• Protecting Instream Flows:  Water is a hot commodity in Colorado, which will lead to new proposals for inter-basin transfers, storage dams, and withdrawals. Many towns and citizens though now place a high value on whitewater recreation as a competing use – one that requires water to be left in the river. Instream flows with sweeping environmental benefits can be protected through leveraging the value of river recreation.
• Supporting the Right to Float:  Colorado has some of the worst laws in the nation regarding the public’s right to float through private lands.  Given the general statewide support for recreation, case by case collaborative efforts and/or a variety of statewide legislative and legal strategies could improve the public right to float.  Accessible rivers have active stewards, advocates, and watchdogs, which ensures their long-term protection.
• Conserving Cherished Places:  Paddlers cherish more than just the water under their boats, and have long worked to protect the scenery and ecological integrity of whole watersheds and riparian corridors.  Protection of riparian corridors provides good water quality, scenery, wildlife habitat, and river access.  River recreationists can play a unique role in advocating for protection of these resources.
• Securing Public Access:  We feel that all rivers need safe, legal, and environmentally conscious public access.  Often this river access is as simple as a roadside pull-off, but in other cases partnerships must be formed and funds raised to create river access on both public and private lands.
•  Educating Using Whitewater Parks and Events:  Paddling is a visible and exciting part of the culture of Colorado.  Whitewater parks and events provide a superb and underutilized platform for teaching the public about river conservation issues.
•  Ensuring Safe Water Quality:  Few people drink as much river water as whitewater paddlers.  As the citizens that bare the brunt of poor water quality management, we are in a unique position to advocate for high water quality standards that are strongly enforced. 

American Whitewater is planning a meeting later this fall of groups interested in the relationship of whitewater recreation and the conservation movement in Colorado.  We hope to discuss a predetermined range of specific issues affecting whitewater boaters and rivers in the state, and develop the beginnings of a common vision for their resolution.  Through recognizing and strengthening a network of whitewater river advocates with shared goals, and through proposing a new position dedicated to reaching those goals, we hope to add significant value to the existing efforts and further contribute to the existing team of groups already working on many of these issues.  In addition, we are actively exploring ways in which AW staff and volunteers can play a more active role in Colorado-based river stewardship initiatives. 

While this initial roundtable meeting will be small, targeted, and invitation-only, we look forward to future events geared towards a broader range of groups and more individual paddlers.