2024 ECO-Award Winner, Second place

Collaborating to protect water in a changing climate

The freshwater ecosystem initiatives implemented by Living Lakes Canada in 2023 span water monitoring, assessment, data management, education, and outreach programs. The organization has a dedicated team of intrinsically motivated people working on these endeavours to empower communities in their quest to achieve watershed health and water security. We are equally privileged to have a volunteer board, water expert advisors, and very progressive partners, without whom our work would simply not be possible.

Highlights from last year include supporting the development of a water data portal for the Nicola 5 First Nations, and collaborating with the Government of Yukon to explore a community-based lake monitoring network in the territory with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups. We continued growing our National Lake Blitz citizen science lake monitoring program and field tested an Indigenous Knowledge and Values Framework for the federal Foreshore Integrated Management Planning protocol. Our efforts were also recognized by five awards, including an Open Data Quality Award from the Canadian Open Data Society for our Columbia Basin Water Hub regional database.