What's a river worth?

Early in the morning, the Orinoco River looks more like a mirror than a bustling lifeline. Soft pinks and purples hang from wispy clouds, turning two boats’ joint wake into a riffling painter’s palette. The expedition members—which include a local boat captain, a Colombian conservationist, a US-based academic, and a water resources engineer from WWF—cling to the metal rims of their vessels, staring intensely at the horizon.

Pffft! A soft mist spurts into the air, as a pinkish-gray river dolphin surfaces, poking its elongated snout and smooth head out of the water. Appraising its surroundings with beady black eyes, it takes in the human visitors floating nearby before disappearing back beneath the opaque waters. Several tail fins follow, slapping the river’s surface with a splash.

“They’re hunting,” says Sindy Martinez Callejas, the conservationist guiding the boats on behalf of the Omacha Foundation, an environmental nonprofit working throughout Colombia. She points to one with notches in its fin. “That one was caught in a boat motor, which gave him those unique scars.”

The team this morning is identifying, documenting, and monitoring river dolphins, freshwater turtles, manatees, crocodiles, fish, and myriad other indicators of the river’s health. Martinez Callejas, in particular, is sharing insight on the dolphins and other freshwater species to help inform a new river basin “report card”—an assessment of the current state of the Orinoco basin.

“So, what we’re trying to do is stock those dashboards so that anyone, no matter their expertise, can look down and say, ‘Oh, our water quality is improving, therefore that management action must be working.’ Or, ‘It’s degrading and oh my goodness, what are we going to do? What’s the matter? Why is there a problem?’—so that you can adjust accordingly.”

Costanzo agrees, and reiterates how integral the community engagement piece is to a report card’s success. Their process gathers local stakeholders—from fishers and farmers to conservationists, academics, and policymakers—to identify why their river is important to them, what it means for the river to be healthy, and what data is available to track health over time. It forces people on separate sides of environmental issues to come together, often for the first time.

“What I find most satisfying is getting all those stakeholders in a room,” he says. “There are often people who have never spoken to each other, or are on opposite sides of the argument—and then they are forced to watch and hear each other’s point of view.”

Report cards not only give governments, local communities, and other stakeholders access to the same information, says WWF freshwater program director Karin Krchnak, they help head off problems like corruption. That’s part of why WWF is investing in this project: Evidence from places like Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and the Chesapeake Bay watershed shows how the delivery of concise, accessible, and sometimes scary data points has painted a clear picture for people to rally around.

“Report cards can create a platform where we can actually drive policy change transparently and not have decisions made behind closed doors or catering to special interests. I’ve worked on water governance for most of my career,” Krchnak adds, “and I believe that if every basin had a report card, we wouldn’t be dealing with water problems the same way we are today.”

But despite the success of report cards, they have not yet been widely adopted. “People want a better understanding and more transparency, and a report card may be the right tool for achieving these ends,” says Costanzo, “but for many people, figuring out how to create one for themselves is a major hurdle. There currently is no published template to help local stakeholders create their own report cards with the right buy-in on the ground and credibility at the global level.”

For Dexter Dombro, a Canadian ex-lawyer now living outside of Puerto Carreño, the report card could play a crucial role in his dream of sustainable development in the area. In 2007, Dombro and a group of investors bought around 7,000 acres on the edge of one of the Orinoco’s tributaries to create a nature reserve. As a participant in the basin report card workshops, Dombro shared his observations of the area’s challenges with over 40 other local stakeholders.

“There’s always a problem of having concise and intelligible information available, whether it’s for public authorities or whether it’s for citizens,” says Dombro. “When citizens are confronted with the real health of something, it does change the perceptions, and it also forces the hand of government because when you see something as a ‘D’ or an ‘F’ on the report card, the government and the community are going to realize they are in deep trouble—especially if authorities and local stakeholders don’t react.”

William Espinosa, a resident of San José del Guaviare who also participated in one of the workshops, echoed how crucial both citizens and the government are to the project’s success.

“The basin report card methodology is very interesting because all the actors have the opportunity to participate, comment, and give their point of view,” he says. “Usually, when the community has the opportunity to participate in such events, they feel included and more interested, but then the downside is that policymakers often don’t support these initiatives. We believe that the policymakers have to be immersed in these processes so they also are interested. Therefore, we hope that on this occasion they take into account all that we have done, because we all are part of it.”

For Luis Alfonso Escobar Trujillo, technical director of integral water resource management for Colombia’s Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development, the linkages are clear. “The Orinoco basin represents significant opportunities for the environment and development both,” he says from his office in Bogotá. “The policy for the management of water resources in Colombia is intended to solve the problems associated with water, promote water-use efficiency, and support conservation of freshwater as a natural wealth for the well-being of future generations. The report card process is important to us since it is a remarkable facilitator for national water policy.”

Some basin report card participants have already seen how national policy can lead to benefits on the ground. Delio Suarez is an indigenous leader who hails from Inírida, where the Orinoco and three other rivers mix. Called the Complejo de Humedales de la Estrella Fluvial Inírida, Colombia’s “Star of the South” landscape includes wetlands rich with ornamental fish, and is home to over 15 independent tribes. In 2014, the government of Colombia declared the area a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance, protecting it from local threats. But it still faces challenges from upstream development, which pollutes the rivers and threatens Suarez’s people.

“The river is the main source of life for all animals, plants, and humans,” he says. “I am convinced that the [basin report card] process can generate more awareness about basin preservation. The methodology is very practical and serves to involve people effectively.” Then, in a remark that echoes the other consistent refrain about the process, he adds, “Now the most important thing is that the results can be implemented.”

So while creating the report card has already built relationships, awareness, and the foundation for action, the report card itself will be the ultimate catalyst, says Freeman. “By revealing information in a way everyone can understand,” she explains, “the report card can help us engage local communities that do not believe there is currently a challenge, and decision-makers who have the authority to act, and together we can generate a responsible and conscious way to manage and use the river and its species.”