Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow will be speaking at the Waterkeeper Alliance’s 15th Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia today.
At their annual meeting last year, they adopted a resolution expressing their support for “the principle of water as a public trust resource” and for “a Declaration from the International Joint Commission that the Great Lakes Boundary Waters are a Shared Commons and Public Trust.” Lake Ontario Waterkeeper Mark Mattson – who was part of our ‘Great Lakes Need Great Friends’ tour in Toronto, Hamilton and Kingston – brought this resolution forward to the organization’s Board, which is chaired by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
The Waterkeeper Alliance was founded in 1999 by Kennedy and several veteran organizers. It is a global movement of 190 local organizations who patrol and protect over 100,000 miles of rivers, streams and coastlines in North and South America, Europe, Australia, Asia and Africa. They defend communities against anyone who threatens the right to clean water. The ten Waterkeepers with a responsibility to protect the Great Lakes include: Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper (Buffalo, NY); Detroit Riverkeeper (Trenton, MI); Georgian Baykeeper (Toronto, ON); Grand Traverse Baykeeper (Traverse City, MI); Lake Erie Waterkeeper (Oregon, OH); Lake Ontario Waterkeeper (Toronto, ON); Milwaukee Riverkeeper (Milwaukee, WI); St. Clair Channelkeeper (Harrison Township, MI); Upper St. Lawrence Riverkeeper (Clayton, NY); and Yellow Dog Riverkeeper (Big Bay, MI).
For more, please read:
UPDATE: Waterkeeper Alliance sees Great Lakes as a Shared Commons and Public Trust
Our Great Lakes campaign web-page
