Maude Barlow (left) presented
the Global Water
keynote address.

The first day of the International Water Conference helped 400 participants gain a global perspective of critical water issues and some of the work that’s being done to solve them. It’s difficult to sum up the entire first day in one short post, but it’s safe to say that each speaker gave us all much food for thought.

It seems the key is to go back to nature.

The keynote was given by Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and a “water warrior.” At turns she presented grim news and hope for the future. Currently there are water-related conflicts and crises around the world as evidenced by the headlines from newspapers that described water or drought problems in Israel, Iraq, Argentina, China, Kenya, Spain, Pakistan, southeast Asia and states in the western U.S. “It’s the greatest ecological crisis of all time,” she said.