Working to clarify and improve both how and when that water is released is just one example of how WWF and organizations on both sides of the border are collaborating. It also represents the impressive level of binational cooperation that is coming to define management of this strained but vital resource.
Another collaboration is the ongoing effort to clear the river of the invasive salt cedar and giant cane that have established dense, almost impenetrable stands along the river channel's margins. These nonnative species have helped change the character of the once wide and shallow river, trapping and holding sediment and burying prime riverbank and aquatic habitat.
WWF conservation scientist Mark Briggs is part of a team that wanted to see if removing these plants would reestablish wide and shallow channel conditions. Killing the cane and cedar, according to the theory being tested, would assist the river's ability to move sediment downstream, out of the canyons and into the alluvial reach, thus repairing the waterway's green ribbon of life. Early results are positive, and indicate that ongoing removal of the cedar and cane will in fact improve river conditions. When sufficiently scaled up, the effort will benefit native habitats and help protect riverside towns and infrastructure from floods, which are likely to increase with climate change.
Members of the team—a robust binational partnership that includes Mexico’s CONANP (Comisiòn Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas), WWF offices in both the US and Mexico, several universities, the US National Park Service, Profauna (Protección de la Fauna Mexicana), and Rio Grande Scientific Support Services—are also replanting native species along the banks of small tributaries that feed the river to stop silt from filtering into its waters and reduce the amount of water lost to evaporation. These coordinated efforts are being supported by The Coca-Cola Company, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and Alianza WWF-Fundación Gonzalo Rio Arronte. In several parts of the river in Big Bend, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has established experimental populations of the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow.
The work has taken off in the past decade, and Carlos Alberto Sifuentes-Lugo, regional director of CONANP, says it has become a powerful symbol.
"For us, the river is not a boundary. It is a union," he says with pride. "The river is a junction for us, so one of the main shared efforts is river conservation."
Joe Sirotnak, a National Park Service botanist who has been involved in binational efforts to bring the river back for over a decade, agrees. As he points out, real success didn't occur until groups from both countries joined forces across the river.
"Where it really took off, and where I am starting to see real ecological success," he says, "is only when both sides are working together on the same project, and that project is right here—along the Rio Grande."
Recognizing climate change as the cause of so many shared challenges, the US and Mexico launched a joint task force in March to encourage more collaboration on the issue as well.