Kat Hartwig has been involved in international, national and regional environmental advocacy issues relating to sustainable tourism, endangered species, corporate social responsibility and water-based ecosystem health since 1983. She advocates for land and water policy and protection mechanisms necessary to support biodiversity, source water protection and climate resilient communities.

Since founding the Living Lakes Canada water stewardship NGO in 2010, Kat Hartwig has impacted countless communities across the Columbia Basin, BC and Canada. Under her leadership, Living Lakes Canada has created award-winning water stewardship programs, helped pilot new water monitoring technologies, developed a suite of new water monitoring frameworks to track climate impacts on freshwater sources, updated federal lake survey protocols, and played a role in guiding both provincial and federal policies around freshwater protection. Throughout her paradigm-shifting approach to water management, KatHartwig has tirelessly advocated for the inclusion and leadership of Indigenous voices and the valuing of Indigenous Knowledge in water policy and science. 

She is an advisor for the Global Water Futures Canada’s First Research Excellence Fund panel, the Lake Windermere Ambassadors, and the BC Water Leaders Consortium; and a former advisor for the Small Change Fund, the Vancouver Foundation, the Columbia Basin Trust Climate Resilience Advisory and the Columbia Basin Watershed Network. She continues to serve as a board member of the Germany-based Global Nature Fund.

Kat’s dedication to nature conservation, watershed security and freshwater protection has been recognized with multiple awards. Mostly recently these include  the BC Achievement Foundation Community Impact Award (2023), the BC Achievement Foundation Mitchell Award of Distinction (2023,) and the Kootenay Conservation Program Conservation Leadership Award (2023).

Kat resides by the headwaters of the Columbia River in the traditional territories of the Ktunaxa and Secwépemc First Nations, where she was born and where she raised her two daughters.