In the southern Appalachians, the waters of the Upper Tennessee River Basin are
alive with a whopping two hundred and fifty-five species of fish and mussels.
This is a thriving yet fragile ecosystem, and a special sanctuary for the people
and communities who call it home. The river systems here in the Upper
Tennessee Basin support amazing array of fresh water mussels, fish and
other aquatic fauna the rivals anything you see anywhere in the world. For
example we still have, in the Clinch River alone, some 44-46 species of
freshwater mussels which is more than than in the entire rest of the state of
Virginia. We have a hundred and eighteen native fish species that occupy the
Clinch River--that's over half of what's in the state of Virginia.
[It's] just an incredible amount of diversity that we ought to take pride in. We ought
to understand that the well-being of those plants and animals is a reflection
of the well-being of the river in what our interaction with that
river is likely going to be on into the future. -We're not separate from this ecosystem,
we are a part of it, people are a part of it, so what we do and how we treat this
ecosystem, including the aquatic portions of it, will be what we have to live with.
Despite this incredible diversity of stream life, contaminants
affecting water quality low population size and habitat fragmentation have
combined to threaten many species in the basin. To help sustain this valuable
natural resource for future generations
the Fish and Wildlife Service with assistance from the USGS geological survey
has developed a collaborative conservation strategy that examines
cost-effective approaches to conserve and manage the thirty-six imperiled
freshwater fish and mussel species in the basin. -This strategy is a tool that
the Fish and Wildlife Service developed to guide its management actions within
the basin. It's not rigid, its flexible, and while it doesn't direct our partners
to do a lot of things
It recognizes that our partners are incredibly important to achieving
conservation for the aquatic resources here for the imperiled species. -The
strategy identifies aquatic species conservation objectives and recommends a
management approach for conserving in recovering prioritize species and
locations across the basin. -We can't do it with our partners and there are many
places in areas where our mission goals and objectives overlap with those of our
partners and where that's true we will be working together with our partners.
But perhaps the most important partner in this effort by the people who live in
the upper Tennessee River Basin and rely on its resources. -The public has an
enormous role in protecting the Upper Tennessee River Basin, in fact we're
entirely reliant on them, since most of the landscape is under private land
ownership--we are relying on the partnerships that we have with private
landowners and organizations, municipalities, to engage in
good stewardship, to modify the way they do things, to think of things in a
different way,
the way they do things, to be a little bit more cognizant of the aquatic
critter that're in their backyard and what they can do to protect them.
The land and the waters sustain us therefore we owe it back to the land in the waters
to act in a way that sustains them and if we continue to carry the viewpoint
that our actions have consequences and vice versa and long-term sustainability
is what our target has to be then I think we'll make some strides toward
real solutions to continue in the preservation and conservation of this
resource.