Aquatic and Riparian Habitat Restoration in Southwest Headwaters

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) is requesting proposals to restore, protect and enhance aquatic and riparian species of conservation concern and their habitats in the headwaters of the Colorado River and Rio Grande watersheds.

Priority restoration activities that address key limiting factors for focal species in the Rio Grande Focal Area include:

• Process-based wetland, riparian and instream habitat restoration and enhancement – Restore natural fluvial process that increase floodplain connectivity, dynamic channel processes and recruitment of native riparian vegetation. Activities may include beaver mimicry structures, livestock exclusion fencing and riparian vegetation planting, removal of channel stabilizing structures, and science-based design and analysis for process-based restoration projects.
• Riparian habitat restoration and enhancement – Restore stream banks to increase floodplain connectivity and recruitment of native riparian vegetation. Activities may include streambank re-contouring and native vegetation planting, and engineering design and analysis for riparian restoration projects.
• Instream restoration and enhancement – Restore and enhance stream channels that have suffered from channelization, thereby restoring the natural variety of stream substrate and flow patterns that benefit the life cycles of the focal species. Specific activities may include stream channel engineering and bank re-shaping.
• Increase water availability for species and their habitats and/or remove barriers to flow – Make available more water for environmental flows that are necessary to drive process-based restoration and sustain species and their habitats through voluntary leasing or acquisition of water rights in the focal geographies. Remove or improve infrastructure at road crossings, culverts and check dams that act as barriers to the movement of aquatic species or promote natural dynamic processes to ensure habitat connectivity and fluvial development of the whole valley bottom.
• Reintroduction and translocation of focal species – Translocation of focal aquatic species to stream reaches with improved habitat and protection from invasive species. Reintroduction of or attraction projects benefitting North American beaver in a manner compatible with ongoing agricultural use and irrigation and land management objectives, and which benefits other focal species dependent on the habitat created by beaver activity.
• Protect focal species from invasives – Remove invasive fish that compete with and/or threaten to hybridize with Rio Grande cutthroat trout from streams which are or could be occupied by the native species. Construct barriers to protect established populations from hybridization where appropriate.