Recognizing the importance of waterfowl and wetlands to North Americans and the need for international cooperation to help in the recovery of a shared resource, the Canadian and United States governments developed a strategy to restore waterfowl populations through habitat protection, restoration, and enhancement. The strategy was documented in the North American Waterfowl Management Plan signed in 1986 by the Canadian Minister of the Environment and the United States' Secretary of the Interior, the foundation partnership upon which hundreds of others would be built. With its update in 1994, Mexico became a signatory to the Plan. The Plan is innovative because its perspective is international in scope, but its implementation functions at the regional level. Its success is dependent upon the strength of partnerships, called joint ventures, involving federal, state, provincial, tribal, and local governments, businesses, conservation organizations, and individual citizens.
Joint ventures develop implementation plans focusing on areas of concern identified in the Plan.
Partners' conservation projects not only advance waterfowl conservation, but make substantial contributions toward the conservation of all wetland-associated species. There are 11 Plan habitat joint ventures in the United States and 3 in Canada. One of those has international status, its boundaries stretching across the Canadian-United States border. Three species joint ventures have also been formed to address monitoring and research needs of specific species or species groups. The species joint ventures are also international in scope.