Anchors Away!

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White Water to Blue Water WW2BW Greg Ruark, USDA
National Agroforestry Center
Blue water marine / estuary ecosystems
White water - terrestrial fresh water ecosystems
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World Summit on Sustainable Development(WSSD)

• Johannesburg, South Africa - 2002
• 10-year anniversary of 1992 Rio Earth Summit
• Overarching themes
• Implementation
• Poverty eradication
• Integrated solutions

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A Major WSSD Outcome Commitment to
Partnerships

• Voluntary and practical
• Public / private collaboration
• Integrated approaches
• triple bottom line
• (social, economic, environmental)
• www.un.org/esa/sustdev/partnerships

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White Water to Blue Water (WW2BW)
Objective To stimulate partnerships that
promote integrated watershed and marine
ecosystem-based management in support of
sustainable development
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Initial Focus Wider Caribbean Region
Member States
Antigua Barbuda Bahamas Barbados Belize Colombia
Costa Rica Cuba Dominica Dominican
Republic European Econ. Comm. France Grenada Guate
mala Guyana Haiti Honduras Jamaica Mexico Netherla
nds

Suriname Trinidad Tobago United
Kingdom USA Venezuela
Nicaragua Panama St. Kitts Nevis Saint
Lucia St. Vincent Grenadines

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4 Integrated Theme Areas
Sustainable Tourism
Environmentally Sound Marine Transportation
Integrated Watershed Management
Marine Ecosystem-based Management
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WW2BW International Steering Committee Members

• Governments
• Governments of the
• Wider Caribbean Region
• U.S.
• U.K.
• France
• Netherlands
• Canada

Intl Organizations

• UNEP-CEP
• CCAD
• CARICOM
• ECLAC
• UNEP-GPA
• IBRD
• UNDP

• OAS
• IOC-Caribe
• PAHO
• CEHI
• FAO
• IMO
• CATHALAC

• NGOs and Private Sector
• IUCN
• Environmental Defense
• EcoLogic
• Conservation International
• The Nature Conservancy
• Wildlife Conservation Society
• PriceWaterhouseCoopers
• Carib. Conservation Association

• Universities
• Univ. of the West Indies
• Univ. of Delaware
• Univ. of Rhode Island
• Univ. of Miami
• Earth University

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WW2BW Process

• International Visiting Teams (IVTs) visited 20
  Wider Caribbean countries to encourage forming
  interagency Country Teams to participate in the
  Miami Conference
• Country Teams identify priorities and develop
  cross-sectoral partnerships and management
  strategies. Made up of representatives of
  various Ministries (e.g. Environment, Tourism,
  Agriculture, Finance, Fisheries, Forestry) and
  private and university partners.

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WW2BW Partnership Conference

• Conference (March, 2004 Miami, FL)
• Over 700 attendees
• Mechanism for new partnership development
• Gathering of diverse regional partners
• Education and training opportunities
• The Institute_at_WW2BW
• 32 how to training courses offered by 56
  instructors
• from 12 countries

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Actions in Real Time.
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NCCR II State of our Oceans Coasts
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A U.S. Link to WW2BW
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What/where is Gulf Hypoxia?
Dissolved Oxygen levels (lt2mg/l)
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When did the issue surface?
In 1995, the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund
petitioned Louisiana and the US EPA to convene a
management conference under Section 319 of the
Clean Water Act to address the serious threat
to the resources and people of the Central Gulf
of Mexico resulting from non-point nutrient
pollution in the Mississippi River.
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Long-term Trends in Nitrate Concentrations
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• Sources of Nitrogen in MRB
• Percent
• Fertilizers 31
• Soil Mineralization 31
• N-fixing Legumes 21
• Atmospheric Deposition 7
• Feedlot Manure 6
• Municipal 1
• Other 3
• About 8 of total is discharged into Gulf, mainly
  from cropland sources
• (Mitsch et al. 2001)

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Nitrogen Outputs from Mississippi Basin
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Nitrate Flux to Gulf is Usually Greatest in May
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• Connecting
• Science and Practice

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Coastal Goal By the year 2015 reduce the 5-year
running average spatial extent of the Gulf of
Mexico hypoxic zone to less than 5,000 square
kilometers .a 30 reduction
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• Change farming practices
• limit N application
• avoid fall fertilization
• reduce N-fixing crop acreage
• improve manure management
• utilize soil nitrogen testing
• Mitsch et al. 2001, BioScience

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• Divert Floodwaters
• to backwaters
• to coastal wetlands
• to riparian zones
• Rather than relying on engineering to confine
  floodwaters to river channel
• Mitsch et al. 2001

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• Create or Restore Wetlands
• 5-13 million acres on existing farmland
• especially adjacent to streams
• Mitsch et al. 2001

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• Restore Riparian Forest Buffers
• riparian forest buffers
• bottomland hardwood forests
• Mitsch et al. 2001

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National Academy of Sciences National Research
Council Riparian Areas Functions Strategies
for Management (2002)
Recommendation restoration of riparian
functions along Americas waterbodies should be a
national goal.
because riparian areas perform a
disproportionate number of biological and
physical functions on a unit area basis, their
restoration can have a major influence on
achieving the goals of the Clean Water Act, the
Endangered Species Act, and flood damage control
programs.
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Riparian Forest Buffers restore ecological
processes thatsupportliving streams
contiguous (paired) stream reaches
Forested Stream gt macroinvertebrates gt organic
matter processing gt pesticide degradation gt
ammonia uptake
Stroud Water Research Center (PNAS 2004)

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1991 satellite image of the Republican River in
Cloud Co., Kansas
Historic Maximum
A survey in 1878 by the Kansas State Board of
Agriculture reported timberbelts containing oak,
cottonwood, ash, hackberry, mulberry, and elm
trees that ranged from 165-1320 feet in width
(KSBA, 1878).
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using agroforestry