Establishing a National Center for Ecologically Sustainable Water Conservation and Management

Fishy Fridays

Weekly spotlight on fisheries science journal articles

 

Jeff Kopaska
AFS Executive Director
jkopaska@fisheries.org

Happy Fishy Friday!

I normally choose articles from AFS publications other than Fisheries, because all AFS members receive Fisheries either via mail or electronically. However, today I am choosing to highlight a particular article from the July issue.

I recall sitting in the audience at the AFS-TWS Joint Meeting in Reno, when Tom Annear was given the Carl R. Sullivan Fishery Conservation Award. I got a brief introduction to his life’s work then, and afterwards invited him to come back home to Iowa to talk at our Iowa AFS meeting. Through a number of conversations, I came to understand much more deeply the importance of his work connecting science, law, policy, people, water and ecosystems to fisheries management. Tom hit upon the importance of training people across numerous disciplines (hydrology, geomorphology, biology, connectivity, water quality, law, public involvement, and institutional capacity) to be able to have an impact for water, fish and fisheries. Tom is one of the co-authors of today’s paper, and the paper is the product of many year’s effort to re-establish the now-defunct Cooperative Instream Flow Service Group. The article introduces the work being undertaken to establish a national center for ecologically sustainable water conservation and management. The article also spells out the inclusive nature of the proposed center, indicating that it will address healthy ecosystems (rivers, lakes, wetland, estuaries) in terms of their conservation (protection, restoration and enhancement). I hope you enjoy the article, and think about how you could utilize such an organization to enhance the work you do.

Filling the void: On the path to establishing a national center for ecologically sustainable water conservation and management (free access)