The National Fish Habitat Partnership has unveiled its 10 “Waters to Watch” list for 2013, a collection of rivers, streams, estuaries, watershed systems and lakes that will benefit from strategic conservation efforts to protect, restore or enhance their current condition. These waters represent a snapshot of this year’s voluntary habitat conservation efforts in progress. These and other locally driven conservation projects are prioritized and implemented by regional Fish Habitat Partnerships that have formed throughout the country.

Named among the ten was the upper Tippecanoe River. The Tippecanoe Watershed Foundation created the Healthy Shorelines Initiative in 2011 to improve the quality and health of shorelines and lakes in the Upper Tippecanoe River Watershed, one of the Partnership’s priority watersheds. The Foundation provides cost-share funds to landowners for shoreline projects that reduce erosion and nutrient loading from the shoreline, reduce wave action, and reduce scouring and re-suspension of bottom sediments, actions aligning with several of The National Fish Habitat Partnership’s objectives.

The objective of these projects – to conserve freshwater, estuarine and marine habitats essential to the many fish and wildlife species that call these areas home – is the foundation of the National Fish Habitat Partnership.

Throughout the year, through the work of our partners, these projects will be the showcase of conservation efforts working to avoid and reverse persistent declines in our nation’s aquatic habitats. Having featured 70 Waters to Watch partnership projects since 2007, the monitoring of these projects is proving that on-the-ground conservation activities and strategies are truly making a difference in improving fish habitat.