The Arlington, Virginia-based Nature Conservancy has announced a $12 million gift from the Caterpillar Foundation in Peoria, Illinois, to initiate an ambitious project to protect the world's vanishing freshwater supplies and preserve and protect large working river systems.

The Great Rivers Partnership will create integrated models for sustaining great river systems of the world. The gift will support conservation of large river systems on three continents: the Upper Mississippi River Basin in the United States, home to about thirty million people; South America's Upper Paraguay-Parana River system, which supports nearly seventeen million people as it flows through five countries; and China's Upper Yangtze River, one of four great Asian rivers that provide freshwater to some five hundred million people.

"Each of us shares a duty to protect these rivers, which sustain so much life," said Caterpillar chairman and CEO Jim Owens. "Business leaders must work together to achieve lasting results that allow commerce and natural places to thrive side-by-side. It's exciting to imagine the tremendous impact this Great Rivers Partnership will have throughout the world."

"Freshwater systems in the twenty-first century will be one of the most important issues for conservation organizations and governments to address," said Conservancy president and CEO Steve McCormick. "In the end, future generations will regard freshwater conservation work as one of the most important things we did for the benefit of mankind."