Protecting and Restoring Wild Rivers

WildEarth Guardians uses a variety of strategies to protect and restore the precious wild rivers of the American West.

Where cattle grazing compromises rivers and streams, our Wild Rivers Program seeks to have the cattle removed. Where we can secure public lands leases in order to conserve the area, we remove invasive plants from streamsides.

We mobilize hundreds of citizens each year to plant native trees along riverbanks on both public and private land. We empower citizens to monitor the health of rivers or streams in their area.

To stop contamination, we litigate. To ensure healthy flows in rivers, we not only litigate, we raise public awareness. We work with local municipalities to improve water quality and to provide funding for river protection. And we use federal laws such as the Clean Water Act to make sure our cleanest waters stay clean.

Why Do Rivers Need to Be Restored?

Western streams provide habitat for approximately 75 percent of native plants and animals as well as abundant supplies of clean water that sustain us. Though streams and rivers represent a mere 1 percent of the landscape, they are critically important to entire ecosystems.

Unfortunately, damaging activities have made western streams one of the most endangered ecosystems in North America. Waterways across the West have been ravaged by livestock grazing for more than a century, causing native vegetation to be stripped away, soil and stream bank erosion, and destroying once-lush streamside forests.