia River watershed is a critical link in the mega-linkages of the Pacific flyway and predator migration corridor. It is the nerve center for salmon restoration; world security and nuclear waste safety issues; crossroads for world trade and agricultural policy; and one of the world’s most highly manipulated and damaged great river systems. The challenges and opportunities here are huge.

   Clean Water: RFA is working closely with the national Clean Water Network, and local organizations including Willamette Riverkeeper to support a strong federal Clean Water Act and to encourage effective state and local implementation of clean water regulations. We also take an active role in support of critical issues throughout the Columbia River basin including cleanup of combined sewer overflows on the Willamette, participation in various efforts regarding the cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation on the Columbia, forest policy and timber harvest controversies throughout the region, water quality and quantity initiatives including energy and agriculture policy, and other important regional environmental issues as they arise.

   Biodiversity: RFA is opportunistically supporting a variety of efforts to restore damaged ecosystems, protect and restore endangered species, and educate both the general public and watershed management professionals, in addition to working with the Oregon Conservation Network on state and regional legislation and policy initiatives.

   Environmental Justice: RFA coordinates closely with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and other organizations on salmon recovery, public health impacts of toxic pollution, and ratepayer impacts of legislative and corporate policies.

   The Encyclopedia of Restoration of Northwest Ecosystems, edited by Dean Apostol and written by a distinguished team of over 30 ecological restoration scientists and environmental lawyers, will be published by Island Press in 2005. The Encyclopedia is a perfect example of our mega-linkage focus with its concentration of information covering a diverse series of ecosystems and restoration challenges. It will provide practical, how-to information about restoring our regional ecosystems, with coverage of special topics such as invasive species, traditional ecological knowledge, stream restoration, and others. This will be the first attempt to cover the whole range of restoration activities in this region.

3. The Colorado River watershed in the U.S. and Mexico:
   
   

   Clean Water: In the Colorado River basin in the United States and Mexico, we are working to provide a new approach and catalytic ideas to the “Gordian Knot of Water in the West”—the grossly inequitable, unsustainable and horrendously complicated mismanagement of the Colorado River.

   Top among our goals are restoration of the three major symbols of dams run amuck, and their wonderful and critical ecosystem resources —Glen Canyon, Grand Canyon and the Colorado River Delta. We support public awareness of siltation problems, and water lost to evaporation, caused by the Glen Canyon Dam and reservoir operation policies driven by the Colorado River compact and policies of the Bureau of Reclamation. We are also excited by our ability to sponsor the San Diego, California GreenMap Project headed by RFA supporter Suzanne Michel with funding from Colorado River water user the Metropolitan Water District of San Diego. Other innovative approaches to watershed education are in the works and we are constantly open to strategically placed partnerships and other opportunities.

   Biodiversity: We support groups educating the public regarding the 100 years of dams and ecological calamity in the basin, especially focusing on the damage from the cold and widely varying water releases from Glen Canyon dam that are destroying the Grand Canyon’s ecosystem. Conversely, wasteful evaporative losses from the Glen Canyon reservoir (Lake Powell) and problems with the enormously inequitable and complicated “Law of the Colorado River” starve the ecosystems of the Colorado River Delta and the Gulf of California.

   RFA supports the Glen Canyon Institute (based in Salt Lake City), whose goal is restoring Glen and Grand Canyons. We also support other regional entities, including various transboundary and southern California water groups.

   Environmental Justice: The Colorado river water system is rife with inequity. RFA’s goal is to play a catalytic role in the establishment of just and accurate division of the use of the water of the Colorado among all parties to the river, including the upper and lower basin states, the sovereign nations of native tribes, the United States and Mexico and the needs of critical ecosystem components. We act in part to focusing attention on damage to the Colorado River Delta caused by inequitable sharing of the river between US, Mexico, and the Cocopah Indians and other tribes.

   As in other areas of our work, we are researching and issuing reports on topics relevant to each region and to our mega-linkages. Recent releases include work on environmental governance and cultural attitudes including "The Movement for American Ecosystem Restoration: Quagmire, Diversion or Our Last, Best Hope?" published in the Tulane Environmental Law Journal Winter 2003; "Watershed Councils East and West: Advocacy, Consensus, and Environmental Progress" in the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law and Policy Spring 2004; and "Concrete Results" in the Natural Resources Law Journal of the University of New Mexico School of Law, Summer 2004.

Global Water Policy Initiative

Our Global Water Policy Initiative works at the heart of water policy issues, especially the global debate on the privatization of fresh water resources and growing water supply controversies throughout the United States and the hemisphere. We believe all children and all people deserve clean water, and that access to a subsistence level of water is a basic human obligation.

The US-Canada Columbia River treaty has key components coming under review in 2006, and conflicts over various US-Mexico treaties, state compacts and other agreements on the Rio Grande and Colorado are volatile. In addition, although 2003 was the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Year of Water, North American issues were barely touched because the Bush Administration did not participate. Major opportunities include the U.S. Department of Interior’s new focus on western water issues, the continuing drought in the North American Southwest, and increasing population pressure combined with climate changes that are straining both urban drinking and industrial water supplies and rural agricultural and ranching uses.

1. Human Health

   Among the many issues related to the water policy initiative, RFA is focusing on links to human health in two areas. First is the disproportionate impact on indigenous peoples of bio-accumulated poisons in their foods. For most tribal cultures, wild foods, particularly fish, form a pivotal part of individual diets and these foods are often central to the spiritual and cultural tribal practices. Numerous studies have documented the increasing concentrations of mercury and many other industrial poisons in reservoirs, lakes and streams and the resulting bio-accumulation of these poisons in fish and other animal tissue. The major pathways for these contaminants include rain deposition of air pollution, direct industrial discharges—both legal and illegal, along with runoff from land surfaces to reservoirs, lakes and streams. Because native peoples eat more fish than the general population their health impacts are more severe. We intend to fund more research and restoration projects, as well as more education campaigns to begin to reverse the increasing amounts of poisons in wild food supplies.

   Second, we are actively supporting efforts to limit the use of antibiotics and growth hormones in animal feeds, and to curb unnecessary use of antibiotics for non-responsive medical conditions. The overuse of antibiotics and growth hormones has several negative consequences for water quality and human health. First, the use of antibiotics as growth stimulating compounds in chickens, cattle and pigs leads to antibiotic resistant bacteria and to increasing concentrations of both these bacteria and the antibiotics themselves in our rivers and streams. The use of growth hormones has similar problems. The effects of these water contaminants include interference with the reproductive cycles of some organisms including frogs and toads. We are actively supporting educational and advocacy campaigns seeking to stop misuse of antibiotics and growth hormones to protect their use for treatment of disease.

2. The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Watershed in Canada and the United States:

   In late 2004, we will expand our mega-linkages to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River basin. The magnitude of the Great Lakes water system is difficult to appreciate, even for those who live within the basin. The lakes contain about 23,000 km3 (5,500 cu. mi.) of water, covering a total area of 244,000 km2 (94,000 sq. mi.) The Great Lakes are the largest system of fresh, surface water on earth, containing roughly 18 percent of the world supply. Only the polar ice caps contain more fresh water.

   In spite of their large size, the Great Lakes are sensitive to the effects of a wide range of pollutants. Sources of pollution include the runoff of soils and farm chemicals from agricultural lands, the waste from cities, discharges from industrial areas and leachate from disposal sites. The large surface area of the lakes also makes them vulnerable to direct atmospheric pollutants that fall with rain or snow and as dust on the lake surface.

   Outflows from the Great Lakes are relatively small (less than 1 percent per year) in comparison with the total volume of water. Pollutants that enter the lakes - whether by direct discharge along the shores, through tributaries, from land use or from the atmosphere - are retained in the system and become more concentrated with time. Also, pollutants remain in the system because of re-suspension (or mixing back into the water) of sediment and cycling through biological food chains.

   The unique resources and political geography of the Great Lakes make them a center for a number of significant environmental issues and opportunities. The global debate about the privatization of drinking water resources is centered in part on the Great Lakes. The movement for removal of small dams that is now spreading worldwide owes much of its momentum to the work of the River Alliance of Wisconsin (a group began by RFA President Pete Lavigne in the early 1990s—working then for River Network) and the recent establishment of several tribal fisheries commissions has given new impetus to tribal water use and wildlife harvest rights in the region.

   RFA plans to carefully select indigenous activities and organizations to support in the region while adding a strategic voice to the many water use issues in the basin. We are in the midst of preparing several water policy reports focusing on Great Lakes issues and we will work with the Great Lakes Indian Fisheries Commission, the Indigenous Environmental Network and other organizations to identify ways we can bring new resources to critical issues in the region.

3. North American Water Policy Forum

   RFA will focus attention on Great Lakes and global water issues with a 4-day North American Water Policy Forum, co-sponsored with the Executive Leadership Institute at Portland State University in early 2006. The North American Water Policy Forum will:

   • Convene 300-500 people from the US, Canada and Mexico--policy makers, government officials, indigenous organizations, NGOs, environmental justice organizations, corporate water providers, agencies, scholars, and community organizations.
   • Promote a systemic and continent-wide approach to issues, thus emphasizing the need for policies that transcend narrow, fragmented attempts to achieve change.
   • Encourage participants to form partnerships, share ideas, and collaborate, which should promote more consistent strategies and approaches to watershed issues.
   • Publicize water issues with follow-up policy initiatives, publications, and web-based dialogues.

   The North American Water Policy Forum is an ambitious project. It may play a key role in catalyzing significant change on a global scale. We have the organizational resources in partnership with the Executive Leadership Institute to plan, implement and conduct such a gathering.

   As part of the build-up to the North American Water Policy Forum, RFA President Peter Lavigne is launching a series of public speaking engagements on water policy issues. RFA will also issue a series of briefing papers and reports on water policy problems and opportunities.

Rivers Foundation History

The Rivers Foundation of the Americas was conceived in 2000 with the goal of forming a large initial endowment upon which we would base our grant making, organizational policy and program work. Our business plan relied upon several invitations from large foundations for seed funding to hire staff and launch our programs and endowment campaign. We also received a pledge for a $1 million dollar endowment donation from a Portland, Oregon based dot com company.

We opened our office in August 2001 and the worldwide economic and security collapses that followed in September quickly rendered our business plan irrelevant. The operating grant invitations were withdrawn, and the million dollar endowment pledge vanished into that dot com company’s bankruptcy.

We regrouped and reprioritized and since 2001 a remarkably accomplished and committed board, staff and large core of volunteers has built the infrastructure and programs of the Rivers Foundation of the Americas into a substantial and growing core of programs and accomplishments.

We received over 4800 hours of volunteer labor from our CEO, board members and various other highly skilled and committed volunteers in FY 2003. Our infrastructure now includes 5 fully outfitted computer workstations, a sophisticated internal network, and a new web and email communications plan which is being implemented with assistance from ONE/Northwest and Nterrobang Design through 2004.

We are expanding and changing the nature of our board of directors to reflect our changes in focus in 2001-2004 while keeping our eyes on the permanent goal of the Rivers Foundation of the Americas: to bring substantial new funds, organizational and policy support to the efforts of innovative and effective individuals and their organizations in critical large watersheds throughout North, Central and South America.

Building Our River CPR Endowments

The Rivers Foundation of the Americas is a catalyst for social and environmental change. It seems obvious and yet the need for social and political change is often invisible in environmental protection and restoration efforts. We have the vision and track record to promote long-lasting and exciting changes. To accomplish this vision we will begin our long-envisioned $30 million endowment campaign.

Our “River CPR” Endowments—the Conservation, Preservation and Restoration funds—will fund a small core staff and give us the ability to fulfill the grant-making and other key funding and technical assistance parts of our plan. As with everything we do, our endowment funds will use a systems approach integrating human health, biodiversity protection and social change metrics for our donors and grantees.

As a public foundation we are structured to manage endowment donations from individuals, businesses, public funds, and from private foundations in three distinct funds:

Our Conservation Fund will provide grants for:

• Promotion of restoration of rivers and their watersheds through funding of research and education activities.
• Projects might include survey research, message development and marketing, and support of video, web, newspaper advertising, books, performances, and other public media productions reaching critical audiences.
• Operating Support

Our Preservation Fund will provide grants for:

• Policy work forwarding the permanent protection and/or restoration of rivers and their watersheds.
• Policy applications focusing on systemic change of root causes of environmental degradation including population growth, health care, and social justice issues.
• Purchase of development and other property rights of critical river lands
• Operating support.

Our Restoration Fund will provide grants for:

• Development of “out of the box” applications and appropriate technologies for restoration of contaminated lands and waters.
• Projects forwarding systemic change and applications of whole systems efficiency and energy technology.
• Specific restoration actions.
• Operating Support.

Systems Analysis: Clean Water, Biodiversity, Human Health

All people deserve to breathe clean air, live on pristine lands and drink clean life-bestowing water. A healthy environment helps lead to healthy, happy and prosperous people. We believe that in many areas throughout the Americas human health, population and quality of life concerns must be integrated with biodiversity protection and ecosystem restoration. To put it another way, until we address clean water, biodiversity protection, population and human health problems, in many areas there is no way to ensure environmental health.

River protection and restoration isn"t just dam fighting or riverbank protection—it is largely about land use in the watershed. Protecting rivers means that effective river organizations can expect, over time, to address nearly every environmental degradation problem. By looking at the big picture, the Rivers Foundation of the Americas can support a variety of opportunities that traditional riverbank approaches might not have recognized. We are making the connections between the parts and the whole.

Strategic Action Plan 2004-2007 Indigenous Peoples

We support efforts by indigenous peoples and organizations for ecosystem conservation, protection and restoration of rivers and their watersheds.  Indigenous peoples have been disproportionately affected by environmental pollution, destruction of natural areas critical to their way of life, and loss of their ancestral homelands, languages and culture.

We do not support indigenous environmental efforts out of a naïve belief that everything indigenous, native or Indian is an unalloyed environmental or social good. We act out of the roots of ecology—a word that derives from the Greek “oikos” or dwelling. The best single word defining ecology is “respect”. Respect for the earth and its occupants. We seek to encourage and support indigenous environmental restoration and protection efforts that address historical injustices while protecting and restoring ecosystem and human health for many generations to come.

After all, as Copper River Delta native and Eyak tribe member Dune Lankard of the Eyak Preservation Council often says “we are all indigenous to the earth.”

Let us begin.
Let us restore the earth.
Let the mountains talk and the rivers run. Once more, and forever.

David Brower

Choices for C.P.R. Endowment Funds

Naming Opportunities: $3 million per Fund

(The ___ Restoration Fund)

• Founders Circle:  $500,000 and up
• River Guardians:  $100,000-$499,000
• River Angels:  $10,000-99,000
• River Protectors:  $5000-9,900
• River Defenders:  $1000-$4999
• River Supporters:  $1-$999

3619 SE Milwaukie Ave.
Portland, OR 97202
(503) 274-7704

The Rivers Foundation Team

Thanks to our donors!

The Bullitt Foundation, Brian Posewitz, Mark Dubois, Yvon Chouinard, PacifiCorp Compton Foundation, Dorothy Douglas, Gaile Parent, Alexander Gaguine, David Leiter, Ron and Becky Pollack, Rebecca and Roy Miller, Kate Vandemoer, ripe, Trudy Coxe Jim Compton, Metro, Joe & Haven Frank, William Hutchison, Dean Marriot, Mary Wahl Michael & Sharon Rivas, David Koepping, Mark Lavigne, Peter Paquet, Ed Mattes Scott Burns, Marcus Ingle, Jack Corbett, Bob & Donna Brayton, Bill Eisenhauer Ann & Bill Beverly, Langdon Marsh, James Coman, Pamela Hyde, David W. Orr The Paulus Foundation, Nancy Parent, Michael Lavigne, Matthew Donahue, Deric Pamp Elyssa Thelin, Mike & Kim Gordon, Steve Blackmer, Jillaine Smith & Philip Bogdonoff David Bolling, Lynne Paretchan, Todd Ambs, Dan Meyer, Chris Brown, Cassie Thomas Groundwater Solutions, Dave Cooke, Debra Fife, Sandra Fife, Nancy Belau, Jeff Hammarlund, Phil Atkinson, Jeremy O"Leary, Peter Wright, Michael & Michelle Biehler, Lynn Werner, John & Christine Perala-Gardiner, Willamette Riverkeeper, Riki Ott, Walker Macy Susan Holloway, Steve Bredthauer, Mike Fremont, The Threefoot Family, Charles Hudson Pete Conklin, Marsha Holt Kingsley, Patagonia, Dan Beard, Alison Handler, Willia
m Burgel Jay Austin, Jerry Yudelson, Erin Kane, Rich Ingebretsen, Ann Lennartz, Hawthorne Auto Clinic, David Gold, Hanna Cortner, Kristan Knapp, Powell’s Books, Sylvia Ward Schultz Mary Dunea, MWD of San Diego, Hal Nelson & Gina Kulig, Ann Hochberg, Peter Lavigne Jon Eisner, Inger Best, Jodi Paar, Laurence Cotton, David Anderson, Fannie CromwellWilliam Hill, Ken Leghorn, Wayne Lei, Terry Egnor, Heidner Trust, Virginia HoyteElaine Cole, Matt Desmond, Kathy Armstrong, Michael Faletra, Dana Katz, Susan BartlettJib Ellison, Mary Avalon, Vicki Watson, Ben Curtis, Catherine Austin, Joyce Follingstad Elizabeth Fewel, Karen Firehock, Rob Moore, Josh Caplan, Jessica Bader, Layla HughesNina Gonzales, Elizabeth Brooke, Katie Lynch, Higgins Restaurant, Richard De Zeeuw Computer Sciences Corp., Lucy Brehm, Joe Pruett, Field & Associates, Lisa BauscheltJacqui Reisner Bostrom, Joanne & Ed Harris, Terry Rudd Spencer Beebe, Sarah Smith Kenneth Hall, Liz Ryan Cole, Robert Brading, Steve Gerould, Jeri Ledbetter & Brad Dimock Michael Matylewich, T. Allan Comp, Mary Ann Nichols, Laura Goodman, Barbara Brower Peter Noordijk, Piedmont Environmental Council, Patricia Burns, John LecavalierP.O.W.E.R. (Public Officials for Water & Environmental Reform), Rick & Lindy Sanders Portland General Electric (PGE), Mary & Maurie Clark, Copper River Watershed ProjectVirinder Singh, Nick Orfanakis, Arthur Ginsburg, Jeanne Norton, Neil Collie Brian & Rosalinda Lightcap, ShoreBank Pacific, J. Newton, Madeleine KimmichGil Kelley, Vernon Rifer, Laura Nobel, Joyce Kerstiens, Sasha Pollack, Teresa WilmethBrooklyn Business Center, Kerri Gunderman, Thomas Kingsley, Jane & David SchueCarl Paulsen, Maya McBride, Sustainable Northwest, Richard Zita, Edward Wolf Norman Sims, Katharine Schnepp, Dyami Valentine, Jackie Smith & Joe Hartzler, Dulane & Mike Moran, Karen Wood, Katherine Turpin, Beatrice Hedlund, Gregory Smith James Kay, PrintSync, Tim Palmer, Beth Maynor Young, Xerox, Christopher Schofield, Jason Burns, Austin Sherris.

Tax Status

RFA shares the same tax-exempt status enjoyed by other charitable and educational organizations. Gifts are tax-deductible and RFA pays no tax on investment income, unlike private foundations or trusts. RFA is classified as "tax exempt" under section 501 (c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code; and as a "not a private foundation" under Section 509(a)(1).

Online Resources

RFA has provided links to organizations from throughout the Americas to facilitate networking between individuals and groups. Here you can find environmental groups from Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Central America, and South America. Also, peruse various sources for informative maps.

Online Resource Index

• National Associations
• Northwest Associations
• United States Resources
• Canada Resources
• Central America Resources
• South America Resources

National Associations

• Council on Foundations
  For over 50 years, the Council on Foundations has helped foundation staff, trustees and board members in their day-to-day grantmaking activities. Through one-to-one technical assistance, research, publications, conferences and workshops, legal services, and a wide array of other services, the Council addresses the important issues and challenges that face foundations and corporate funders. Council members include more than 1,800 grantmaking organizations nationwide.
• The Foundation Center
  The Foundation Center's mission is to support and improve institutional philanthropy by promoting public understanding of the field and helping grantseekers succeed. Founded in 1956, the Center is the nation's leading authority on institutional philanthropy and is dedicated to serving grantseekers, grantmakers, researchers, policymakers, the media, and the general public.
• The National Network of Grantmakers
  NNG is an organization of individuals involved in funding social and economic justice, not a funding group. NNG is committed to the goal of increasing resources, financial and otherwise, to organizations working for social change. Our members are individual donors, foundation staff, board, and grantmaking committee members. Founded in 1980, NNG provides services to both funders and practitioners or grantseekers.
  
• The Association of Small Foundations
  ASF's mission is to provide information and assistance related to quality philanthropy to those offices having five or fewer persons and a portfolio that includes all aspects of foundation work: public relations, writing letters, cutting checks, mailing and processing grant applications, working with trustees and grantees, doing site visits and evaluations, managing assets, tax matters, etc.
• The Foundation Incubator
  TFI's mission is to stimulate collaborative, innovative, and effective philanthropy in emerging and existing foundations. Similar to a nonprofit small business incubator, TFI provides shared facilities, mentoring, and networking opportunities to its foundations-in-residence so they can be more effective in their grantmaking.
• Grantmakers Without Borders
  A collaborative project of the International Donors' Dialogue and the International Working Group of the National Network of Grantmakers. We are individual donors and individuals working with public and private foundations who share a common desire to expand and enrich progressive international philanthropy.
• Independent Sector
  A diverse collection of more than 1 million charitable, educational, religious, health, and social welfare organizations. Independent Sector's mission is to promote, strengthen, and advance the nonprofit and philanthropic community to foster private initiative for the public good.
• GuideStar
  Search a database of more than 850,000 IRS-recognized nonprofit organizations. GuideStar's mission is to revolutionize philanthropy and nonprofit practice with information.
  
• The Rewilding Institute
  An organization that develops and promotes ideas and strategies to advance continental-scale conservation in North America, particularly the need for large carnivores and a permeable landscape for their movement.

Northwest Associations

• Northwest Giving Project
  A supportive initiative to inspire and educate new philanthropists on various options for giving. Northwest Giving Project approaches philanthropy as a deeply personal experience and does not recommend any one giving vehicle, plan, nonprofit organization, cause or advisor. NWGP's goal is to provide community members with the information and confidential support they need to make independent giving decisions.
• The Seattle Foundation
  Established in 1946 to create an endowment to improve the quality of life for the people of the Puget Sound region.
  • The Foundation:
  • Facilitates and acts as a catalyst for charitable giving,
  • Administers charitable funds, trusts, gift annuities, and bequests,
  • Distributes grants to nonprofit organizations in the community,
  • Responds as a positive force to the changing needs.

• The Oregon Community Foundation
  The OCF was established in 1973 by community leaders to serve as a vehicle for Oregonians to participate in philanthropy throughout the state.
  
  Community foundations have three primary functions:
  • To build a permanent endowment to benefit the community through the administration of individually tailored charitable funds;
  • To make grants and scholarships from the endowments to improve life;
  • To provide leadership to address community needs.
    
• Northern California Grantmakers
  NCG is an association of foundations, corporate contributions programs and other private grantmakers. Building on an initiative started in 1965 to exchange ideas, improve cooperation among foundations, and increase their knowledge of community problems, NCG has now grown to support the activity of more than 140 member grantmakers active in the Bay Area, with combined grantmaking of more than $1 billion annually.
• Tidepool
  Updated every weekday, this Portland, Oregon-based Bioregional community provides the best news stories collected from more than three dozen on-line news sources, with the goal being to create a conservation based economy.
• ONE/Northwest
  To ensure a healthy environment for future generations, ONE/Northwest powers the voice of conservationists with technology tools and know-how that connect and involve people in protecting the environment of the Pacific Northwest.
• Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
  This Portland-based commission provides technical support and coordination for fishery-management policies of the Columbia River Basin's four treaty tribes: the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, the Yakama Nation and the Nez Perce Tribe.

Philanthropic News

• The Chronicle of Philanthropy
  The newspaper of the nonprofit world. The Chronicle of Philanthropy is the No. 1 news source, in print and online, for charity leaders, fund raisers, grant makers, and other people involved in the philanthropic enterprise.
• Foundation News & Commentary
  Published by the Council on Foundations, FN&C provides insider commentary, analysis of controversies, and insights into new trends in the rapidly changing world of foundation philanthropy.
• Philanthropy News Digest
  A weekly news service of the Foundation Center, is a compendium, in digest form, of philanthropy-related articles and features culled from print and electronic media outlets nationwide.

United States Resources

• International River Network
  IRN's mission is to halt and reverse the degradation of river systems; to support local communities in protecting and restoring the well-being of the people, cultures and ecosystems that depend on rivers; to promote sustainable, environmentally sound alternatives to damming and channeling rivers; to foster greater understanding, awareness and respect for rivers; to support the worldwide struggle for environmental integrity, social justice and human rights; and to ensure that our work is exemplary of responsible and effective global action on environmental issues.
• River Network
  The River Network was founded in 1988 with the conviction that the solutions to river degradation are primarily local and must be created by citizen action watershed by watershed. River Network continues to provide personalized assistance, training and information to more than 500 partner groups through watershed programs. River Network's River Conservancy Program has acquired and protected more than 40,000 acres of key riverlands to date.
• American Rivers
  We are a nonprofit conservation organization dedicated to protecting and restoring rivers nationwide.
• Trout Unlimited
  Trout Unlimited's mission is to conserve, protect and restore North America's trout and salmon fisheries and their watersheds.
• For the Sake of the Salmon
  Our website is designed primarily for watershed groups and local communities working to restore and protect salmon habitat. We've done the legwork to filter the tremendous amount of available information on protecting and restoring watersheds that are home to salmon.

• Willamette Riverkeepers
  Founded in 1996, Willamette Riverkeeper is the only organization dedicated solely to the protection and restoration of the Willamette River.
• River Alliance of Wisconsin
  The River Alliance of Wisconsin is a non-profit, non-partisan group of citizens, organizations and businesses dedicated to advocating for the protection, enhancement and restoration of our rivers and watersheds.
• Amigos Bravos
  It is the mission of Amigos Bravos to return New Mexico's rivers and the Río Grande watershed to drinkable quality wherever possible, and to contact quality everywhere else; to see that natural flows are maintained and where those flows have been disrupted by human intervention, to see that they are regulated to protect and reclaim the river ecosystem by approximating natural flows; and to preserve and restore the native riparian and riverine biodiversity.
• Copper River Watershed Project
  The Copper River Watershed Project is a membership organization in Alaska promoting sustainable development, economic diversification, with benefits for watershed residents, but not at the expense of their quality of life.
• Eyak Preservation Council
  Mission is to protect the inherent rights of culture, heritage, language and ancestral lands needed to preserve and restore the Eyak tribe's continued existence as an independently recognized Alaska tribal nation.
• Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
  CRITFC is made up of four Columbia Basin tribes. These tribes are the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and the Nez Perce Tribe.The tribal vision for the future of the Columbia River Basin is one in which people return to a more balanced and harmonious relationship with the environment.
• Utah Rivers Council
  The Utah Rivers Council seeks protection for Utah's remaining free-flowing rivers and the ecosystems they support
• Merrimack River Watershed Council
  MRWC is a non-for-profit membership organization with a growing constituency of individuals, businesses, municipalities and community groups seeking to protect the natural resources of the watershed.
• Glen Canyon Institute
  The Glen Canyon Institute's mission is to provide leadership toward restoration of a free flowing Colorado River through Glen Canyon and Grand Canyon.
• Oregon Trout
  Oregon Trout is a non-profit organization headquartered in Portland, Oregon. Our mission is to protect and restore native wild fish and the ecosystems that sustain them.
• Alabama Rivers Alliance
  The mission of the Alabama Rivers Alliance is to unite the
  citizens of Alabama to protect clean, healthy waters.
• Cahaba River Society
  To promote the understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment of the Cahaba River
• Friends of the River (CA)
  Friends of the River educates, organizes, and advocates to protect and restore California rivers, streams, and watersheds.
• Mattole Restoration Council
  The objectives and purpose of the Mattole Restoration Council are the restoration of natural systems in the Mattole River watershed and their maintenance at sustainable levels of health and productivity, especially in regards to forests, fisheries, soils, and other native plant and animal communities.
• Mono Lake Committee
  the Mono Lake Committee has been working to protect Mono Lake from destruction, to heal the damage done in the Mono Basin, and to educate the public about the natural environment and wise water use.
• South Yuba River Citizens League
  The South Yuba River Citizens League is a community-based educational nonprofit corporation committed to the protection, preservation and restoration of the entire Yuba Watershed.
• Friends of the Poudre
  Dedicated to preserving Colorado's Cache la Poudre River, and enhancing its recreational, historic, and educational values

• Housatonic Valley Association
  HVA was founded in 1941. It is an effective force in the protection of farmland, open space, rivers and drinking water and in the management of solid and hazardous waste. From the Massachusetts Berkshires to Long Island Sound, HVA works to protect the environment for the people in the Housatonic River watershed.
• Rivers Alliance of Connecticut
  Rivers Alliance of Connecticut was formed to protect and enhance Connecticut's rivers and streams by promoting sound river and watershed policies, uniting and strengthening the state's many river and watershed groups, and educating the public about the importance of river conservation.
• Farmington River Watershed Association
  The FRWA is a citizen-based, non-profit organization at the forefront of restoration and conservation issues such as water quality, water allocation, recreational usage, open space, and wetland and floodplain protection. We work with federal, state and local government, business and industry, and the people of the watershed's 28 communities to protect the river and the region's natural resources.
• Upper ChattaHoochee Riverkeepers Fund
  Established in 1994, the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Fund, Inc., is an independent environmental advocacy organization dedicated solely to protecting the Chattahoochee River.
• Idaho Rivers United
  Idaho Rivers United is a statewide river conservation organization supported by individuals like you. Founded in 1990, Idaho Rivers United has over 2,000 members.
• Friends of the Chicago River
  Friends of the Chicago River's mission is to foster the vitality of the Chicago River for the human, plant and animal communities within its watershed. Friends has grown from that dedicated group of volunteers to a nonprofit organization with over 1,600 dues-paying members, a strong reputation as a leader of collaborative efforts, and a growing list of tangible accomplishments.
• Prairie Rivers Network
  Prairie Rivers Network strives to protect the rivers and streams of Illinois and to promote the lasting health and beauty of watershed communities.
• American Whitewater
  The mission of the American Whitewater is to conserve and restore America's whitewater resources and to enhance opportunities to enjoy them safely.
• Center for Watershed Protection
  Founded in 1992, the Center for Watershed Protection is a non-profit 501(c)3 corporation providing the tools to help communities protect some of the nation's most precious natural resources: our streams, lakes and rivers.
• Watershed Management Professional Program
  The Watershed Management Professional Program (WMPP) brings simple watershed concepts like land management and restoration and the everyday complexities underlying them, into sharp focus for professionals engaged in watershed protection and management activities -- and for anyone else interested in these issues.
• Center for Watershed and Community Health
  This Center at University of Oregon is working to develop governance systems that enhance environmental, economic and social well-being
• Coalition for Buzzards Bay
  The Coalition for Buzzards Bay is a membership-supported non profit organization dedicated to the restoration, protection and sustainable use and enjoyment of our irreplaceable Bay and its watershed.
• Massachusetts Watershed Coalition
  The Coalition is a network of local organizations that are committed to the protection, sound management and enhancement of Massachusetts rivers and watershed ecosystems.
• Nashua River Watershed Council
  Rivers Founded in 1969, the Nashua River Watershed Association's mission is to work for a healthy ecosystem with clean water and open spaces for human and wildlife communities, where people work together to sustain mutual economic and environmental well-being in the Nashua River watershed.
• Council of Minnesota
  The Rivers Council of Minnesota is a nonprofit organization
  dedicated to helping Minnesotans keep their streams and rivers healthy.
• Upper Mississippi River Campaign
  Inform people about the ecological significance of the Upper Mississippi and its watershed for birds, fish, wildlife, habitat, and humans

• Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
  The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy promotes resilient family farms, rural communities and ecosystems around the world through research and education, science and technology, and advocacy.
• Keepers of the Waters
  A non-profit organization bringing together artists, scientists and community to initiate projects that restore, preserve and remediate water sources in visible, educational, recreational and culturally integrated ways.
• Montana River Action
  Montana River Action's mission is to protect and restore rivers, streams and other water bodies.
• New Hampshire Rivers Council
  The New Hampshire Rivers Council is the only statewide conservation organization wholly dedicated to the protection and conservation of New Hampshire rivers. Since its incorporation as a non-profit organization in 1993, the Rivers Council has worked to educate the public about the value of the state's rivers, designate rivers in the state's protection program, and advocate for strong public policies and wise management of New Hampshire's river resources.
• New York Rivers United
  NYRU is a non-profit, river conservation organization that was created to coordinate and promote an effective river management strategy statewide. NYRU's mission is to conserve, protect and enhance New York's rivers and riverine ecosystems.
• Pamlico - Tar River Foundation
  The Pamlico-Tar River Foundation was founded in 1981. It is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to protecting, preserving and promoting the environmental quality of the Tar-Pamlico River and its watershed. PTRF is a grassroots organization, supported by nearly 1,500 citizen members -- "River Givers."
• Rivers Unlimited
  Rivers Unlimited works to help river groups and individuals in Ohio protect and restore their streams.
• WaterWatch of Oregon
  WaterWatch is a river conservation group devoted to restoring and protecting natural flows in Oregon's rivers. We work in the courts, state and federal agencies, and the legislature to ensure enough water is left in our rivers and streams to sustain the fish, wildlife, and people who depend on them.
• Pacific Rivers Council
  The Pacific Rivers Council is one of the largest and most successful river conservation organizations in the United States. Our mission is to protect and restore rivers, their watersheds, and native aquatic species.
• Johnson Creek Watershed Council
  Our mission is to inspire and facilitate community investment in the Johnson Creek watershed for the protection and enhancement of its natural environment.
• Pennsylvania Organization for Watershed and Rivers
  POWR is dedicated to the protection, sound management and enhancement of the Commonwealth's rivers and watersheds and to the empowerment of local organizations with the same commitment.
• Alliance for Chesapeake Bay
  A regional nonprofit organization that builds and fosters partnerships for the restoration of the Bay and its rivers. We believe that cooperation between informed and active citizens is the best foundation for the Bay's future.
• Conservation Fund
  Forges partnerships to preserve our nation's outdoor heritage—America's legacy of wildlife habitat, working landscapes and community open-space. Pioneering a unique brand of conservation driven by Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Environmental and Economic Balance, the Fund produces unsurpassed results.
• Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition
  Rescuing Snake and Columbia River wild salmon and steelhead from extinction is one of America's foremost environmental and economic challenges. Will salmon disappear or once again thrive in the rivers of Lewis and Clark?
• Canaan Valley Institute Inc.
  Since 1995, CVI has been fostering local decision-making in support of sustainable communities in the Mid-Atlantic Highlands. The Mid-Atlantic Highlands includes portions of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and all of West Virginia.
• West Virginia Rivers Coalition
  Seeks conservation and restoration of West Virginia's exceptional rivers and streams.
• St. Croix Environmental Association
  To encourage environmental action through awareness, education, and advocacy.

Canada Resources

• Nanakila Institute
  The Nanakila Institute is a non-profit society dedicated to the conservation, stewardship and appropriate development of the ancestral lands of the Haisla First Nation, with particular emphasis on the Greater Kitlope Ecosystem.

• Partners for the Saskatchewan River Basin
  A non-profit charitable organization committed to increasing stewardship of the river basin by developing public awareness and education tools, partnerships and networks of organizations that cross political and sectored boundaries, and action projects people can participate in.
• Fraser Valley Regional Watersheds Coalition
  Mission is to promote the understanding and action of communities in the Fraser Valley area to achieve healthy watersheds and the communities that they support.

Central America Resources

• Alianza del Río Bravo
  The Alianza del Río Bravo, funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a bi-national project, is dedicated to the protection, improvement and conservation of natural resources of the Río Bravo (Río Grande) River Basin.
• Instituto de Ecología
  INECOL es una institución pública que produce conocimiento científico, crea opinión pública y prepara profesionales en ecología y biodiversidad para la conservación del patrimonio natural y el desarrollo social y económico del país.
• Biodesert A.C.
  (Asociación para la Conservación de la Biodiversidad del Desierto)
  (Association for the Conservation of the Biodiversity of the Desert)
  Lic. Magdalena Briones Navarro, President
  Ph. D. Jesús José Quiñónez Vera, Associate
  Cerrada San Manuel No. 410
  Colonia Las Fuentes Torreón
  Coahuila, Mexico
  C.P. 27290
  Tel. & fax: (871) 7 32-70-41
  Email: biodesert_ac@terra.com.mx
  
  Biodesert works on ecosystem and watershed restoration and protection for the Río Nazas, the hydrographic basin of which is located in the Desierto Chihuahuense in northern Mexico. Since 1999, Biodesert has worked to stop degradation of the Río Nazas-conserving its riparian ecosystem and developing an environmental education and conservation program as well as conducting a study on ecological and social factors responsible for the deterioration of the lower Río Nazas. The Río Nazas flows from the confluence of the Río Sextín and the Río Ramos, and flows through Durango, Zacatecas and Coahuila states. There are two dams on the Río Nazas: Lázaro Cárdenas (El Palmito) dam on the upper Río Nazas, and Francisco Zarco (Las Tórtolas) dam mid-river.
  
  Biodesert has garnered support from the World Wildlife Fund, the Council of Science and Technology of Mexico, municipal authorities from Torreon, and from the Universidad Juárez of Durango State. Biodesert collaborates with Mary Kelly of the Texas Center for Policy Studies in the Center's Río Concho Basin project.
• Centro de Derecho Ambiental e Integración Económica del Sur, A.C.
  (Southern Environmental Law and Economic Integration Center)
  Claudio Torres Nachón, LL.M., Director
  Tel: 52 2288 18-23-88
  Fax: 52 2288 18-20-28
  Email: dassurct@prodigy.net.mx
  
  DASSUR has produced a video about fishing with pesticides in the Uxpanapa River in Veracruz, Mexico. Ten of the twelve larger rivers in Mexico are located in Veracruz state. Those ten rivers suffer from serious pollution problems. More than 35% of river water flows to the Gulf of Mexico through Veracruz.
• Colegio de Biólogos del Sistema Tecnológico A.C.
  Maria Luisa Villarreal, Sonora President
  Blanca Azucena Garcia Gual, Operations Coordinator of the Regional
  Conservation and Development Program for the Río Hondo Watershed
  Avenida Belice 324
  Colonia David Gutiérrez
  C.P. 77013
  Chetumal, Quintana Roo, México
  Tel & fax: 52 (983) 83 24364
  Email: cobiotec@prodigy.net.mx, riohondo_riverkeeper@yahoo.com
  
  COBIOTEC is working to establish a Regional Conservation and Development Program for the Río Hondo Watershed, a collaborative pilot project for sustainable development and conservation of the Río Hondo watershed-working in Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. The project, to be completed in four stages over three years, will involve communities that depend on the marine, aquatic, riparian and terrestrial ecosystems associated with the river. COBIOTEC will analyze threats to watershed ecosystems, patterns, and will focus on both short- and long-term planning. The headwaters for the Río Hondo are in Guatemala. The river flows through Guatemala, Belize and Mexico, supporting 73 communities along the way, to reach the ocean at Chetumal Bay in Mexico.
  
  COBIOTEC's collaborative project will work to foster environmental awareness, examining the evolution of human settlement along the river's edge over the past 25 years, and studing environmental impacts on the ecosystems due to changes in the use of soil (i.e. heavy use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers) and ecosystem management. The project will work to develop community leaders who will take direct action to educate, monitor and manage the Río Hondo's ecosytems. COBIOTEC plans to develop watershed and ecosystem management programs designed with the support of grassroots citizen groups, and through which such groups can actively participate in decision-making and improving human and environmental quality of life. COBIOTEC plans for grassroots groups, through the watershed and ecosystem management programs, to generate initiatives to be integrated by local authorities in their development plans and policies.
• Grupo Para la Conservación de las Nutrias de México
  This organization focuses on otter protection and habitat conservation.
• Instituto de Derecho Ambiental, A.C.
  Dr. Raquel Gutierrez Nájera, President
  Misión San Felipe #13 dep. 10
  Residencial Guadalupe
  Zapopan, Jalisco, México
  C.P. 45040
  Tel & fax: 52 (33) 3620 5726
  Email: idea@cybercable.net.mx
  
  IDEA is working on two important Mexican River Basins with serious conservation problems. Since 1996, IDEA has been ambitiously working to restore the polluted Lake Chapala (near Guadalajara, Jalisco). The Lake Chapala River Basin is part of the larger Lerma-Santiago River Basin, one of the most important river basins in Mexico. IDEA is also advising the Grupo de Rescate Ecológico (Environmental Exchange Group), which works to defend the Choy and Tasmpaón Rivers in Tamuín, San Luis Potosi. The Choy and Tasmpaón Rivers form part of the Pánuco River Basin, and flow to the Gulf of Mexico. The Mexican government has a thermoelectric project that uses water from both of these rivers, and has overlooked environmental controls.
• La Organización Ecologista de la Sierra de Petatlán y de Coyuca de Catalán, A.C.
  Calle Mar Muerto 87
  Colonia Infonavit La Parota de Zihuatanejo
  Guerrero, México
  C.P. 40880
  Tel: 01 755 55 442 05
  Email: leonsilvestre@hotmail.com
  
  This forest-defense organization is located in the massive forest of the Sierra Madre del Sur. The organization's battle began in 1997 with its fight against the North American company, Boise Cascade. For the past five years, deforestation has affected the water level of the Coyuquilla and Petatlán Rivers due to diminished rainfall. The waters of the Coyuquilla and Petatlán Rivers, which originate from the Filo Mayor River 100 kilometers from the Pacific Ocean, serve numerous villages in the region, and pertain particularly to the municipality of Petatlán, in the Costa Grande region of Guerrero state. The seriously contaminated rivers flow to the Pacific Ocean. In addition to fighting in defense of the forests, the organization is working to raise public awareness about the river basins in order to urge villagers to stop using pesticides and chemical fertilizers on their fields and crops. The organization also promotes environmentally-friendly products and organically-grown food, in addition to controlling solid waste and confining it in an environmentally friendly way.
• Organización Profauna
  (Protección de la Fauna Mexicana, A.C. Sección Chuhuahua)
  Alberto Lafón, Ph.D., Director, gruscan@yahoo.com
  Calle I. Ramírez 1602
  Colonia Pacífico
  C.P. 31030
  Chihuahua, Chihuahua, México
  Tel & fax: (14) 15-43-43
  Email: profauna@ch.cablemas.com
  Contact: M.C. Enrique Carreón Hernández, ecarreonhdz@yahoo.com
  
  Profauna has been working in collaboration with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to analyze the riverbank ecosystem of the Conchos River. The Conchos River is the main surface water source in Chihuahua state, and one of the principal tributaries of the Río Grande (Río Bravo) River. The Conchos River is important for its great diversity of flora and fauna, as well as for providing water for agricultural, aquacultural, cattle ranching, mining, industrial and domestic use. Nevertheless, the Conchos River has been classified as a threatened priority area due to overexploitation of water, dams, desertification, deforestation, pesticide and fertilizer contamination, industrial and residential waste, in addition to introduction of non-native species. Unfortunately, there is little information about these impacts on the Conchos River ecosystem. Profauna's latest study revealed the present condition of the riverbank of the Conchos, taking samples from 35 areas along the river, 24 of which were classified as non-functional, and eleven as functional but at risk (six tending toward higher risk, five toward lower risk). Factors likely to have contributed to poor ecosystem health are over-grazing, discharge of untreated sewage, regulation of the water level, among other problems. The organization also used satellite imaging to analyze riverbank conditions, and surveyed several primary actors involved in the use and administration of the river. Seventy four percent of respondents believed that there have been changes in the natural condition of the Conchos River. The information obtained will help to identify and classify areas at risk, and to select conservation and restoration strategies.
• Proesteros
  Ensenada, Baja California, México
  Email: proester@telnor.net
  
  Pro Esteros is a binational, non-profit organization dedicated to the protection and conservation of coastal lagoons, estuaries, salt marshes, and wetlands on the Baja California peninsula. One of Pro Esteros primary goals is to achieve a balance between development and conservation through research and education. Pro Esteros was created in 1988 as a response to the growing concern of Mexican and North American scientists for the degradation of the Punta Banda estuary in the southern part of Todos Santos Bay. Developers were planning to dredge the estuary in order to build a marina. One of Pro Esteros' first accomplishments was to organize a series of seminars and conferences for researcher from both sides of the issue, in order to raise awareness of the environmental importance of estuaries and coastal salt marshes in Baja California.
• Bess Metcalf, U.S. Co-Director
  109 N. Oregon, Ste. 617
  El Paso, Texas 79901
  Tel:(915) 532-0399
  Fax: (915) 532-0474
  Email: coalition@rioweb.org
  
  The Coalition is a binational organization and as such is incorporated in both the United States and in Mexico. A 15 member Board oversees the Coalition. Selection of Board members reflects the geographic and ethnic diversity of the basin and also seeks to include a variety of stakeholders. The Board develops policy for the organization and provides vision. The organization is run by two co-directors, one from the United States and the other from Mexico. These co-directors work collectively to develop the programs and oversee the day-to-day operation of the organization. The organization also has two Assistant Directors, one located in Laredo, Texas, and another in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose major charge is outreach and program development. The coalition has 25 partner groups in Mexico. As a basin community, the coalition's challenge is to work across differences to secure long-term survival and sustain the integrity, diversity and vitality of life in the Rio Grande/Río Bravo Basin. The mission of the Río Grande/ Río Bravo Basin Coalition is to facilitate local communities in restoring and sustaining the environment, economies, and social well being of the Río Grande/ Río Bravo Basin. The organization's projects have included the basin-wide river celebration-Día del Río, the River Stewardship Partnership with communities of faith, publication of a basin-wide newsletter, production of biannual basin-wide conferences, and computer networking, technical and fundraising support to partner organizations.

South America Resources

• PROMETA
  Fundada en enero de 1990. Sus fundadores fueron tres miembros del Comité Cívico Juvenil por la Defensa de los Recursos Naturales de Tarija, institución que anteriormente ya había realizado diversas acciones a favor de la conservación.
• Ecuadorian Rivers Institute
  Non-profit 501c3 organization based in the United States to help protect and conserve unique watershed resources in Ecuador. The Ecuadorian Rivers Institute works in the areas of Environmental Education, Sustainable Development, and Paddlesports Programs. Our strategy is to empower local Ecuadorians to make informed decisions about the development and management of their river resources.

Recommended Reading

View a list of RFA-recommended literature. Purchase a book by clicking on the link and Powell's will donate 7.5% of the price to the Rivers Foundation of the America's conservation efforts

The following books can be purchased at Powell's, the largest new and used bookstore in the world. Powell's will donate 7.5% of every purchase to the Rivers Foundation of the Americas' conservation efforts when you use the links on this page. Powell's offers free shipping for orders over $50.

Speakers Bureau

The Rivers Foundation of the Americas can provide you with a speaker for a conference or community event, on topics ranging from tribal issues to watershed management to clean water and human health.

The Rivers Foundation of the Americas includes accomplished and interesting speakers who are available to talk on a variety of fascinating topics. Our speakers bureau is available to talk to groups all over the world. The bureau offers seasoned speakers with a combined 200 plus years of experience in environmental protection, restoration, and world politics. We can fill your needs for everything from intimate home-based gatherings, community events, to large conventions, conferences and lecture halls. To arrange appearances for any of our speakers or to inquire about other topics and people associated with the Rivers Foundation, please contact us at or at the individual contact addresses below.

Mark DuBois

Mark Dubois is a charismatic and energetic idea generator and tireless campaigner for the world's rivers. He is a co-founder and board member emeritus of Friends of the River, California's statewide organization working for the protection of rivers, their flora and fauna and for sustainable water development. Mark also co-founded International Rivers Network. He organized the first international dam-fighters conference - a five-day conference and tour with 70 NGO leaders from 25 countries. Mark served as International Coordinator for Earth Day 1990 and Earth Day 2000; Mark coordinated global outreach and developed the seven-person international staff plus the International Council and International Strategic Partners. Mark also is the founder and director of WorldWise. Before his career as an environmental organizer and activist, Mark co-founded and operated "etc", the Environmental Traveling Companions, where he organized and guided inner-city youth and disabled individuals down whitewater rivers. Mark is a founding board member of the Rivers Foundation.

Speaking Topics:

• Growing global strength of NGO's
• River conservation
• International challenges and opportunities
• Citizens impact on World Bank /IMF
• Inspiring and challenging people for the greater good

Charles "Chuck" Hudson

Charles Hudson, a Mandan/Hidatsah tribal member, is a 1983 graduate of Washington State University. He speaks passionately about tribal issues, salman and environmental justice among other topics. He has spent several years working in media and Native American Education in the Pacific Northwest. He is currently the Public Affairs Manager for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, the policy and technical coordinating agency for the Columbia River Treaty Tribes (Umatilla, Warm Springs, Yakama and Nez Perce) in Portland, Oregon. He also serves on the board of the Oregon Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and is a member of the Hidatsa Tribe from Fort Berthold, North Dakota. His passion for river protection and restoration work comes in part from his experience of being flooded off his family's tribal homelands by the rising waters of the Fort Berthold reservoir when he was four years of age. Chuck is a founding board member of the Rivers Foundation.

Speaking Topics:

• Tribal issues
• Diversity in organizations
• Environmental justice
• Salmon, culture and economic

Pamela Hyde

Pamela Hyde has a wealth of experience and cogent analysis about her passion - the rivers of the Southwest United States. An irrepressible whitewater rafter, she has been involved with rivers in the Southwest for fourteen years and is one of the region's top experts on the Colorado River watershed. In the early 1990's, as the Arizona Streams and Wetlands Coordinator at Arizona State Parks, Pam conducted a statewide rivers assessment for the state of Arizona. She worked on river protection issues in the Southwest for over four years at the Southwest Regional Office of American Rivers, serving two and a half years as Southwest Regional Director. In 1999 she joined the Glen Canyon Institute as the organization's first Executive Director. Pam formed the nonprofit Southwest Rivers in 2000 and worked on Colorado River issues basinwide as its Executive Director until 2003. Currently she is the Colorado River Coordinator for the Grand Canyon Wildlands Council, and functions as that organization's representative on the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Work Group. Pam serves on the advisory board for the Water Education Foundation's Colorado River Project, and speaks throughout the West on Colorado River conservation and legal issues. Pam received her B.A., magna cum laude, from Amherst College in 1985. She received her J.D. from Duke University School of Law and her M.A. in Natural Resource Economics and Policy from Duke University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, both in 1989. She is a member of the State Bar of Arizona. Pam is on the board of directors of RFA.

Speaking Topics:

• Colorado River issues: basin-wide, Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon Dam, Colorado River Delta
• Adaptive management
• River advocacy
• Water law, especially law of Colorado River
• Environmental nonprofits, including startup and fundraising

Pete Lavigne, Rivers Foundation President/CEO

Peter M. Lavigne, J.D. , M.S.E.L., is an environmental attorney, educator and writer. He is the founder and a board member of the Rivers Foundation of the Americas. He is an intense and quietly passionate campaigner and organizer for environmental protection and restoration. He regularly presents keynote and plenary and other panel presentations at meetings and conferences throughout North America. Pete has served as executive director of the Westport River Watershed Alliance and the Merrimack River Watershed Council; co-founded the Coalition For Buzzards Bay and the New England Coastal Campaign; worked for American Rivers in the Northeast coordinating issues in Quebec, New England and New York; was Deputy Director of the Pacific regional group For the Sake of the Salmon, and has worked in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Bolivia and Turkey. Peter was also director of River Network's national River Leadership Program where he spent four years organizing river watershed protection and restoration organizations in the United States and Canada. At River Network he helped establish over twenty statewide and regional river watershed protection organizations from New England to Alaska.

An avid sea kayaker and mountain climber, Peter founded and teaches in the Watershed Management Professional Program of the Executive Leadership Institute and is an adjunct Associate Professor in the Public Administration Graduate Program at Portland State University. He holds a B.A. in Government and Geology from Oberlin College, and a Juris Doctor and Master of Studies in Environmental Law cum laude from Vermont Law School.

As RFA CEO, Peter taps a personal network of several thousand environmental protection and restoration experts throughout the world. He is known and respected for strategic vision, love of innovation, skill in implementation, and for sensitive and effective work with students, educators, indigenous organizations, government agencies, businesses, and local activists everywhere.

Speaking Topics:

• Re-Thinking Green Philanthropy.
• Solving the Gordian Knot: the Colorado River in the 21st Century.
• Megalinkages: River Protection and the Americas.
• Bloody Rocks, Green Lagoons and Icy Waters: Ed Abbey, Aldo Leopold and the Meaning of Life and Death in Wilderness.
• MegaLinkages: Watershed Planning, Systems Analysis and Tipping Points
• Cultural Myths and the Future of Water In the West.
• Scale, Boundaries, Turf and Culture: Rules for Collaborative Decision-Making.
• Water Boundaries.
• Cultural Myths, Concrete Results And Whoops Again.
• Damning Dams: The Politics and Policy of Dams and Dam Removals.
• Nary a Drop to Drink: Human Rights, Environmental Justice and Global Water Policy.
• Culture, the Value of Place, and Large Ecosystem Protection.
• Mission Driven Investment Policies

Hal Nelson

Hal Thomas Nelson is in the final throes of his dissertation in the Ph.D. program in Public Administration and Policy, with an emphasis on Climate Policy, at the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University. In March 2001, he co-authored Extended Producer Responsibility and Product Take-Back: A Program and Policy Assessment for the PSU Center for Watershed and Community Health. He received his degree in Finance from the University of Idaho in 1989 and moved to Chicago to become a member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange where he was an institutional futures and options broker and analyst. He received the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1998. A water enthusiast, Hal was the Idaho state champion in the breaststroke as a youth and is now an avid river rafter on the Middle Fork of the Salmon and other rivers in Idaho. Hal serves as Treasurer of the Rivers Foundation and is a founding board member.

Speaking Topics:

• Climate change and watershed impacts
• Clean water, human health
• Global toxins
• Watershed governance
• Mission Driven investment Policy

Peter Paquet

Dr. Peter Paquet is the director of the Watershed Management Professional Program in the Executive Leadership Institute at Portland State University. He retires in early 2003 as the Fish and Wildlife Division Manager of the Northwest Power Planning Council, a regional agency overseeing the Columbia River watershed hydroelectric system. An energetic and peripatetic speaker and activist, Peter has been on the Council staff since 1983. Initially he was responsible for the water budget and Council dealings with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He was lead staffer in the development of protected areas and is currently taking the lead in wildlife mitigation planning. He came to the Council from the Oregon Department of Energy where he served as an environmental specialist. Before that, Peter worked for NASA and taught biology at Santa Clara University in California. Peter has undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology and a Ph.D. in environmental science and natural resources from Portland State University. He is the author or co-author of numerous articles including "Adaptive Strategies for the Management of Ecosystems: The Columbia River Experience" published by the American Fisheries Society. In January 2000, Dr. Paquet represented PSU and the Watershed Management Professional Program as an advisor to the G.A.P. Project on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Turkey. In addition to his role as the WMPP Director, Dr. Paquet teaches the WMPP Columbia Watershed Salmon and the Endangered Species Act course. Peter is a board member of the Rivers Foundation.

Speaking Topics:

• Water issues
• Watershed planning
• Biodiversity issues
• Colorado River fish and wildlife issues

Contact Information

Mark Dubois

353 Wallace Way NE #12
Bainbridge Island, WA 98110

Chuck Hudson

CRITFC
729 NE Oregon, Suite 200
Portland, OR 97232

Pamela Hyde

P.O. Box 1845
Flagstaff, AZ 86002
(928) 214-6492

Peter Lavigne

Rivers Foundation of the Americas
1109 Furhelm St. 
 Sitka, AK 99835 -7118
(907) 747-6879 or (503)-781-9785

Hal Nelson

4528 SE Clay
Portland, OR 97215

Peter Paquet

Rivers Foundation of the Americas
3619 SE Milwaukie Ave.
Portland, OR 97202-3858
(503) 274-7704

Resources

RFA provides a variety of resources to help individuals and organizations protect the environment. Explore links to organizations in your region and throughout the Americas, contact and hire a distinguished speaker, peruse the recommended reading list, or read insightful articles, essays, and opinions.

Publications

RFA and its friends have had articles, essays, and opinions published in a variety of journals. From academic journals to your local paper, RFA affiliated authors provide insightful commentary on a variety of environmental topics.

Donating to RFA

The Rivers Foundation of the Americas is a public foundation dedicated to promoting and funding the protection and restoration of rivers in the Americas. Your passion for environmental preservation and social justice is a passion shared by all RFA board and staff members and by the organizations the Rivers Foundation helps to fund.

• We support activists and their organizations with grants, technical and policy support; and in-kind donations.
• We are also an operating foundation. That means, in addition to raising an endowment to give grants and other resources to environmental leaders and organizations, we also do projects.
• We actively work to change environmental policies in the Americas.
• Our science and research team works on direct restoration efforts.
• We educate adult decision-makers about the connections between land use, water pollution, water use, and ecosystem and human health.

Our goal is to raise an initial $30 million for three endowment funds collectively called River CPR™: Conservation, Preservation, and Restoration. With these funds, the Rivers Foundation will grant money to nonprofit organizations in carefully selected areas in North, Central and South America. Our vision is bold and exciting; our implementation team - Board of Directors, CEO, Advisory Board and volunteers - has an extraordinary record of producing results throughout the Americas and around the world. We know how to locate and leverage River CPR™ Leaders. We know the "why" and "how" to strategically supply grants, build capacity and sustain efforts and support for local leaders in critical areas of need throughout the Americas.

Donate Online

You can donate directly to the Rivers Foundation of the Americas using the Network for Good Giving System here. It's a safe and easy way to give directly to the RFA.

To donate by phone call 503-274-7704, or for more information. We accept all kinds of donations from in kind materials, to real estate, vehicles, stocks and bonds, bequests and planned giving and, of course, cash donations.

Volunteers & Interns

RFA always welcomes interns and other volunteers for a variety of support tasks including fundraising, graphic development, translations to and from Spanish and Portuguese, office administration, issues research and a host of other tasks. Call 503-781-9785 about volunteering with us.

The Rivers Foundation of the Americas, an international environmental foundation headquartered in Flagstaff, AZ and Gunnison, CO, is looking for interns (unpaid) and other volunteers (prefer 4 month, 1/2 time or more commitment for interns) board communications, database and computer systems, fundraising, English-Spanish-Portuguese translations, environmental policy research and various publicationand book projects, and other activities. Activities include administrative support, database management and mail-merge projects, fundraising, tracking project details, proposal writing and editing, working with donors and board members, board communication, publications and web updates, and many other tasks. Education credit can be arranged.

Applicable Skills

Ability to multi-task while being great with people; interest in fundraising or supporting fundraising for river protection; database management, mailmerge etc.; special event management and promotion; graphic design; excellent writing skills, PowerPoint, PhotoShop and other computer and web (Dreamweaver) skills.Spanish and/or Portuguese fluency and translation ability a plus.

We also have specific volunteer projects that can be arrangedas well, for example:

• Outgoing person needed to work on sponsorship donations, and on publicity efforts.
• We have events coming up that need help with
  preparations and publicity.
• Writers needed to profile RFA's work and place articles in magazines and other outlets.
• Research on current work of environmental ngos in various countries in Central and South America.

RFA's mission: To promote and fund the protection and restoration of rivers and their watersheds in North, Central and SouthAmerica. The Foundation serves to preserve and protect riversby raising an initial $30 million endowment to fund efforts focused on environmental education, river leadership, and river restoration. The Foundation is the only organization of its kind and is unique in the breadth of its geographical coverage and for its wide-ranging commitment to protect and restore fragile or endangered river ecosystems to ensure ecosystem health including human health and quality of life.

Our mission is inspired and informed by the words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."And by the words of the late David R. Brower: "Let us begin. Let us restore the Earth. Let the mountains talk, and the rivers run. Once more and forever."

To that beginning we will work to bring our boldest, highest and most expansive thinking and actions to forward our visionof all people knowing vibrant free-flowing rivers, drinking clean water, living on healthy, uncontaminated lands and breathing clean air.

To apply for a 4 month or longer internship or for another volunteer position please mail or email a letter and resume and 3 references to:

Peter Lavigne, Founder 

The Rivers Foundation of the Americas, 451 Candlelight Lane, Gunnison, CO 81230

How to Help

Donate online to our Operating and Endowment Funds, inquire about planned giving programs, check out our wish list, inspect our investment policies, and sign up for our volunteer program.

Our Mission

Our mission is to promote and fund River CPR: the Conservation, Protection and Restoration of rivers and their watersheds throughout the Americas.

To promote and fund River CPR: the Conservation, Protection and Restoration of rivers and their watersheds throughout the Americas. Our vision is all people knowing vibrant free-flowing rivers, drinking clean life-generating water, living on healthy lands, and breathing clean air.

We are inspired and informed by the words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." And the words of the late David R. Brower, "Let us begin. Let us restore the Earth. Let the mountains talk and the rivers run. Once more and forever."

Governance

Our Board of Directors and President's Council are comprised of environmental leaders from throughout the United States. The directors make policy and investment decisions concerning Foundation assets and programs.

RFA Programs

RFA's programs include two major initiatives: our Global Water Policy Initiative and our Clean Water, Biodiversity and Environmental Justice Initiative. These initiatives focus on river-related issues in our target areas of North, Central and South America.

Why RFA?

• Our team has an extraordinary record of producing results throughout the Americas and around the world. We know how to leverage funds for huge results.
• Restoring the health of our rivers requires a systems perspective. We've found that single topic actions often don't work. Like ecosystems, policy decisions are interconnected and a one size approach doesn't fit every situation.
• RFA supports innovative approaches to protecting and restoring large ecosystems by supporting people and organizations working for clean water, human health, population stability, biodiversity protection, and social change.

RFA -- Catalyst for Change

No other foundation does what we do. We develop and bring new sources of assistance to organizations in carefully selected regions where our resources make a significant difference in ecosystem protection and restoration.

We focus on the Americas because this is the interconnected area of the world in which we live, and where we believe our team can make the most difference. By example, we can amplify our effects elsewhere.

Vast areas of our hemisphere are under tremendous ecological pressure -- and the health of these ecosystems is intimately connected through wildlife migration, and from resource extraction and development activities of multinational corporations and our new global economy. Bird migration flyways intertie with water pathways, large wetlands, and animal migration pathways.

These connections are glaringly obvious in some cases, linking:

• the largest concentration of nesting shorebirds in North America in the Copper River Delta of Alaska
• to a key migration stop on Sauvie Island in the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon
• to the split delta of the Colorado River on the Gulf of California in Mexico and the Salton Sink of California
• to habitat in Central and South America all the way to the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego.

Our Framework: Systems Analysis, Indigenous Peoples, Mega-Linkages

People are to rivers what they are to their own heartbeats. A strong pulse brings energy and life while a weak pulse foreshadows disaster for the veins and arteries it powers. This is as true for rivers as it is for people. The interconnected relationship of rivers to people and their surrounding lands has long shown the best way to ensure permanent river health is to work with people who care about specific rivers - and who have the vision to use diverse strategies to protect and restore those resources. Our strategies include:

Systems Analysis: Clean Water, Biodiversity, Human Health

All people deserve to breathe clean air, live on pristine lands and drink clean life-bestowing water. A healthy environment helps lead to healthy, happy and prosperous people. We believe that in many areas throughout the Americas human health, population and quality of life concerns must be integrated with biodiversity protection and ecosystem restoration. To put it another way, until we address clean water, biodiversity protection, population and human health problems, in many areas there is no way to ensure environmental health.

River protection and restoration is not just dam fighting or riverbank protection - it is largely about land use in the watershed. Protecting rivers means that effective river organizations can expect, over time, to address nearly every environmental degradation problem. By looking at the big picture, the Rivers Foundation of the Americas can support a variety of opportunities that traditional riverbank approaches might not have recognized. We are making the connections between the parts and the whole.

Indigenous Peoples

We support efforts by indigenous peoples and organizations for ecosystem conservation, protection and restoration of rivers and their watersheds. Indigenous peoples have been disproportionately affected by environmental pollution, destruction of natural areas critical to their way of life, and loss of their ancestral homelands, languages and culture.

We do not support indigenous environmental efforts out of a naive belief that everything indigenous, native or Indian is an unalloyed environmental or social good. We act out of the roots of ecology - a word that derives from the Greek 'oikos' or dwelling. The best single word defining ecology is "respect." Respect for the earth and its occupants. We seek to encourage and support indigenous environmental restoration and protection efforts that address historical injustices while protecting and restoring ecosystem and human health for many generations to come.

After all, as Copper River Delta native and Eyak tribe member Dune Lankard of the Eyak Preservation Council often says, "we are all indigenous to the earth."

Conservation Biology, Mega-Linkages and Re-Wilding

Our work is grounded in the best conservation and restoration science. We, by necessity, look at a very big picture. Why do we say that? Simply put, scientists have, over the past 20 years, recognized critical "megalinkages" in biodiversity conservation.

The history of conservation has progressed over the last century from the first designations of 'monumental' great places like Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks, and the pretty river canyons of the Wild and Scenic Rivers System. Scientists and policy makers then realized that protection of 'biodiversity' - the great sweep of plant and animal species on the earth - could not be done through the designation of parks and monuments alone.

Protection of species diversity and all the benefits of fresh air, clean water, productive soils, nutritious food, valuable medicines and other products derived from species diversity had to include protection of a wide variety of habitats and ecosystem types.

Conservation biology and the effort to protect large unmanaged wilderness landscapes in North America evolved from these ideas in the 1920s and 1930s. Those roots, in turn, led to Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic ("A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community") and the efforts to call for an end to government policies that persecute large predators. Groups like the Nature Conservancy arose to preserve first, individual species and then a variety of habitats and species. Regulatory measures also arose by the 1970s, including the Endangered Species, Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

Fragmentation

Next came the understanding that small isolated populations of animals and plants were highly vulnerable to accidents of population shifts, genetic limitations, climate fluctuations and incremental development and destruction. Connecting these 'islands' of biodiversity was seen as necessary for genetic and demographic rescue and for viability of wide ranging species.

We subsequently learned that even areas as large as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem could not provide sufficient resilience and protection for animals such as wolverines and grizzly bears - the "keystone" predators whose role in healthy landscapes and biodiversity protection is only recently becoming understood. Suburbanites well know the ecological and economic damage caused by the proliferation of deer due to the absence of large carnivores like wolves and cougars.

More dramatically, even in the protected 'wilderness' of Yellowstone - as wolves were eliminated, large populations of elk overgrazed river banks, driving out beavers who had nothing left to eat or build dams with - thus drastically reducing their role in creating and moving wetland habitats and sustaining aquatic diversity. In the few years since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, elk herds do not dally as long near streams, beaver have begun to re-inhabit large valleys, and plant and bird diversity is returning.

Keystone Species: Organisms whose influence on ecosystem function and diversity are disproportionate to their natural abundance.

Recent studies in South America documented by The Wildlands Project show that construction of a large Venezuelan dam caused flooding of a vast area and creation of isolated, though protected, islands. Many of the islands lacked large predators (jaguar, puma, harpy eagles) and on those islands the reproduction and replacement of many species of canopy trees came to a halt. On middle sized islands, though 60-70 species of trees coexist, only a handful of species are represented in young recruits. Scientists note that because herbivores (leaf eating monkeys, ants, rodent seed predators etc.) became superabundant due to the loss of the large predators, the entire island ecosystem began crashing.

Another frequent consequence of the absence of large predators is a remarkable bird-killing increase in the number of small carnivores including house cats, foxes, and opossums, which cause severe declines in many songbirds and other small prey animals.

Re-Wilding

Re-wilding then, calls for reintroduction of keystone species on a landscape scale. Often this means the reintroduction of large predators over large areas, and changes in governmental policies and public attitudes toward these predators.

RFA's Mega-Linkages

At the Rivers Foundation, we look at continental mega-linkages in the context of large river basins in North, Central, and South America. We are implementing the science developed by the Wildlands Project and others and putting it into practice.

The Rivers Foundation began by constructing a program of mega-linkages in North America. As we roll out our efforts over the next decade, the structure we have undertaken in North America will expand to embrace Central and South America. Our North America work includes four critical major watersheds and two initiatives...

About the Foundation

The Rivers Foundation of the Americas is a public operating foundation dedicated to promoting and funding the conservation, protection and restoration of rivers and their watersheds throughout the Americas. RFA uses its expert financial and technical support to promote clean water, biodiversity, and human health through watershed protection.

RFA is a public operating foundation established in 2001 by community, national and international leaders devoted to Clean Water, Biodiversity, and Human Health. Our mission promotes and funds the conservation, protection and restoration of rivers and their watersheds in North, Central and South America.

What We Do

• We support activists and their organizations with grants, technical and policy support; and in-kind donations.
• We are an operating foundation. That means, in addition to raising an endowment to give grants and other resources to environmental leaders and organizations, we also do projects.
• We actively work to change environmental policies in the Americas.
• Our science and research team works on direct restoration efforts.
• We educate people about the connections between land use, water pollution and ecosystem and human health.