With so much of what we love about wild Rio Vista changing so rapidly, all of us at Friends of Rio Vista would like to share some news about good things in the works and on the horizon.
First, though, a reminder about who we are: Friends of Rio Vista is a science-based, independent, collaborative 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to conservation at Rio Vista Natural Resource Park. We are the only nongovernmental organization devoted entirely to the park. We’re not affiliated with any neighborhood group, although we welcome all neighborhood groups — and all conservation-minded stakeholders — as allies.
A New Grant
Friends of Rio Vista has just received a new grant to support our work at the park. The funds will be used for conservation planning and action with our scientific and community partners. We’re so grateful for this vote of confidence. Details will follow soon.
Partnership with Tucson Audubon Society
Friends of Rio Vista commissioned a habitat evaluation and plan from Tucson Audubon Society, with funds provided by our generous donors, especially during Arizona Gives Day 2023. You can check out the content summary of the document here. We’ll highlight this plan, as well as conservation alerts from Tucson Audubon staff, in future mailings.
We’re also working with Tucson Audubon to form a volunteer corps for surveilling, mapping, and eradicating invasive plants in Rio Vista over the long term. If you’re interested in volunteering for this important work, please e-mail us at FriendsofRioVistaNRP@gmail.com, with “Volunteer” in the subject line.
Paths to Habitat
Since spring 2022, Friends of Rio Vista has been carrying out Paths to Habitat, a Tucson Parks and Recreation–approved project to reduce rogue-trail damage and to restore native plants to the park, with generous support from our donors. Our pilot plot, Area 2, is in the southeast corner of the park, not far from the labyrinth. It started with brushed trails and 30 new native plants. Our crew of 7 volunteers, led by Friends conservation advisor Gary Bachman, has watered twice a week in summer and once a week for the rest of the year, unless rain did the watering for us. For many months, we hauled hundreds of pounds of water to Area 2 every week: from our homes to the park in our cars, from the park entrance to the site in a wagon. Then we were rescued by water angels — George Hunt and Margaret Umberger — and their cistern.
Two years of care (including stinknet removal) have shown that keeping nursery-acquired plants alive through a dry summer is hard — and nearly impossible without irrigation and constant maintenance.
Rio Vista Plant List
In 2020–2021, Friends of Rio Vista collaborated with the Tucson Chapter of the Arizona Native Plant Society on the first iteration of a plant list for the park. Volunteer and pro bono surveyors from the AZNPS, led by Susan Husband and Melanie Campbell-Carter, conducted surveys of native and nonnative plants. You can see a sample compilation of species here. The AZNPS generously donated the database and copyright to Friends of Rio Vista so that the plant list could be kept up to date in the future. Volunteers from Friends and the AZNPS have already added many species to the list, and we’re coordinating a new system for keeping the list current.
We’re grateful for these wonderful scientific and community partnerships and their outcomes. Please stay tuned for more good news about conservation at Rio Vista — and please join us in making it happen.