Our Water Commons

Our Water Commons - Toward a new freshwater narrative

"Thousands have lived without love, not one without water." - W.H. Auden

The Council of Canadians has just launched an exciting new report titled Our Water Commons: Toward a new freshwater narrative. Written by Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and recently appointed Senior Advisor on Water Issues to the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, Our Water Commons is part of the ongoing work to bring together key activists, writers and thinkers to address the global water crisis by naming and reclaiming the freshwater commons. With the support of a new organization called On the Commons, the report promotes a better understanding of the concept of “the Commons,” which is described by American Commons pioneer and journalist Jonathan Rowe as “the vast realm that lies outside of both the economic market and the institutional state that all of us use without toll or price.”

Click here to download a copy of Our Water Commons: Toward a new freshwater narrative (PDF, 1MB)

About the Author
Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization, and the founder of the Blue Planet Project, working internationally for the right to water. She serves on the boards of the San Francisco-based International Forum on Globalization and Washington-based Food and Water Watch, and is a Councillor with the Hamburg-based World Future Council. Maude is the recipient of several honorary doctorates, the 2005/2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship Award, the 2005 Right Livelihood Award (known as the “Alternative Nobel”) for her global water justice work, and is the Citation of Lifetime Achievement winner of the 2008 Canadian Environment Awards. She is also the best selling author or co-author of 16 books, including Blue Gold, The Fight to Stop Corporate Theft of the World’s Water and the recently released Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and The Coming Battle for the Right to Water.

SECTIONS