River Partners
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In 1998 River Partners was founded by two conservation-minded farmers who believed that the fields of habitat restoration and agriculture could work together. Now a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation, River Partners' mission is to create wildlife habitat for the benefit of people and the environment. River Partners protects the environment by implementing large scale restoration projects along streams
Heritage Growers’ Wildland Seed Collection Assistant Manager Madison Cline was on an early-morning seed-collecting outing with her team at the 7,500-acre San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge, where River Partners has restored around 2,500 acres of native habitat. Heritage Growers is our nonprofit native seed farm, growing and amplifying source-identified native seed for large-scale restoration. While collecting bur-marigold seeds, an excellent pollinator plant that flourishes in wetlands, river edges, and marshy areas, Cline captured this video of a beaver cruising along in the San Joaquin River.
After nearly being wiped out in the early 1800s during the “California Fur Rush,” when trappers killed hundreds of thousands of beavers statewide for their pelts, protective laws in the mid-20th century allowed them to rebound slowly. Today, they have recolonized many of their natural environments in the Central Valley, though they face new challenges from urban development and industrial agriculture. Thanks to continued conservation efforts by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and Tribal partnerships, beaver populations continue their upward trend in our state.
Given protection and space, beavers are adaptable and can be found in multiple Central Valley waterways, yet hidden in plain sight. Often dubbed “ecosystem engineers,” their dams transformed the Central Valley into a massive mosaic of wetlands, which continue to support the incredible biodiversity of the 10,000-mile Pacific Flyway and provide nurseries for salmon. Other benefits from the work of these busy water engineers include encouraging groundwater recharge (their ponds slow down water, allowing it to seep into the ground), water quality (their wetlands naturally filter waterways before it hits the main river channels), and wildfire breaks (lush, wet meadows created by beavers can act as natural firebreaks in dry grassland areas).
See more fun critters from our "Eyes in the Wild" series: https://riverpartners.org/news/eyes-in-the-wild-a-river-partners-wildlife-journal-january-edition/
05/19/2026
Over the last three years, with $40 million of funding from the California Wildlife Conservation Board, River Partners has been preparing a suite of 10 restoration projects in the San Joaquin Valley (called our SJ10 projects) for implementation. After three years of assessments, permitting, planning, and finalizing restoration plans, we’re thrilled to report that all 10 projects are at “shovel-ready” status—meaning we are ready to begin implementing restoration of an additional 6,000 acres in the San Joaquin Valley.
It’s the mission of River Partners to give life back to California rivers. And we’re doing this work at landscape-scale. This is the story about how River Partners reached this point with the projects, where each of the SJ10 projects is located, and how each project is unique, and how together they’ll double the acreage of restored floodplains in the Central Valley to protect our communities and wildlife from the endangered Western monarch butterfly to the San Joaquin kit fox.
Read more about River Partners’ SJ10 projects here:
Ready for Liftoff: 6,000 Acres of Floodplain Restoration are Shovel Ready - River Partners River Partners ready to double acreage of restored floodplains in the Central Valley, boosting critical habitat, flood safety, groundwater supplies
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580 Vallombrosa Avenue
Chico, CA
95926
