Our Region is a part of a Greater "Bioregion"

This is an important context with which to characterize our ecological, social, and economic values.
Buffalo and our Outer Harbor is situated on the shoreline of the Great Lakes. Collectively these lakes are the largest freshwater body of water on the planet. They contain more than 1/5 of the world’s fresh surface water. It all flows through Our Outer Harbor
​Over 50 million people depend upon this water. That number will continue to grow in coming decades.
Our capacity to continue to economically, socially, and environmentally thrive depends on our ability to be the best stewards of these waters, shorelines, and adjacent lands.  All development impacts the quality and quantity of these waters. In a world increasingly contextualized by climate change and freshwater scarcity, the value of protecting these natural assets will characterize our local and regional wealth for generations.

Our culture and our political leaders look at economic growth from a lens that can be shortsighted. Growth is often linked to development, and development including sprawl and inappropriate design that leads to habitat loss and degrading of the natural systems is devastating to the ecological realities that sustain all life including human life.

Our region, our waters, shorelines, and lands, are assets that make us as critically important as the Everglades, Yellowstone National Park, the Galapagos, and other great worldwide natural heritage areas. Our future is squarely focused on what we develop, where and how we develop, and how we protect and conserve the great resources that underly our wealth and our sustainability. 

The Our Outer Harbor campaign advocates that public engagement, transparency, and accountability are the most fundamental and democratic ways to approach developing our Outer Harbor. Most of the lands and all of the waters of the Outer Harbor are publicly owned. This means that they are held in public trust, and for the good of the public.

It is incumbent upon all of us to make sure that these areas remain under public control, and that requires vigilance and engagement. We need you!
For more videos and photos check out our Photos and Videos pages. New ones are being posted frequently CLICK HERE

Local Links to Bioregional Planning and Strategies
This is one of he areas premier organizations focused on bioregional understanding. "Buffalo Niagara RIVERKEEPER is a community-based organization dedicated to protecting the quality and quantity of water, while connecting people to water. We do this by cleaning up pollution from our waterways, restoring fish and wildlife habitat, and enhancing public access through greenways that expand parks and open space." ​ More: CLICK HERE

David Suzuki on "externalities"

The Economic theory that we base our development and growth strategies on treats environment as an external factor.  This means that the the environmental costs of extraction of resources, pollution, and habitat destruction, are measured as “external to profit". Because of this we do not traditionally measure the value lost when we destroy nature and natures capacity to sustain life on earth. Instead we count as “profit”, the profit that comes from environmental exploitation without measuring the real economic consequences of this exploitation.  The rest of us are left to pay for the damages done by pollution, habitat destruction, and the subsequent negative social consequences related to  health and well-being, climate change, and what has become an increasingly economically disparate world.  David Suzuki likens this to “brain cancer.”  Watch the video below to hear Suzuki tell his story. 
This is a New York State authorized agency designed to develop a plan and promote environmental contexts in the Niagara River strait. The boundaries of this commission include all of Buffalo's outer harbor. More: CLICK HERE