Living Lakes: Spreading a water ethic
by Greg Reis
Last
winter Committee staff began to build the Living Lakes Website,
www.livinglakes.org, thanks to a grant from the Global Nature Fund.
In order to do this we began with researching the problems and
solutions surrounding each of the partner lakes. By creating profiles of
each of the lakes complete with photographs and contact information we
hoped to facilitate the exchange of ideas and solutions between lakes. We
also created features such as “Lake of the Month,” where a different
non-partner lake is featured each month. This helps spread the word about
lakes like the Aral Sea and Walker Lake—neither of which are partner
lakes, but both are facing extinction and need lots of help. By using our
skills we created the website which is one of
the core elements of the Living Lakes partnership.
The partnership also provides many benefits to the Mono Lake Committee. Mono Lake’s success story is now accessible to an international audience. When future proposals threaten the lake, this international constituency can be counted on to support protection of the lake. Working to conserve lakes elsewhere protects a part of the web of life that supports Mono Lake.
International attention also helps focus domestic attention, such as when various politicians visited Mono Lake for the conference in October. Board Member Martha Davis and I took Patrick Wright, deputy secretary for Policy Development for the California Resources Agency, and his family canoeing on the lake, showing a top state official the magic that makes this special place a centerpiece for conservation education.
We have a lot to learn from the experiences of other lakes as well. The solar-powered boat used at Lake Constance, for example, is a motor boat that could replace the more common noise and water polluting gas powered ones.
Many of the international visitors that stop in our information center leave not just with a connection to Mono Lake, very far from home, but also knowing that people here care about a lake near their home, something more real to their daily lives. Spreading a “water ethic” that educates people how to care for their water resources is an important part of our work, no matter where around the world that leads.
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