degradation of the natural Missouri river ecosystem is clear and continuing, says a new report from the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. Chairperson of the committee which made the report, Steven Gloss, says that from an ecological perspective, the river is in "a serious state of decline'. The report reveals that the ecosystem also faces the prospect of "irreversible extinction of species'. Nearly three million acres of natural riverine and floodplain habitat along the river's mainstream has been altered through land-use changes, inundation and channelling. To check the degradation, the committee recommends a moratorium on the ongoing us Army Corps of Engineers' Master Manual planning process and the institution of a "formal multiple stakeholder group'.