Friends of Upper Delaware River (FUDR)
The Friends of the Upper Delaware River works to protect preserve and enhance the ecosystem and cold-water fishery of the Upper Delaware River and to address any environmental threats to the area for the benefit of local communities, residents, and visitors to the region. The Code Blue Foundation has provided general support to fund this grass-roots organization helping FUDR become a much-needed leader in the area. FUDR has worked hard and has been successful in forming a strong coalition to help achieve their goals including Trout Unlimited, the National Park Services, Fish and Wildlife Services, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and local townships.
Code Blue supports Sea Studios work raising environmental literacy and inspiring action through innovative filmmaking. Code Blue funded films include, Strange Days on Planet Earth, which underscores how individuals are interconnected to our planet’s life support systems, and Coral Connections about the effects of uncontrolled development on the community, the watershed, and coral reef ecosystems in Mexico. HYPERLINK “http://www.seastudios.com/coral_video_qte.php” http://www.seastudios.com/coral_video_qte.php
One of Sea Studio’s newest films for PBS/Nature, funded with a Code Blue Foundation grant, will examine the issues related to salmon habitat in the Columbia and Snake River watersheds of the Pacific Northwest. The film makes a most compelling case for thinking about wild salmon and the fact that during the last 100 years of “mitigation,” billions of dollars have produced billions of hatchery fish, but virtually eliminated wildness and sterilized the vast watersheds that define the Northwest.
Code Blue has long supported the innovative approach of Sustainable Northwest in working with community leaders in the Klamath Basin watershed to design solutions that benefit both fisheries and agriculture. In February 2010, agreements were signed by leaders of more than 25 stakeholder groups representing farmers, ranchers, Native Americans, fisherman, environmentalists, and government representatives to remove four dams on the Klamath River. Not only would these agreements achieve what will be the largest dam removal in history, but they also guarantee conditions needed to support the return of wild salmon to the upper reaches of the Klamath Basin. This settlement demonstrates the importance of taking a holistic approach to ecosystem restoration that benefits wildlife, the environment, local residents, and economies and can serve as a model to be replicated in other areas.
Russia’s 1000-mile long Kamchatka Peninsula produces up to one-quarter of all wild Pacific salmon, and its river systems host the greatest diversity of salmonoid fish on earth. Kamchatka is also the site of caviar poaching epidemic and a target for mining, oil and gas expansion. Kamchatka represents one of the last chances to provide permanent protection for entire, pristine salmon ecosystems and to protect the livelihoods of people that rely on the economic benefits and food security provided by the wild salmon runs. Code Blue supports the WSC and applauds their achieving numerous successes in the region. WSC success stories include the signing of a protected area development plan, creation of a headwaters-to-ocean preserve, and establishing several biological research stations along the rivers.