The overall project has the following goals

1. The Journey From Source to Sea Down the Colorado River

Author, adventurer and filmmaker Jonathan Waterman is partnering with the Institute to launch a nationwide media campaign with support from National Geographic that will highlight the key issues for sustainability and cultural resilience in the Colorado River Basin as he descends the river from source to sea.

Waterman, who has been successful in bringing attention to the high stakes, wilderness-versus-oil issue of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, will bring the national spotlight on the looming water crisis in the Colorado Basin and the possible impacts of climate change.

He will also underscore the predicament of native cultures that depend on the river today and show what can be done to restore both riparian ecosystems and our own connection to this most vital resource.

His journey will start in late May, examining the shrinking snow fields that are the source of most of the river’s volume, while climbing Longs Peak above the river’s headwaters in Colorado. He will then tackle the river’s many challenging rapids below.

Waterman has arranged meetings and will travel the river with a wide range of people: Bureau of Reclamation officials at some of the larger dams; Farmers who depend on the river’s water for irrigation (e.g., California’s 500,000-acre Imperial Irrigation District has turned a desert into agricultural cornucopia); Park Rangers in Canyonlands; opponentsof the Glen Canyon Dam; Researchers in the Grand Canyon; Yuma conservationists who have restored a large section of river habitat; Indigenous Kwapa in the Delta

By December, he will have paddled the entire length of the extant river to Mexico. Finally, in a visually stunning statement about the overuse of water and the onslaught of climate change, he will wheel his kayak along the last 90 miles of dried out river bed.

2. Delta Restoration

The Sonoran Institute will plan and build support for a single environmental pulse flow into the Delta. The most likely source for this one-time release is Morelos Dam, the last diversion dam on the Colorado on the US-Mexico border, where Mexico channels all of its water allocation of 9% of the river’s waters to the Mexicali Valley.

This release will be initiated by the Kwapa tribe as a symbol of its enduring relationship with the river. We will monitor both environmental and cultural impacts to determine the scalability and repeatability of this initiative. A well-planned media campaign on both sides of the border will bring attention to what’s possible.

3. Cultural and Economic Resilience

Natural, cultural and economic resilience go hand in hand in the Delta. Local initiatives, such as the building of check dams on the Rio Hardy by the Institute’s community partner, AEURHYC, and the recent creation ofthe La Ruta del Rio Hardy scenic route by the Baja California Department of Tourism, provide the basis for the development of an ecotourism offering in the region with active Kwapa participation that builds on the assets of the existing tourist camps.

The Institute will work with local tourist camps to develop this scenic route, create school and family tours to the Rio Hardy Eco Camp, an environmental education, recreation, and restoration area that is being developed along the river, set up Kwapa boat tours on the Rio Hardy, assist the tribe through selling traditional chaquira beadwork jewelry in Mexicali and at fairs on both sides of the border, and promote geotours to the region as a vehicle for community-building and sustainable development (the Institute works closely with National Geographic’s Center Sustainable Destinations in this arena).

Media and Products

This project will create a wide range of media throughout 2009-2010, including:

~ two, 6-minute TV documentaries on the river, produced by NGS for PBS’ “Wild Chronicles”

~an hour-long documentary film by Serac Adventure Films for TV/ film festival circuit
~ a photo exhibit, to open at NGS headquarters in D.C. and tour museums across the country

~ a national lecture circuit, promoted by NGS and a lecture agency

~ magazine features in NGS Adventure and others

~ radio and newspaper and website activity, coordinated through NGS

~ Waterman’s NGS text published book & a photography book (publisher yet to be determined)

~ correspondence postcard/letter/email campaign to lawmakers.

Project sponsors are invited to join the campaign with their own media or meet the team on its journey. Tax deductible contributions will be accepted through the Sonoran Institute, a 501 c-3 organization.

The Team

Jonathan Waterman’s National Geographic Society book will be a first-person journey narrative that will publicize the river’s predicament in the face of water overuse, persistent drought, and the looming climate crisis. This odyssey is the author’s personal quest to understand the river and to show the world what’s at stake. He has authored nine books. His Where Mountains Are Nameless: Passion and Politics in the Arctic Refuge won the 2006 Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award and helped him initiate a multi media, “Save the Arctic Refuge Campaign” in conjunction with NGS. In 2004, his writing about the Arctic won the prestigious National Endowment of the Arts Literary Fellowship.

Luther Propst’s Sonoran Institute (a 501 c-3, non profit) promotes community decisions and public policies that respect the land and the people of western North America under the pressures of rapid urban growth and likely linked to long-term climate change, natural areas and their wildlife face daunting challenges.

Propst and his colleagues—Mark Lellouch and Joaquin Murrieta—will accompany Waterman on sections of his journey and help implement solution-oriented media and a take-action campaign to restore key habitat in the Delta and reconnect the people with the river.

Through strong partnerships with non-governmental organizations, research institutions, government officials, and Mexican and U.S. community leaders, and with the support of generous, visionary funders, the Institute has laid the groundwork for comprehensive restoration of the Colorado River Delta that integrates environmental research, policy and community development. www.sonoran.org

Filmmaker Michael Brown is the owner of Serac Adventure Films. He grew up next to the river and has kayaked many of its most difficult rapids. Michael is renowned for his award-winning,issue-based films that show a passion for the conservation of wild places. He will help shoot two short films for Wild Chronicles TV (toair on PBS), in addition to an hour long documentary about the river. www.seracfilms.com

National Geographic photographer Pete McBride grew up on a cattle ranch near Aspen, Colorado. McBride’s proposed photography book will show—through many aerial images and time on the river— how diversions and drought have transformed habitats and communities. His lens will show the beauty and wilderness still to be found (and conserved) along the Colorado River. www.petemcbride.com