The premiere aquatic migratory songbird habitat found in North America is unquestionably the Upper San Pedro River watershed, which straddles the United States-Mexico border in Arizona and Sonora. In 1998, the U.S. Department of Interior recognized this area's importance by creating the nation's first Riparian National Conservation Area along the eighty-mile strip just north of the border.
Unfortunately, this region is also an example of the widespread groundwater management crisis affecting arid lands. The base flow necessary to sustain the critical riparian habitat is directly threatened by a growing groundwater deficit in the basin. This deficit is largely a result of uncontrolled and rapidly increasing irrigation and domestic well development. The best opportunity to create a sustainable future for this bi-national basin probably lies south of the border in Mexico with the possibility of substituting ecotourism opportunities for irrigated agriculture.
NHI led a bi-national, multi-disciplinary team of experts in an independent assessment of the biohydrologic problems and solution opportunities for the Commission on Environmental Cooperation, which was created by the environmental side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The resulting expert report and its recommendations are accepted as the platform on which to build a community dialogue that we hope will lead to a basin-generated mix of solution initiatives to address the daunting challenges facing this biologically important bi-national resource.
