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Dear Audubon Member,

Photoby Danuta Otfinowski

I grew up on a Minnesota farm near the Mississippi River. When I visit Louisiana, I joke that I feel right at home there because so much of my native state has washed down the river and into the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, it's no joke.

The Mississippi watershed, the largest wetland system in the country, provides abundant habitat for fish and wildlife, as well as a migration corridor for more than 300 species of birds. The Gulf of Mexico supports America's largest commercial fishery. The river and the gulf serve a massive tourism and recreation industry.

But this amazing resource is in trouble. In addition to carrying eroded topsoil, the river's runoff is laced with chemicals, fertilizer, and other pollutants from agriculture, lawns, factories, and urban development. Besides the threats this runoff poses to the river itself, it is also choking the marine ecology of the gulf and has even created an 8,500-square-mile offshore "dead zone." The Mississippi has been dredged, dammed, diked, and diverted for commercial navigation and floodplain development, completely altering its natural flow. This "canalization" of the river, in turn, causes coastal erosion, particularly in Louisiana. Wetland habitat the size of a football field disappears every day along the Gulf Coast.

In 1998 Audubon launched a campaign to begin addressing these complex issues. The first step has been to make people aware of what is at stake and to begin engaging them in finding solutions.

Focusing our initial efforts on the Upper Mississippi, Audubon has been raising awareness and engaging people by offering regular field trips on the Audubon Ark (see "Rolling on the River," in the September issue of the magazine); by leading the efforts that created the Great River Birding Trail; and by hosting numerous events in riverfront communities. Our vision includes several Audubon centers along the Mississippi, which will serve as gateways for people to understand and appreciate the river. One of these, a permanent Audubon Ark, will be our first floating Audubon center, where we can actually teach children and families out on the water.

From its headwaters to the gulf, the Mississippi is an ecosystem of international importance. It is a working river for commerce, a public resource for recreation and tourism, and a natural resource providing abundant habitat for birds, fish, and other wildlife. Audubon's goal is to turn the nation's attention to this wonderful place, and to engage people in taking action to protect and restore it. Together we can find a sustainable balance among these competing uses.

To learn more, or to help, check our web site at www.audubon.org.

© 2002  NASI

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