River Networking Tool Launched
Welcome to the latest greatest way to represent the rivers you paddle and to stay involved with their management!
Here at AW we recognize that one individual or organization can't protect and restore rivers alone - it takes a community. With the support of Patagonia, we have developed an exciting tool to build communities around rivers and issues. Paddlers traverse virtually every foot of navigable whitewater river in the country every year. With that first hand knowledge comes a great opportunity to represent these special places.
When you click on a star next to a river reach on a state AW River Database page, it will turn yellow, and you have joined the network of people that have a relationship with that river. We expect paddlers, AW staff and volunteers, river managers, and partner organizations to join the network of their favorite rivers. We know that rivers bring together a diverse and awesome group of people, and now these people can find each other online to organize river stewardship activities if the need arises. These activities might include stream cleanups, answering simple questions from river managers (or vice versa), and sharing news on management actions affecting access or the river corridor. AW will use the networking tool to find volunteers and share river-specific information when needs arise.
Go to any of the state pages in our National River Database where you paddle. Click on a star and it turns it yellow and you have joined the network for that river reach. Clicking the star again will remove you from the network. Go ahead, give it a try!
You need to be a registered AW website user (free) to use this tool, and be logged on. If you do not see stars then you are not registered and logged on.
You can then go to the National River Database, click on the button titled "Personal Rivers on River Network". You will see a list of all the rivers you have signed up for, and can select the title that best describes you (paddler, river manager, etc). Please do this! This is also a cool page on which you can see which of your favorite rivers are running!
You can also go to the River Database page for any of the specific rivers you have signed up for and click on the River Network tab to view all the people on the network for that river. If your paddling buddies are not on there - tell them they need to represent! Now comes the really cool part. If you have a stewardship related question or concern you can click on "Send Message to Contacts on This Page" to send a message to all the contacts listed, or you can send a message to any single member of the group. This tool will allow river managers, AW staff, AW Regional Coordinators, and paddlers to find one another and communicate.
Please use this resource only for river stewardship related issues, and report any deviations from this policy to AW staff.
Who cares about the right prong of the left fork of the Little River? We do!Agencies, politicians, landowners, researchers, other organizations, and other recreationists all use our website regularly. Show these folks that paddlers care about often overlooked headwater streams and rivers.