Riparian Rehabilitation
Many of our programs contribute to riparian rehabilitation such as exclusion fencing, livestock watering and manure management. Riparian zones are the vegetated corridors along streams and rivers. It serves a number of important functions that bear consideration in terms of farm management. The riparian zone:
• acts as a trap for sediments and nutrients heading from hill slopes to streams, improving stream water quality;
• shades streams, lowering water temperature and altering food sources by preventing
the growth of algae. This special environment is home to specifically adapted
animals;
• protects stream banks from collapse and trampling by stock, thus reducing
streambank erosion and allowing for a diversity of bank habitats to form, e.g.
bank overhangs favored by the bank swallows;
• provides a source of litter and snags to channels, which form critical habitat to stream animals,
•provides food for terrestrial animals, especially in arid areas, and aquatic animals, particularly in small streams;
• provides habitat for birds, mammals and reptiles that live along the river; and
•
hosts a number of interesting plants that have intrinsic value
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