Why the Great Lakes need a watershed moment

WWF

For Canada Water Week, March 21 to 27, explore freshwater issues at the heart of WWF-Canada’s work.
There’s a lot riding on tomorrow’s first-ever meeting of the Great Lakes Guardian Council. The future of about 18 per cent of the world’s total freshwater is at stake, and WWF takes seriously its role on the council.
As Canadians, we’re all taught early on about how big a country we live in, and how rich and stunning our natural assets truly are. Our ecosystems are impressive in so many ways. But perhaps in no other way is this better exemplified than with the Great Lakes – an ecosystem of national, continental and global significance.
The Great Lakes, together with the thousands of tributaries that feed them, make up the planet’s largest freshwater ecosystem. Altogether, these massive lakes, which can be seen from space, contain about 18 per cent of the world’s total freshwater. The watershed stretches almost the entire width of Ontario and south into the United States.

A young boy standing on the shores of Lake Ontario looks toward the skyline of Toronto after building a sandcastle. Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
A young boy standing on the shores of Lake Ontario looks toward the skyline of Toronto after building a sandcastle in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. © Frank Parhizgar / WWF-Canada

More than 30 million people live within the Great Lakes watershed: one third of Canadians and one in ten Americans. This is North America’s industrial heartland but also a rich farming area. The watershed supports billions of dollars in trade, shipping, manufacturing, fishing, forestry, agriculture, mining, energy and tourism.
In addition to the millions of humans who eat, sleep, work and play in and around the Great Lakes, it is also teeming with other forms of wildlife. Within its diverse ecosystem we find moose, wolves, bald eagles, loons and roughly 250 species of fish, as well as four UNESCO biosphere reserves.
For everything that the Great Lakes watershed provides, we unfortunately have a dysfunctional relationship with it that is marred by a long history of neglect and mismanagement. This has led to the situation we find ourselves in today: the Great Lakes watershed is one of the most highly threatened watersheds in Canada. In WWF’s Watershed Report, we found that pollution, overuse of water, invasive species and habitat fragmentation all highly threaten the health of the Great Lakes watershed.
Harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie that are bigger than ever before, contaminated fish populations, rising water temperature and the spread of invasive species – these are some of the realities that we’re seeing in the Great Lakes. In our Watershed Report, we found that water quality in the watershed is only fair, and in several locations water quality is even assessed as being poor.
Canoeists paddle on an Algonquin Provincial Park lake, Ontario, Canada.
Canoeists paddle on an Algonquin Provincial Park lake, Ontario, Canada. © Frank Parhizgar / WWF-Canada

Clearly, something needs to change, and urgently so. The passing of the new Great Lakes Protection Act is certainly a positive step in that direction. WWF actively participated in that process to ensure that the Act was sufficiently robust to protect the health of the Great Lakes. Moving forward, WWF welcomes the opportunity to take part in the inaugural meeting of the Great Lakes Guardian Council, which will be held on March 22. The meeting will provide participants a chance to discuss priorities and ways to restore the Great Lakes.
With scientists predicting that we are on the verge of a tipping point in the Great Lakes watershed that could result in drastic and irreversible change to the ecosystem, the next few years will be a critical time for action. We might not have second chance. The actions that we take now, the targets we set to reduce pollution and other threats, will set the stage for the way generations to come learn and experience the Great Lakes.
WWF looks forward to contributing to these important discussions as we believe all Canadians deserve the benefits of healthy waters.