Stewardship

For those who know the immense joys of paddling, nothing is more critical to the experience of paddling than the waters themselves, the nation's rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans. It is that unique and personal connection between paddler and nature that is at the heart of ACA's stewardship and public policy program.

The ACA is working hard to make the nation's recreational waters more paddle friendly and to increase the voice and clout of paddlers in policy decisions that impact paddlers and the waters they cherish. The ACA is also supporting paddling clubs and grassroots activists around the country in their efforts to care for the waters in their area.

The ACA is a recognized leader of conservation and stewardship efforts on behalf of paddlers. The ACA will continue its focus on maintaining and enhancing both the natural and regulatory environments for paddlers at the national level. In addition, the ACA needs to target more resources to help paddlers at the community level exert influence over pertinent local issues.

The ACA will work towards stewardship in the following ways:

• Activate a network of support and leadership for grassroots advocacy for stewardship of the nation’s waterways.
• Work towards greater access to waterways for paddlers
• Support the development and promotion of watertrails.
• Become an information base and network for the establishment of waterway cleanup efforts.
• Provide a pathway for paddler participation at the national, state and regional levels for safety, access, and stewardship.
• Conduct research, gain feedback, provide analysis and suggest policy on issues that affect paddlers.

ACA promotes stewardship of the paddling environment in several ways:

• We work for clean and healthy waterways, by supporting aggressive enforcement of the Clean Water Act, and sensible land use policies that will not adversely affect our nation's lakes, rivers and streams;
• We support the efforts of volunteers from local paddling clubs, by giving them the tools to undertake stewardship activities on their local waterways;
• We partner with L.L. Bean to provide funding to local paddling clubs for volunteer-driven stewardship activities through the Club Fostered Stewardship Program; and
• We educate individual paddlers on their environmental stewardship responsibilities, and provide resources to local paddling organizations to assist with this education program.

For additional information about stewardship, contact the ACA's Director of Stewardship & Public Policy.