Public support is essential in order for each of the strategic themes of Our Living Waters to achieve the aim of freshwater protection. That's why it is so important that freshwater stewards devote some time and energy into helping to Build the Freshwater Movement. 

As British Columbian families evacuate their homes amidst out of control wildfires, news of toxic algae blooms in Canadian lakes and oceans spread. Both coming shortly on the heels of spring rains which caused floods in communities across the country. There’s no doubt that climate change is starting to bite, and it’s using water as its teeth. Water challenges - whether it be too little, too toxic, or too much - cost our communities significantly. How do we ready our homes, towns, regions for whatever wacky weather patterns the future holds?

On June 13th we hosted WWF-Canada as they launched the first comprehensive report on the health of Canada's freshwater ecosystems. 5-years in the making, this assessment reviews Canada's 25 major watersheds and 167 sub-watersheds for detailed data that together paints an important picture on the health of waters.

This whole conversation on the current dominant narrative around freshwater health in Canada points to both challenges and opportunities that as non-profit freshwater champions we need to embrace, to both alter the dominant narrative (that freshwater values exist in our subconscious, that acting to protect water results in negative economic decisions and that we don’t have any control or impact in decisions that affect freshwater health) and to promote a new narrative (one where guardianship is central, where we listen to, celebrate and honour the role water plays to our lives, and where we engage as active citizens around decision to protect, enhance and defend its health).  

People inherently believe that communities impacted by unhealthy waters (or threats to healthy waters) should have a say in decisions that impact those waters. In parallel, they respond strongly when it is felt that companies have greater impact on decisions then local residents - the support generated when it was proposed that Nestlé had greater rights to groundwater access then local communities in Wellington County is a recent example of this.