Cultivating Place: River Partners

By Jennifer Jewell

Published January 12, 2017 at 10:00 AM PST

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View over a healthy bend in a local river demonstrating natural flood plains and early successional plant communities of willows and grasses establishing themselves along the water’s path.";

Jennifer Jewell

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View over a healthy bend in a local river demonstrating natural flood plains and early successional plant communities of willows and grasses establishing themselves along the water’s path.";

Jennifer Jewell

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The River Partners board - John Carlon is back row, second from the right, to John’s left (our farthest right) is another early member of the River Partners team and mission, Dr. Tom Griggs Senior Restoration Ecologist (Retired).";

Courtesy of River Partners

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Courtesy of River Partners

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View over a healthy bend in a local river demonstrating natural flood plains and early successional plant communities of willows and grasses establishing themselves along the water’s path.";

Jennifer Jewell

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View over a healthy bend in a local river demonstrating natural flood plains and early successional plant communities of willows and grasses establishing themselves along the water’s path.";

Jennifer Jewell

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View within one of River Partner’s restoration projects illustrating existing agriculture to the left facing and restored riparia full of plant and animal diversity in front and to the right.";

Jennifer Jewell

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View within one of River Partner’s restoration projects illustrating existing agriculture to the left facing and restored riparia full of plant and animal diversity in front and to the right.";

Jennifer Jewell

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A view of aspects of River Partners’ work in process - including planning designs, planting in action, new plantings, restored wildlife (Black Crowned Night Heron), and aerial views of mixed use riparia. ";

Photo courtesy of River Partners

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Photo courtesy of River Partners

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Photo courtesy of River Partners

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Photo courtesy of River Partners

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Black Crowned Night Heron

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Black Crowned Night Heron

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As a celebration of the many ways that one’s cultivation of place can benefit not only the individual cultivator – gardener or naturalist – this week on Cultivating Place I’m joined by John Carlon, president of River Partners, a nonprofit organization working to create wildlife habitat for the benefit of people (economically and environmentally), water (quality and conservation), wildlife and the wider environment (including benefitting agricultural productivity and quality) by restoring successional riparian corridors throughout watersheds of the Western United States.

For more than 15 years the work of River Partners, incorporating the research, science and methodologies of restoration ecology and agriculture, has restored and enlivened riparia (forested river edges) and floodplains along streams and rivers including the Colorado, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Merced, Otay, Tuolumne, Feather and Stanislaus rivers. The benefits will continue to enrich our lives for the next 150.