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If you live in Ontario, you love the Great Lakes. They’re important to the province, the country and even the world. Lakes Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior, along with the St. Lawrence River, make up the world’s largest freshwater ecosystem, containing 21 per cent of all available surface freshwater on the planet.
The region of the Canadian provinces and U.S. states surrounding the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence seaway are also the world’s third-largest economy — including tourism, shipping and international trade, much of which takes place on the waters. But how well do we recognize, appreciate and protect that blue economy?
The Great Lakes News Collaborative is diving into those questions, and looking at the wealth derived from the waters, and the ways in which that economy is threatened.
The Narwhal’s Ontario bureau is part of this group of nonprofit news outlets working together to enhance coverage of the Great Lakes basin. Funded by the Michigan-based Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the collaborative also includes Bridge Michigan, Michigan Public, Detroit Public Television’s Great Lakes Now program and Circle of Blue.
Every year, the group collaborates on one big project, and in 2025 it’s Cash Flows: Industry, Ecology and the Future of the Great Lakes Blue Economy. The series will look at the changing relationship between the region’s economy and its most abundant natural resource: water.
Every outlet will be producing stories focused on this theme — you’ll find all of them below.
The member of Alderville First Nation shares her thoughts on water and life — and what...
An internal memo from Ontario’s electricity system operator outlines concerns with TC Energy’s large pumped...
Le chevalier cuivré est sur le point de disparaître. Ses zones d’alimentations essentielles pourraient être...
The copper redhorse is on the brink of extinction. Its vital feeding grounds could be...
TC Energy is moving ahead with studies on its controversial pumped storage project in Meaford,...
Lake Superior hasn’t yet succumbed to the bivalves that have killed off whitefish and disturbed...
The Ontario government is handing provincial parklands over to the town in hopes of boosting...
One man’s battle with a deadly fungal infection highlights the need for better mapping of...
Along Ontario’s Nottawasaga River, an angler mourns an old fishing haunt contaminated with ‘forever chemicals’
After a secret ballot, global trade restrictions will not be placed on the species at the heart of Canada's most lucrative fishery. But trade of...
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