so I’m sure by now most of us have heard
the predictions about water right that
water is going to be to the 21st century
what oil was to the 20th century that
water stress water scarcity will lead to
food shortages and ecological decline
maybe even Wars and in my 25 years of
working on global water issues I’ve made
some of those predictions myself and I
firmly believe that our human story over
the next several decades will be to no
small degree a water story but but the
conclusion of that water story is not a
foregone one we’re still creating that
narrative and we’re making that
narrative every day by the choices we
make about how we use and manage and
value and even think about fresh water
so what I’d like to do this morning is
talk a little bit about a new approach
to fresh water protection that is being
pioneered by National Geographic and its
partners that basically shows that we
can in fact change the course of that
water narrative in a very positive way
now we’re very lucky to live on a water
wealthy planet but only two-and-a-half
percent of all the water on Earth is
fresh water and two-thirds of that fresh
water is locked up in glaciers and ice
caps so less than 1% of all the water on
Earth is fresh and accessible to us now
it takes a lot of water to make all the
things that we use and buy and eat and
wear every day if we think about a
simple cotton t-shirt seven hundred
gallons of water to make a simple cotton
shirt think about all the water we’re
wearing today in this room right most of
that water is consumed in growing the
cotton out in the field think about a
hamburger take a guess
six hundred and fifty four gallons of
water four
simple hamburger and that’s not
including the pickle lettuce and Fries
right it’s a lot of water if you’re an
average American you use about that much
water in a week at home one hamburgers
worth of water a week use of use of
water at home a cup of coffee take a
guess about 34 gallons for an average
cup of coffee and in my point of view
those are gallons that are worth
fighting over
right so that’s a lot of gallons in all
the things that we use and we’re and by
everyday and then we have to multiply
those gallons by the billions and
billions of consumer meals consumer
purchases that we make every day every
week every year so it’s a lot of water
and so it’s not surprising that over
time we’ve seen this map of water stress
around the world getting redder and
redder and redder with each passing year
so we’re seeing in River Basin after
River Basin demands beginning to bump up
against the limits of that finite water
supply we’re seeing groundwater being
depleted and we’re seeing rivers running
dry like the Rio Grande here in New
Mexico
like the murray in south eastern
australia like the colorado which is the
lifeline of the american southwest and
so any hope we have of a more secure
water future right depends on somehow
changing this course somehow figuring
out how we’re going to live happy
healthy satisfying lives while consuming
less water and returning some flows back
to nature back to these depleted rivers
and freshwater ecosystems and that’s
exactly what National Geographic and its
partners are working to do we’re
basically piloting a new approach to
freshwater restoration that brings
together consumers and corporations and
on-the-ground conservation organizations
to do two things
shrink that human water footprint and
then restore billions of gallons of
water back to depleted rivers and
freshwater ecosystems so we’re calling
this campaign change the course and it’s
a partnership of National Geographic
participant media and the Bonneville
environmental foundation or BEF and
we’re piloting it in the Colorado River
Basin
you know an iconic American River
sculpted the Grand Canyon today supports
more than 30 million people five million
acres of irrigated land but is really
tapped out it’s in desperate need of
restoration so as you can see it
includes five key elements first we want
to engage the public in a major way in
this campaign so we invite people in
through national Geographics freshwater
portal through the campaign’s online and
social media channels to basically learn
about the freshwater challenge what’s
happening get engaged get informed and
also look at your own personal water
footprint so we have a tool online our
freshwater footprint calculator that’s
been a very popular tool to help people
figure out their number what is my water
footprint and give them some tips and
ideas on how they can shrink that
footprint we invite them to pledge and
this is not a pledge of money it’s a
pledge to do something in your daily
life to conserve water to shrink your
personal water footprint we promise for
every pledge to return one thousand
gallons of water back to the Colorado
River Basin and what makes that happen
are these sponsorships from corporations
that also wish to balance out their
corporate water footprints by returning
some water to the environment so it’s
corporate sponsors that basically
underwrite those pledges turn those
pledges into dollars that then fund
restoration projects on the ground so
far to date we’ve got two great
corporate sponsors in silk the maker of
soy milk and coca-cola and just last
week 1% for the planet announced
publicly that they’ll be joining our
campaign as well and then of course we
restore we restore flows back to the
environment so we work with conservation
groups on the ground and this is very
important to make sure that the projects
were investing in offer good ecological
value good ecological bang for the buck
so we work basically to make sure that
every project is scientifically vetted
third-party certified tracked and
monitored and that the flows restored
are registered in an online registry so
it’s formalized and
water can’t be double counted and and
reused and so this process is basically
done through our partner Bonneville
environmental foundations a very
innovative program called water
restoration certificate program and it
kind of brings it all together and then
of course we share the stories of these
restoration projects so we use our fresh
water platform our blog platform at
national geographic water currents to
write articles about each of these
restoration projects photo galleries web
videos to basically get the stories out
why is this important to do what’s
happening and how is it being done and
what is it accomplishing so our first
two projects today basically bookend the
Colorado River Basin the Yampa River is
a beautiful headwater tributary to the
Colorado comes out of the Rockies and
then flows through the heart of
Steamboat Springs in Colorado on down
through Dinosaur National Monument joins
the Green River and then enters the main
stem of the Colorado further down
it’s a beautiful headwater tributary the
second project is in the Colorado Delta
the tail end of the river system in
northwestern Mexico it’s one of the
planet’s really amazing beautiful desert
aquatic ecosystems once span 2 million
acres of lush wetlands beautiful bird
habitat Aldo Leopold after canoeing
there in 1922 came back and wrote about
it calling it a milk and honey
wilderness a land of 100 green lagoons
but you go there today and it’s a pretty
desiccated place of salt flats and mud
flats from the lack of water so these
are the two opening projects and with
with these and with all other projects
in the pipeline you’ll see a number that
are on our radar screen the next one up
for us will be the verity River in
central Arizona
we’ll be going there next month with
each of these projects we want to
showcase not only how we can get flows
back into the rivers but also how it’s
benefiting the communities and the
farmers and the businesses that also
depend on that River so in the case of
the Yampa for example you may recall
last year we had a horrendous drought in
much of the country including the
Colorado River Basin
and about this time of year last year in
late June the Yampa River was flowing at
about five percent of its normal flow
for this time of year so it was on the
verge of an ecological crash as a river
system so we partnered up with the
Colorado Water Trust to execute a water
lease for the summer that basically
allowed the flows in that river to come
up to a healthier level throughout the
summer avoided a crash of the native
white fish population allowed businesses
like the tubing businesses fly fishing
kayaking which had closed down because
the flows were too low to reopen again
even allowed some farmers downstream to
harvest an extra crop of hay so from all
we could see it was a win-win-win all
around I would like to just share with
you the last 40 seconds of our video on
the on the AMPA the scientists warned
that drought years will become more
common in the West we need innovative
approaches to freshwater management this
was a really important lease at the
right time and what I love about it is
it’s is really showing adaptability and
that we can be resilient during these
times of drought make sure that the
river is not the last in line to get
help during a time of drought the
lease-purchase demonstrates new
possibilities to balance the needs of
humans and the health of our vital river
systems
it’s just one example of how people are
working together to save the life-giving
waters of America’s great river systems
now the Colorado Delta is a more
complicated and longer-term restoration
effort some of you may have heard late
last year just before Thanksgiving
November 20th the United States and
Mexico signed a historic agreement that
basically commits the two countries to
return some flow to the Delta and even
enable the Colorado River to once again
reach the sea something I never thought
I would see in my lifetime but finding
the water to actually do that is not so
simple it involves a lot of different
moving parts and among those parts is
farmers in the Delta working and living
in the Delta voluntarily returning some
of their water rights to a water bank
called the Delta water trust so we’re
working with conservation groups on both
sides of the border to help fund and
execute projects that would go through
that water trust and begin to do the
restoration of the Delta and begin to
bring life back to the Delta one of our
main partners is through us Valhalla
HOSA where it’s a pictured here with me
and the Delta who’s an ecologist with
Promotora Mexican conservation
organization and a 2012 National
Geographic emerging Explorer and I just
like to share with you about a minute of
one of our three videos done in the from
our trips to the Delta in February done
here by national Geographics missions
media the impacted fishing communities
include the Native cuckoo paw tribe who
fished and farmed in the Delta for over
a thousand years
but now they struggle to survive in the
changing landscape wonderful shake it up
when I was a little girl the river never
dried up now that I’m old
look it’s dry and when it’s dry it makes
me sad
there’s nowhere to fish there’s no fish
my path goes thump oh the good news is
that restoration is possible
and now more than ever conservation
groups and governments on both sides of
the border are working together to
restore flows to the river so there’s
tremendous opportunity now to actually
achieve this restoration in a way that
we just didn’t have 15 or 20 years ago
so now is the time we can get this done
even a small amount of water just 1% of
the rivers flow could bring renewal to
the Delta and hope for the fisheries and
communities of the Gulf
so that’s a snapshot of changed the
course we expect to have by the end of
this year at least a billion gallons of
water returned to the Colorado River
Basin possibly as many as 2 billion
since we launched the pledging component
of this campaign in February we’ve had
10 more than 10,000 pledges at this
point from all 50 states District of
Columbia as well as 96 different
countries so we’re off to a good start
and if you have a second and a cell
phone please take a second to text river
to 771 seven seven and join us to change
the course thank you very much
Oh
the predictions about water right that
water is going to be to the 21st century
what oil was to the 20th century that
water stress water scarcity will lead to
food shortages and ecological decline
maybe even Wars and in my 25 years of
working on global water issues I’ve made
some of those predictions myself and I
firmly believe that our human story over
the next several decades will be to no
small degree a water story but but the
conclusion of that water story is not a
foregone one we’re still creating that
narrative and we’re making that
narrative every day by the choices we
make about how we use and manage and
value and even think about fresh water
so what I’d like to do this morning is
talk a little bit about a new approach
to fresh water protection that is being
pioneered by National Geographic and its
partners that basically shows that we
can in fact change the course of that
water narrative in a very positive way
now we’re very lucky to live on a water
wealthy planet but only two-and-a-half
percent of all the water on Earth is
fresh water and two-thirds of that fresh
water is locked up in glaciers and ice
caps so less than 1% of all the water on
Earth is fresh and accessible to us now
it takes a lot of water to make all the
things that we use and buy and eat and
wear every day if we think about a
simple cotton t-shirt seven hundred
gallons of water to make a simple cotton
shirt think about all the water we’re
wearing today in this room right most of
that water is consumed in growing the
cotton out in the field think about a
hamburger take a guess
six hundred and fifty four gallons of
water four
simple hamburger and that’s not
including the pickle lettuce and Fries
right it’s a lot of water if you’re an
average American you use about that much
water in a week at home one hamburgers
worth of water a week use of use of
water at home a cup of coffee take a
guess about 34 gallons for an average
cup of coffee and in my point of view
those are gallons that are worth
fighting over
right so that’s a lot of gallons in all
the things that we use and we’re and by
everyday and then we have to multiply
those gallons by the billions and
billions of consumer meals consumer
purchases that we make every day every
week every year so it’s a lot of water
and so it’s not surprising that over
time we’ve seen this map of water stress
around the world getting redder and
redder and redder with each passing year
so we’re seeing in River Basin after
River Basin demands beginning to bump up
against the limits of that finite water
supply we’re seeing groundwater being
depleted and we’re seeing rivers running
dry like the Rio Grande here in New
Mexico
like the murray in south eastern
australia like the colorado which is the
lifeline of the american southwest and
so any hope we have of a more secure
water future right depends on somehow
changing this course somehow figuring
out how we’re going to live happy
healthy satisfying lives while consuming
less water and returning some flows back
to nature back to these depleted rivers
and freshwater ecosystems and that’s
exactly what National Geographic and its
partners are working to do we’re
basically piloting a new approach to
freshwater restoration that brings
together consumers and corporations and
on-the-ground conservation organizations
to do two things
shrink that human water footprint and
then restore billions of gallons of
water back to depleted rivers and
freshwater ecosystems so we’re calling
this campaign change the course and it’s
a partnership of National Geographic
participant media and the Bonneville
environmental foundation or BEF and
we’re piloting it in the Colorado River
Basin
you know an iconic American River
sculpted the Grand Canyon today supports
more than 30 million people five million
acres of irrigated land but is really
tapped out it’s in desperate need of
restoration so as you can see it
includes five key elements first we want
to engage the public in a major way in
this campaign so we invite people in
through national Geographics freshwater
portal through the campaign’s online and
social media channels to basically learn
about the freshwater challenge what’s
happening get engaged get informed and
also look at your own personal water
footprint so we have a tool online our
freshwater footprint calculator that’s
been a very popular tool to help people
figure out their number what is my water
footprint and give them some tips and
ideas on how they can shrink that
footprint we invite them to pledge and
this is not a pledge of money it’s a
pledge to do something in your daily
life to conserve water to shrink your
personal water footprint we promise for
every pledge to return one thousand
gallons of water back to the Colorado
River Basin and what makes that happen
are these sponsorships from corporations
that also wish to balance out their
corporate water footprints by returning
some water to the environment so it’s
corporate sponsors that basically
underwrite those pledges turn those
pledges into dollars that then fund
restoration projects on the ground so
far to date we’ve got two great
corporate sponsors in silk the maker of
soy milk and coca-cola and just last
week 1% for the planet announced
publicly that they’ll be joining our
campaign as well and then of course we
restore we restore flows back to the
environment so we work with conservation
groups on the ground and this is very
important to make sure that the projects
were investing in offer good ecological
value good ecological bang for the buck
so we work basically to make sure that
every project is scientifically vetted
third-party certified tracked and
monitored and that the flows restored
are registered in an online registry so
it’s formalized and
water can’t be double counted and and
reused and so this process is basically
done through our partner Bonneville
environmental foundations a very
innovative program called water
restoration certificate program and it
kind of brings it all together and then
of course we share the stories of these
restoration projects so we use our fresh
water platform our blog platform at
national geographic water currents to
write articles about each of these
restoration projects photo galleries web
videos to basically get the stories out
why is this important to do what’s
happening and how is it being done and
what is it accomplishing so our first
two projects today basically bookend the
Colorado River Basin the Yampa River is
a beautiful headwater tributary to the
Colorado comes out of the Rockies and
then flows through the heart of
Steamboat Springs in Colorado on down
through Dinosaur National Monument joins
the Green River and then enters the main
stem of the Colorado further down
it’s a beautiful headwater tributary the
second project is in the Colorado Delta
the tail end of the river system in
northwestern Mexico it’s one of the
planet’s really amazing beautiful desert
aquatic ecosystems once span 2 million
acres of lush wetlands beautiful bird
habitat Aldo Leopold after canoeing
there in 1922 came back and wrote about
it calling it a milk and honey
wilderness a land of 100 green lagoons
but you go there today and it’s a pretty
desiccated place of salt flats and mud
flats from the lack of water so these
are the two opening projects and with
with these and with all other projects
in the pipeline you’ll see a number that
are on our radar screen the next one up
for us will be the verity River in
central Arizona
we’ll be going there next month with
each of these projects we want to
showcase not only how we can get flows
back into the rivers but also how it’s
benefiting the communities and the
farmers and the businesses that also
depend on that River so in the case of
the Yampa for example you may recall
last year we had a horrendous drought in
much of the country including the
Colorado River Basin
and about this time of year last year in
late June the Yampa River was flowing at
about five percent of its normal flow
for this time of year so it was on the
verge of an ecological crash as a river
system so we partnered up with the
Colorado Water Trust to execute a water
lease for the summer that basically
allowed the flows in that river to come
up to a healthier level throughout the
summer avoided a crash of the native
white fish population allowed businesses
like the tubing businesses fly fishing
kayaking which had closed down because
the flows were too low to reopen again
even allowed some farmers downstream to
harvest an extra crop of hay so from all
we could see it was a win-win-win all
around I would like to just share with
you the last 40 seconds of our video on
the on the AMPA the scientists warned
that drought years will become more
common in the West we need innovative
approaches to freshwater management this
was a really important lease at the
right time and what I love about it is
it’s is really showing adaptability and
that we can be resilient during these
times of drought make sure that the
river is not the last in line to get
help during a time of drought the
lease-purchase demonstrates new
possibilities to balance the needs of
humans and the health of our vital river
systems
it’s just one example of how people are
working together to save the life-giving
waters of America’s great river systems
now the Colorado Delta is a more
complicated and longer-term restoration
effort some of you may have heard late
last year just before Thanksgiving
November 20th the United States and
Mexico signed a historic agreement that
basically commits the two countries to
return some flow to the Delta and even
enable the Colorado River to once again
reach the sea something I never thought
I would see in my lifetime but finding
the water to actually do that is not so
simple it involves a lot of different
moving parts and among those parts is
farmers in the Delta working and living
in the Delta voluntarily returning some
of their water rights to a water bank
called the Delta water trust so we’re
working with conservation groups on both
sides of the border to help fund and
execute projects that would go through
that water trust and begin to do the
restoration of the Delta and begin to
bring life back to the Delta one of our
main partners is through us Valhalla
HOSA where it’s a pictured here with me
and the Delta who’s an ecologist with
Promotora Mexican conservation
organization and a 2012 National
Geographic emerging Explorer and I just
like to share with you about a minute of
one of our three videos done in the from
our trips to the Delta in February done
here by national Geographics missions
media the impacted fishing communities
include the Native cuckoo paw tribe who
fished and farmed in the Delta for over
a thousand years
but now they struggle to survive in the
changing landscape wonderful shake it up
when I was a little girl the river never
dried up now that I’m old
look it’s dry and when it’s dry it makes
me sad
there’s nowhere to fish there’s no fish
my path goes thump oh the good news is
that restoration is possible
and now more than ever conservation
groups and governments on both sides of
the border are working together to
restore flows to the river so there’s
tremendous opportunity now to actually
achieve this restoration in a way that
we just didn’t have 15 or 20 years ago
so now is the time we can get this done
even a small amount of water just 1% of
the rivers flow could bring renewal to
the Delta and hope for the fisheries and
communities of the Gulf
so that’s a snapshot of changed the
course we expect to have by the end of
this year at least a billion gallons of
water returned to the Colorado River
Basin possibly as many as 2 billion
since we launched the pledging component
of this campaign in February we’ve had
10 more than 10,000 pledges at this
point from all 50 states District of
Columbia as well as 96 different
countries so we’re off to a good start
and if you have a second and a cell
phone please take a second to text river
to 771 seven seven and join us to change
the course thank you very much
Oh
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