A Reverence for Water
a special collaboration with the Association of NJ Environmental Commissions
October 23 - December 5, 2010
Entry deadline: September 17.
Guest Juror & Environmental Pioneer Candace McKee Ashmun
JUROR'S STATEMENT: French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery said water is "...not necessary to life, but rather life itself." Water literally defines our existence. About 70 percent of the earth's surface is water. And the water that sustains all life today is the same water that has submerged continents, moved mountains, carved out canyons and rolled across the sky in massive weather systems since the earth began.
In many ways, water is a living being, always in motion, always changing and always vulnerable to unethical human conduct. The rest of the biological community embraces a natural ethic that allows plants and animals to coexist without harm in our water-dependent universe. Meanwhile, humankind continues to exploit land and water resources to satisfy economic desires, enjoying the privileges while not recognizing the obligations inherent to our interdependence as a natural community.
Water is life, and we have a moral obligation to protect it for all earth's inhabitants, now and in the future. Biological communities have figured out an ethical way to live together over eons, each taking their place in the natural world. We need to learn to do the same.
Download the prospectus here: ReverenceforWaterCallforEntries.pdf
Photo credit: Dawn Benko for the Daily Record
