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We Are All Water Leaders: perspectives on power

At a recent freshwater gathering, participants used the terms "water leaders" and "water decision-makers" interchangeably. It seemed odd since Great Lakes Commons was founded on the need to create more water leaders who are currently outside the decision-making institutions and processes. Two different identities.

While everyone at this gathering was easily a "water leader" because they work tirelessly to protect water across Turtle Island, we were certainly not making the Federal, Provincial, State or Municipal rules that impact water -- the "decision-makers". If we were, the waters would likely be much more clean than they are now.

The Wastelands Opera: Video Dispatch From Buffalo

Children of the Wild is journeying across the Great Lakes. This dispatch comes from the first stop of that journey, in Buffalo, NY. Featuring footage from their Silo City performance and a story from an east side resident named Ms. Virginia Golden, who has been fighting to get an old GM manufacturing plant that has been leaching PCBs for decades across the street from her house on a brownfield cleanup list.

Great Lakes Rising!

A year and a half ago, On The Commons brought 70 people together from around the Great Lakes bioregion to explore how a commons approach might help us create a life giving future for our Lakes.  Since then, the Great Lakes Commons has continued to come to life in many ways, with a growing network of people taking up this emerging initiative and finding ways to contribute.