The Mississippi River in Minnesota, by Ken Ratclif (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
Perspectives

The National River Organizations

Citizens who appreciate the importance and preservation of our country’s natural resources know that governmental agencies need assistance to do their jobs. That’s why in the conservation arena so many not-for-profit or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are acting to augment and monitor the work of the government agencies.

Louisiana wetlands. By JamesDeMers [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.
Feature

An Orphaned River, A Lost Delta

Over thousands of years the Mississippi River deposited fresh water, nutrients, and sediment through a vast American territory to form one of the world’s grandest deltas. Today, Louisiana’s coastal wetlands—a critical ecosystem in this delta and a place we call “America’s Wetland”—is dying.

Networks diagram of the Healing Place Collaborative. Image courtesy of Mona Smith
Feature

Healing Place Collaborative

Healing Place Collaborative (HPC) is an association of 40 professionals from many fields who share an interest in the Mississippi River as a place of healing and a place in need of healing. Indigenous-led and artist-led, the group includes language activists, educators, environmentalists, scientists, therapists, community organizers, public officials, and scholars.

Canoeists on the Mississippi River in the Mississippi River National River and Recreation Area.
Feature

What It Means to be a “Partnership Park” – The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area

The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area touts itself a “partnership park,” but what does that mean, especially in the context of the National Park Service (NPS) overall? When most people think of national parks, they imagine Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, the Everglades, the Statue of Liberty, or some other iconic park or place.

Healing Place Collaborative (HPC) network diagram. A circle has different lines stretching across it. Each line represents work or collaboration between two HPC members.
Introduction

Introduction to Issue Five

When I got fully engaged with Mississippi River work, in the mid-90s, there was a lot of talk about public-private partnerships. That has ebbed and flowed and morphed over the years, but the idea of partnership has remained. Pretty much anyone in any sector—public, nonprofit, or corporate—understands that work beyond a small one-time project rarely happens through just one entity.

Elwha River at Goblin's Gate by Jeff Taylor
Geographies

Perspectives on River Interventions

Over the past two decades, river management has added a new approach to the “toolbox” of efforts to undo some of the damage caused by earlier generations of river interventions. Humans have intervened in river flows for millennia, damming water courses and creating levees to shape river flows, all in the name of providing expanded benefits from managed river flows. But things have changed recently.