Staff

Mark Mattson

Mark Mattson is a prominent environmental lawyer who has spent the last decade building a network of successful community-focused environmental organizations across Canada. His love of water stems from his childhood summers swimming and fishing on Wolfe Island, near Kingston.

Born into a family of lawyers in Southern Ontario, Mark grew up with a passion for fairness and individual rights. He has worked in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors over the course of his career. As a prosecutor, first for government and then for NGOs, Mark was part of ground-breaking private prosecutions and administrative cases against major industrial polluters. After ten years in the courtroom, Mark began to devote more time to developing institutions that will restore and protect watersheds for generations to come. He founded Lake Ontario Waterkeeper in 2001 and remains the organization’s full-time Waterkeeper and President to this day. Mark sits on the board of directors of four Waterkeeper organizations in the U.S. and Canada.

When he transitioned from full-time lawyer to full-time Waterkeeper more than ten years ago, Mark was able to unite his commitment to social justice with his passion for water. He has spent the last decade working to uphold the ideal that each and every person has a right to swimmable, drinkable, fishable water.