GREAT LAKES COALITION LAUNCHED WITH $5 MILLION GRANT
Grand Rapids, Michigan (October 14, 2004) – Peter M. Wege and the Wege
Foundation announced today a $5 million, five-year grant launching a Great
Lakes Coalition to build public support nationally to restore America’s
greatest freshwater resource, the Great Lakes. Among the largest private
foundation grants ever for Great Lakes protection, it follows the historic
“Healing Our Waters” summit of May 2004, which set forth an agenda for
federal government action and funding to restore the Great Lakes.
“The Healing Our Waters agenda is the Magna Carta for Great Lakes
restoration,” said Wege Foundation President Peter M. Wege. “The mission of
the Great Lakes Coalition will be to turn this agenda into real policies
that will restore our Great Lakes.”
The Healing Our Waters agenda, described at www.healingourwaters.org, calls
upon the U.S. federal government to take the lead role in coordinating Great
Lakes protection, especially in restoring water quality, preventing and
controlling non-native aquatic invasive species, and cleaning-up areas of
concentrated toxic pollution.
The Great Lakes Coalition will be a broad-based network of national,
regional and state organizations dedicated to Great Lakes restoration. It
will include a technical advisory committee comprised of scientists,
business leaders, economists and other experts. The Coalition will be
organized by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) of
Washington, DC, which will serve as national fiscal agent for the grant, and
the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), which will serve as regional fiscal
agent through NWF’s Great Lakes Natural Resources Center in Michigan.
“The Great Lakes are national treasures,” said NPCA President Tom Kiernan,
“and we will build a national coalition of concerned Americans to restore
and protect them.”
“Many foundations and organizations have worked on Great Lakes protection
for years,” according to Andy Buchsbaum, director of NWF’s Great Lakes
Natural Resource Center. “Now, we will be able to coordinate our efforts
through the Great Lakes Coalition and create a national constituency for
effective action by the federal government to restore the Great Lakes.”
“No single foundation, no single organization, no single person will restore
the Great Lakes by working alone,” said Peter Wege. “It will take close
partnerships among all who care for the Lakes, including government and
elected officials.”
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The Healing Our Waters conference, sponsored by the Wege Foundation,
convened nearly 100 scientists, environmentalists, conservationists and
educators from across the country in Grand Rapids, Michigan in May 2004.
These experts drafted the Healing Our Waters Agenda for Great Lakes
Restoration. A full report containing the agenda was distributed to the
administration, all Members of Congress and other federal level policy
makers in September. The report is available at www.healingourwaters.org.
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