“On World Water Day we reaffirm that clean water is life, and our lives depend on how we protect the quality of our water…Water quality is the key to human and ecosystem health, and there are numerous add-on benefits to improving water quality: improved ecosystems and ecosystem services, improved health, and improved livelihoods.” www.worldwaterday2010.info

Friends of Kolapore wish to remind our community and its various governments that March 22, 2010 is World Water Day. It is the purity of the water in Kolapore that allows such diversity of life throughout the region. There are good reasons why Kolapore is sometimes called the “Jewel of Grey County”. Unfortunately, there are increasing pressures on Kolapore. Kolapore Uplands is known in part for its waters and the fish that live and spawn here. The real possibility of commercial water taking and its transportation related activities is one of the drivers that can cause the destruction of Kolapore’s pristine rivers and its riparian ecosystem. We do appreciate the efforts on the part of the County of Grey to implement stricter procedures related to water-taking enterprises.
Since 1993 World Water Day has focused on valid concerns and actions we must commit ourselves to in order to protect our ecosystems, if people are to have water that enables biodiversity and human communities to flourish.  It should be remembered that 2010 is also International Year for Biodiversity, and Kolapore Wilderness continues to be a place that thousands of species call home. The UN’s “Water for Life Decade” is part of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, and Kolapore is the place many people have come to expect as having the highest standard of water quality and being an undisturbed natural setting.
Furthermore, Canada has called for a 2010 biodiversity target that addresses challenges from climate change, pollution and invasive species, as well as promoting “conservation of ecosystems and habitats”.. Specifically, our community recognizes that the Kolapore trout habitat must be protected.  Ontario has a biodiversity strategy that needs to be part of community education: stewardship of our forests and rivers is everyone’s concern.
Unfortunately the ecological footprint of Canadians is one of the highest in the world. Canadians believe we have water in abundance, but this is not true. Around the world our freshwater ecosystems are in crisis. Over fifty percent of freshwater runoff is taken for human populations. Whole ecosystems and human well-being is at stake. Let’s work together to protect Kolapore’s future.

“If the Millennium Development Goals for freshwater, biodiversity and climate change, among others, are to be achieved, management responses must take into account ecosystem concerns.” Water: a shared responsibility The UN’s World Water Development Report