Governments should:

• Uphold every person’s fundamental right to safe drinking water and sanitation, regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, language, caste, descent, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, national, social or geographical origin, disability, birth or other status. This right must be respected without discrimination.
• Ensure that the necessary infrastructure is in place to ensure the fulfillment of this right for all people. This includes water points that are accessible, including for persons with disabilities, collection of wastewater and water treatment facilities, where necessary.
• Establish minimum adequate standards for safe drinking water and ensure secure supplies for all, without discrimination. These minimum standards should also apply to situations such as extreme weather events which affect regular water supplies. Adequate provision for emergency water supplies should be made ahead of time.
• Minimize pollution through the adoption and strict implementation of regulations governing polluters. Victims of pollution should be able to seek redress through legal proceedings, including compensation and penalties for violations. Adequate, long-term investment in water infrastructure, including its maintenance, must be secured.
• Take a human rights-based approach for any project involving water and sanitation. This means that all affected communities should be able to participate effectively and meaningfully in decision-making processes. Any information necessary to take informed decisions should be provided in ways relevant to the affected community.
• Apply effective and meaningful participation rights to all stages of any water and sanitation infrastructure project, including the design and setting up of independent complaints mechanisms, in order to ensure that these are transparent and accessible in ways relevant to the affected communities. Resulting water and sanitation projects should be accessible to all, without discrimination.
• Fully involve groups that face intersectional discrimination as members of minority and indigenous communities, including minority and indigenous women, children, elderly, persons with disabilities and LGBTQI+ persons. Their access to safe drinking water and sanitation forms a key litmus test for the inclusivity of outcomes. Collect and update data that is completely disaggregated in order to measure this.
• Uphold indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination, particularly their right to free, prior and informed consent, before any action is taken that affects their ancestral domains and their access to water and aquatic ecosystems. This right extends to the management of water basins and aquifers outside their territories that affect their water sources.
• Record, recognize and protect communal customary land and water rights. These include access rights to water sources.
• Ensure the effective participation of minorities and indigenous peoples in projects to mitigate and adapt to the adverse water-related impacts of climate change, including droughts, floods, extreme weather events, melting glaciers and rising sea levels.
• Support minority and indigenous traditional knowledge systems, especially related to water management, by providing funding to communities for their documentation. Extend and enforce legally protected status to water-related cultural heritage sites.
• Institute and facilitate equitable conflict resolution processes when water rights are in dispute, involving the communities themselves in their design, for instance pastoralists and settled communities.
• Where drinking water is privatized, ensure that the right to clean drinking water and sanitation is respected by private sector actors, for example by instituting minimum standards of quality and access as well as regulations holding water companies to account.
• Do not criminalize environmental and water rights activists, including those belonging to minorities and indigenous peoples, for their activities seeking to ensure that all persons’ right to clean drinking water and sanitation is respected.
• Understand that water is seen by many minority and indigenous communities through holistic cultural and spiritual frameworks. The initiation and implementation of water and sanitation projects should be accompanied by intercultural dialogues giving due place and regard to these perspectives.

Companies should:

• Publicly commit to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and carry out human rights due diligence in order to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for any adverse impacts of their activities on minority and indigenous communities’ right to safe drinking water and sanitation. This includes their access to water and aquatic ecosystems, including water basins and aquifers outside their territories that affect their water sources.
• Conduct effective and meaningful participation processes with minority and indigenous communities ahead of any activity that affects their right to safe drinking water and sanitation. Ensure that the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples is obtained ahead of any activity affecting them.
• Fully involve groups that face intersectional discrimination as members of minority and indigenous communities, including minority and indigenous women, children, elderly, persons with disabilities and LGBTQI+ persons.
• Establish complaints mechanisms involving minority and indigenous communities in their design and implementation, while ensuring that these are accessible in ways that are relevant to the communities concerned.
• Ahead of any activity that draws on and/or privatizes the water sources of local minority and indigenous communities, ensure that adequate alternative safe water sources remain freely available.

UN agencies, international financial institutions, other international and regional organizations, and NGOs should:

• Carry out human rights due diligence in order to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for any adverse impacts of their activities on minority and indigenous communities’ right to safe drinking water and sanitation. This includes their access to water and aquatic ecosystems, including water basins and aquifers outside their territories that affect their water sources.
• Conduct effective and meaningful participation processes with minority and indigenous communities ahead of any activity that affects this right. Ensure that the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples is obtained ahead of any activity affecting them.
• Establish complaints mechanisms involving minority and indigenous communities in their design and implementation, while ensuring that these are accessible in ways that are relevant to the communities concerned.
• Fully involve groups that face intersectional discrimination as members of minority and indigenous communities, including minority and indigenous women, children, elderly, persons with disabilities and LGBTQI+ persons. Their access to safe drinking water and sanitation forms a key litmus test for the inclusivity of outcomes. Collect and update data that is completely disaggregated in order to measure this.

Photo: The polluted Niger delta as seen from the air. Credit: Milieudefensie (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

My name is Anne Poelina. I am a woman who belongs to the Martuwarra, renamed Fitzroy River by the colonizing settlers. I begin this story on 26 January 2023. For our Nations this day is known as ‘Australia Day’. Across the globe, many people fail to realize there are Indigenous people – the First Australians – living in these lands.

As a First Australian myself, I use the Indigenous practice of storytelling to convey meaning and memory. I combine the terms First Australians with Aboriginal and Indigenous, but I recognize that these terms may be problematic as they are used by foreign systems of knowledge. Yet I belong to the oldest living culture in the world. Words italicized in this story are from my language and culture.

First Australians traded with world traders from north, south, west and east, sharing diverse resources. We have always seen ourselves as place-based world citizens. First Australians traversed the globe across land bridges and reached many of our scattered continents. My knowledge of old stories and customary practices has been passed down to me throughout life-long, inter-generational learning and practice of First Law.

I admit that some of the words in this story may be found in other stories concerning our collective journey and resistance in the face of invasion and colonialism. This is not an academic paper containing references, and I trust that the voices of others are honoured and valued. My knowledge includes shared learnings and experiences of friends and colleagues that coalesce, and which are being mobilized by Indigenous and non-Indigenous people around the world to promote water life and water rights. Over time, I have come to realize the Australian Indigenous colonial experience is shared by other Indigenous peoples internationally. We are watching and learning from other Indigenous peoples across the planet who are also fighting within their territories for the protection of their ‘Rivers of Life’.

This story is about Relationships, Respect and Responsibility.

Relationships

We are Martuwarra, Fitzroy River, a relationship forged over thousands of generations and through time.

In our culture before a child is born, they are given a totem, known as jadiny or rai in my language. The totem can be animal, bird or plant, and is known to come from a child’s birthplace: their Oongoord. This totem initiates the child into a deep relationship of reciprocity. Elders remind us that the totemic creatures can teach us to be proper and decent human beings. What they instil in us is the privilege of being ‘human’ – we can see with our ears and listen with our eyes. Through this reciprocity we grow an ethics of mutual care and love, not just for our totem but for everything and everyone around us.

Our ancestral home is now called ‘Kimberley’ in ‘Western Australia’s’ far northern Country, a magnificent ecological and cultural landscape with a deep human history that goes back at least 65,000 years. The Martuwarra Fitzroy River catchment is not only a geological feature for us or a resource. It is the basis of our spirituality, our Law, our home, our ancestral estate. The River is a living ancestor serpent and sacred giver of a holistic system of law, leadership and governance, which we were born into and are bound to by a moral contract, a law of obligations to nurture and protect Martuwarra.

This unique river system was listed in 2011 as National Heritage for its environmental and cultural values. It is also the largest registered Aboriginal cultural heritage site in Western Australia. Its catchment area is almost 100,000 square kilometres, and its floodplains are up to 15 kilometres wide. Many Indigenous Nations are connected to Martuwarra through one or more affiliations: birth, family connections, totemic affiliation, kinship systems, ray/rai, our spirit beings, intermarriage, residence, history and displacement. They all have a part in Kimberley people’s Indigenous identity.

My ancestral memory and matrilineal relationship to this cultural landscape begins with the story of the massacre of my great grandmother’s people around 1867, which occurred at Kandara, renamed and known to the settlers as St George Range. My great grandmother was known as Danbarri, but her name was stripped from her and she was renamed Maggie Chalmers/Chambers. After surviving the massacre, she was moved to Noonkanbah, a ranch established on a pastoral lease to farm sheep and later cattle.

Relationships

We are Martuwarra, Fitzroy River, a relationship forged over thousands of generations and through time.

In our culture before a child is born, they are given a totem, known as jadiny or rai in my language. The totem can be animal, bird or plant, and is known to come from a child’s birthplace: their Oongoord. This totem initiates the child into a deep relationship of reciprocity between the creature and itself. Elders remind us that the totemic creatures can teach us to be proper and decent good human beings. What they instil in us is the privilege of being ‘human’ – we can see with our ears and listen with our eyes. Through this reciprocity we grow an ethics of mutual care and love, not just for our totem but for everything and everyone around us.

Our ancestral home is now called ‘Kimberley’ in ‘Western Australia’s’ far northern Country, a magnificent ecological and cultural landscape with a deep human history that goes back at least 65,000 years. The Martuwarra Fitzroy River catchment is not only a geological feature for us or a resource. It is the basis of our spirituality, our Law, our home, our ancestral estate. The River is a living ancestor serpent and sacred giver of a holistic system of law, leadership and governance, which we were born into and are bound to by a moral contract, a law of obligations to nurture and protect Martuwarra.

This unique river system was listed in 2011 as National Heritage for its environmental and cultural values. It is also the largest registered Aboriginal cultural heritage site in Western Australia. Its catchment area is almost 100,000 square kilometres, and its floodplains are up to 15 kilometres wide. Many Indigenous Nations are connected to Martuwarra through one or more affiliations: birth, family connections, totemic affiliation, kinship systems, ray/rai, our spirit beings, intermarriage, residence, history and displacement. They all have a part in Kimberley people’s Indigenous identity.

My ancestral memory and matrilineal relationship to this cultural landscape begins with the story of the massacre of my great grandmother’s people around 1867, which occurred at Kandara, renamed and known to the settlers as St George Range. My great grandmother was known as Danbarri, but her name was stripped from her and she was renamed Maggie Chalmers/Chambers. After surviving the massacre, she was moved to Noonkanbah, a ranch established on a pastoral lease to farm sheep and later cattle.

During her time, she met an amazing white man by the name of John or Jack Edgar. He was among the first party of settlers who brought herds of sheep to a place known as Yooliwaja, renamed Yeeda Pastoral Lease. My other great grandmother, Nani, a Nyikina Warrwa, belonged to the region near the mouth of the Martuwarra, my patrilineal bloodline. I will talk more of my grandfather William Watson later in this story. John Edgar later became a bookkeeper travelling along the Martuwarra and keeping the financial accounts of ranch managers in order.

John fell in love with Danbarri, and together they had two children, Emily, my maternal grandmother, and her brother John. What was unusual for the times, was the fact that John Edgar gave his two children his surname. John was, at the time, legally married. He later returned to Broome, leased Thangoo Station and resettled with his wife and family. Many of the Aboriginal people who lived and worked on the station took on the name of Edgar, as was the practice of the time, particularly since Aboriginal people were not recognized as Australian citizens.

At around the same time, other prominent settler families started to occupy and lay claim to the property rights to Martuwarra. The pastoral ranch leases would follow the River Country to ensure settlers had access to the estates my people had managed as the ‘first farmers’ and to its living waters. Unlike John Edgar, these settler families became very well established in the region and realized the River Country would only suit them as ‘veranda managers’ due to its two seasons, ‘wet and dry’. The wet season from October to March, with its cyclonic rains and high temperatures, made it difficult to live in the region.

To manage their new estates, covering millions of acres of land previously belonging to Aboriginal people, the empire of autocracy was set up. Like many other settlers, they realized that white women were very scarce in the Kimberley frontier, resulting in the birth of ‘half caste’ children. Half caste children helped the settlers to separate themselves from First Australians. This colonial strategy resulted in the enslavement and the continuing inter-generational violence of Aboriginal families. The new ‘half caste’ children are exemplified by men like my patrilineal grandfather William. There was a common practice among ranchers, which was to take Aboriginal women down south. When she was returned home, Nani was pregnant.

The other common practice among male members of the settler families, was to disguise their ‘half caste’ children with someone else’s name, to ensure no one seeking to claim their due inheritance could be traced back to them. Despite having an Aboriginal husband, Nani was given to a drover, to ensure his name would be attributed to William and consequently to disguise his true blood line. My grandfather was known all his life as William Watson. William was taught by the ranchers to read and write. He was taught the ways of his people from both Nani and her Aboriginal husband, Balbarra. Watson grew up as one of the first ‘half caste’ men, which meant that he would survive and thrive in both worlds.

Grandfather Watson soon learned that to survive and thrive he would need to build relationships with both his Aboriginal and white families. The station managers were called ‘veranda managers’ by the Aboriginal people because they rarely left their homes, giving instructions from their verandas instead. These managers struggled to form a relationship with the land and soon gave up on visiting the River Country during the hot season. Ranch managers preferred to stay in the Kimberley region only in the dry season, when the temperature was cooler. The wet season and rain kept white settlers away from October to March most years. Furthermore, these veranda managers did not know the Country, nor did they know how to manage their own estates, calling the land of our Aboriginal people a ‘harsh landscape’. Settlers relied entirely on men like Watson to keep the ‘Blacks’ in line and ensure the success of their pastoral leases.

When the veranda managers were not in the region, grandfather would spend time learning and speaking several Aboriginal languages, as well as learning from his Aboriginal mother and father how to hunt, capture and sell eagle claws and beaks, and dingo hides too. Dingos were heavily hunted at the time as these native animals were in competition with humans for the grassland and young sheep. The early sketches of pastoral stations where Watson grew up paint a picture of magnificent estates, managed by Aboriginal people through controlled burns and animal husbandry.

My grandfather became a competent reader and writer as well as a successful ranch overseer – a land manager. He soon had the capacity to gain extra income through the bounty hunting of eagles, dingos, kangaroos, emus: considered ‘vermin’. Our native animals were seen as competition for the grasslands and living waters, and so were expected to be exterminated from settler colonies. Grandfather soon accumulated extra wealth, and from all accounts purchased and owned a vehicle long before many white settlers in the region. At the same time, my grandfather realized he was a descendant of a settler family and his hidden relationship with his half-brothers brought with it privilege and power, provided he remembered he was a ‘Watson’.

As most of the white ranchers were familiar with the colonial protocols of slave management and control, they were also versed in arranging marriages between ‘half caste’ and their ‘full blood’ enslaved Aboriginal people. The marriage between my grandfather and my grandmother, Emily, was arranged. Emily left Noonkanbah and soon began a life with William moving from Yeeda Pastoral Station to the Lower Liveringa Outstation.

Today, First Australians who have maintained their connection to their homelands are granted land, as Native Title. My extended family continues to live on our ancestral lands, which we have renamed Balginjirr after our sacred site and ridge. The pastoral lease known as Mt Anderson Station, where my grandfather was once a manager, plus the Aboriginal stockmen and their families, have also come back to our people. This process of reclamation was done in the early 1980s and remains in place today, so that we can cultivate new memories rooted to the land and waters.

I am reminded by a senior Nyikina elder named Joe Nangan about the importance of First Law stories, stories of law of the land and the inclusion of animals in our teachings. These are fundamental principles, which are underpinned by values, ethics, virtues and codes of conduct that guide us in our efforts to be good and decent human beings. Importantly, he speaks of the need to respect the world of our Nyikina people, which was lost when the settlers came and carved our lands by building kilometres of fence lines. Along with their imposed enclosures came property laws, the fiction of an ‘empty land’ and a narrative of ‘nomadic’ inhabitants. This label was applied to distinguish and marginalize Aboriginal people, while giving white settlers legal justifications and a sense of entitlement that impelled them to take over our lands and waters.

The First Law stories collected by Joe Nangan included extensive accounts of the colonial frontier and memory of other Kimberley Aboriginal elders navigating their own journeys in times of colonialism. Nangan’s stories have been recreated in film, paintings, dance and song.

My daughter, Marlikka Perdrisat, like me, has pursued multiple learning journeys recently, graduating with a Juris Doctorate in law. These qualifications and lived experiences enable us to navigate our path through colonialism. My daughter and I are being reminded by elders like Joe Nangan that our people’s lifeways are always underpinned by our sense of relationship, first and foremost, and by values, virtues and ethics of care for our common good.

The combination of learning reinforces the importance of making time to stay connected with the laws of the land, as opposed to the laws of man. Marlikka has produced and directed a series of these films dedicated to Joe Nangan’s First Law stories. Her work speaks back to colonialism and the power of our voices, showing the depth of our culture and relationships to the spirt of our River Country and everything around us.

Importantly, her filmmaking shows how relationships grounded in these First Law stories draw on animals to teach us about values, ethics, virtues, our deep relationship with the River Country and our non-human kin. These teachings have deep meanings that ground our moral obligation to care and love, promoting and protecting our culture, and sustaining our lifeways despite the ongoing invasion of unjust development. Through our relationships with our human and non-human kin we engage in mutually rewarding virtuous behaviours grounded on respect.

Respect

I return to the day I began writing this chapter, 26 January 2023. Australia Day is not only an opportunity for us to reflect on our identity and our purpose both to First Australians but also to other Indigenous Pacific nations across the waters and beyond. Respect must be our highest goal if we are to reconcile ourselves not only inwardly but also outwardly, to contribute to planetary well-being, for humanity and Mother Earth.

‘Australia’ was conceived by the British as ‘their’ new colonial settlement after the empire’s loss of the American colonies in the early 1780s. The First Fleet was thus created as a strategic means to help British rulers settle and capture free labour in Australia. Ten per cent of the British First Fleet was comprised of ‘Free Blacks’ from the Caribbean, who found themselves down on their luck, poor, invisible and soon enchained on the First Fleet ships, en route to new lands, laws and regulations. The colonial states of Australia each had their own constitutional relationship with the British sovereign rulers, established to create wealth for private and foreign interests, principally the British Crown. Australia did not see itself as a nation until the colonial states federated in the early 1900s.

According to the Nationality Act 1920 (Commonwealth), all Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders born after 1 January 1921, gained the status of British subjects. By 26 January 1938, Indigenous Australians had become organized and were talking back to the colonizers. That was the year when Aboriginal leaders protested through the streets of Sydney. The 1938 protest by First Australians occurred at the same time as white Australians celebrated the landing of the First Fleet in Sydney Cove. The 1938 Aboriginal protest was a call for justice, equity and basic human rights, denied to Aboriginal people across the country.

Eleven years later, First Australians, Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islander people were entitled to automatically become Australian citizens under the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 (Commonwealth). In practice, citizenship was an illusion for First Australians. Aboriginal people were counted as part of the ‘flora and fauna’ and given names to enslave them into the rancher industry. This practice continued, but many Indigenous and non-Indigenous people worked together on the east coast of Australia for over a decade to achieve the 1967 Referendum, which led to equity in wages and other benefits. The referendum put the following question to the Australian people:

Do you approve the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled ‘An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to the people of the Aboriginal race in any state and so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the population’?

The proposed law sought to give the parliament of Australia power to make laws with respect to Aboriginal people wherever they lived in Australia. It also sought to make it possible to include Aboriginal people in national censuses. The greatest financial cost was to Western Australian ranchers, who were now required to pay awards and wages to their ‘free slaves’. The outcome for Indigenous people was removal from their lands into small settlements, missions and reservations. For many, this created the homelands movement, which ensured First Australians maintained connectivity to their land. Leaders saw the damage this separation was causing to their families and tribal groups, and some were able to move back to their traditional homelands, still under the control of government.

Thirteen years after the 1967 referendum, my uncle Dickie Cox stood on my grandmother’s Country and told the world: ‘I’m standing on Sacred Ground.’ His statement was a powerful call for justice in the face of colonial history and the decimation of our people, culture and River Country. These words from the leaders of Noonkanbah echo in my head. Their words and actions to protect our sacred sites resonate today and around the globe. Paddy Moolambin, another senior elder in First Law, stood facing proudly into the future when he proclaimed:

We hope one day that the government might understand that we are human beings, [who] hardly can read and write, but have protection over this land we can see and can hold on to. We don’t want anyone to ruin our sacred places. Those are the things we see. They [government] just can’t see the point we are trying to get at, how it hurts our memories.

Another senior leader Jimmy Beindurry echoes: ‘All we are saying is that we want land rights and human rights and a treaty to be signed by the Australian government so that Aboriginal people can be recognized as owners [of our lands and waters].’ Paddy Moolambin and Jimmy Beindurry sought rights and recognition from government. To this day, these rights have not been effectively recognized.

Thirty-five years later, after the Noonkanbah Strike, on 17 November 2015, the Western Australian Constitution Act of 1889 was amended to recognize Indigenous people of Western Australia. The amendment promoted the view that the parliament of Western Australia should seek reconciliation with Western Australia’s Indigenous peoples. The amendment was a gesture of support for Indigenous Western Australia; however, the full extent of our rights and responsibilities has not been recognized nor legitimized.

To this day the plight of our people remains a national disgrace. Despite the wealth generated out of our lands and rivers, we live in fourth world conditions. Australia’s highest suicide rates are in my region, where there is overwhelming disadvantage. In 2023, Australia Day remains grounded in a settler-colonial mentality underpinned by foreign laws, regulations and policies. Australia as a country is struggling to reconcile itself not only with First Australians but also with its own history.

It can be difficult for fellow Australians born into a world of privilege to understand the meaning of respect as defined by people of colour. A world of privilege is one that sets the rules, the laws, the regulations and policies, thus determining who is in and who is out. We, the First Australians, continue to have the highest suicide rates in the world. The overwhelming disadvantage of fourth world conditions increases each year, with very little change at the level of public statistics or Indigenous-determined well-being.

Acts of systemic and structural violence continue in Australia today. I am reminded of the wisdom of Yin Paradies, Indigenous Professor of Race Relations, who often reminds us that in settler-colonial societies, interest in colonization is often focused on relatively distant colonial pasts where Indigenous peoples were displaced with relatively scant attention paid to the ongoing colonial presence in which systemic, structural, physical, epistemic and ontological violence continues to oppress, assimilate and eradicate Indigenous peoples. This is done and regulated through lawful, awful laws passed by Australian parliaments.

Senior Nyikina Man of High Degree, my uncle, Kaka Paddy Roe, told us:

European people can’t understand our law, because they’ve got different law. Our law is from Bookarrakarra, the beginning of time. We fuse the past, present and future into this moment. Now is the moment we must act. We must act if we want to have a climate chance.

Kaka Paddy Roe said that he ‘tried to explain these things but the authorities don’t know what we are talking about’. He added: ‘Because our law is from Bookarrakarra. Different law from White man law. Different. Different altogether.’ What Kaka Paddy Roe is explaining is the meaning of why Western laws are no longer fit for purpose for either human beings or nature, particularly in the promotion and protection of our lands, living waters and ancestral beings, our kin. I write about these Western laws as ‘lawful, awful laws’, as they break and destroy liyan, the spirit of place and people.

Today, Martuwarra Country and its people face foreseeable harm and destruction as government continues to partner with multinational companies that seek to destroy everything around us. Fence lines and fracking grid lines stretch for miles right across the River Country. The government plan for economic unjust development for the greater good of the corporations, many foreign owned, is to frack the Kimberley region for shale gas.

The scale of destruction would be unimaginable, considering that the fracking basin stretches for more than 600,000 square kilometres, which is considerably bigger than the Canadian Tar Sands. Add to that the prospect of the largest diamond mine in the world, which is also planned in River Country. It is clear, if government plans to give big business certainty and they are allowed to go ahead, the land of this globally intact savannah system will be stripped of its biodiversity, and the rivers and wetlands will be stripped of their living waters. Water legislation and regulations are being formulated for increased extraction of water from the Fitzroy River flood plains. This water is not required to grow food but for cotton.

As Aboriginal people living on our lands, we have seen River Country changing because of climate change. Food and medicine insecurity, rising sea levels and increasing temperature bring mental distress to our people, who are already living in harsh conditions with no relief and no consultation on proposed investment in sight. To make matters worse, our region experienced the worst flooding in living memory during January 2023. The Bureau of Meteorology has predicted we will see more intense cyclonic rains. Despite the recovery phase following the recent Fitzroy River floods, it is impossible to imagine how we can recover without a total reset.

Climate change, or climate chaos and climate wars as I see it, will become the new norm. Our people know we cannot continue to devour the Earth without paying the costs. Globally, international organizations confirm it is Indigenous people who have contributed the least to climate change, yet we are impacted the most. The history of colonial invasion and destruction that started in the eighteenth century with the arrival of the First Fleet continues today. The Australian government plans further destruction of our lands, sacred sites and ‘unlawful, awful laws’. Considering the impact of the January 2023 floods, not just on people and infrastructure but on habitat and loss of multiple species, it can’t be business as usual!

Unlike the media, who blamed the River for the recent devastation, we know that the living waters are showing signs of changes and that the devastation is caused by humans, not by Martuwarra. We are asking the governments and big corporations to slow down. Martuwarra is giving us signs that it cannot be business as usual. It is Martuwarra who is asking, ‘What are humans doing?’ Martuwarra, our ancient and sacred serpent being, has taught us for generations that it is the geology and the watershed which govern our collective Nations.

As First Australians, our legal and governance systems were always regional and place-based. We have always abided by a law of regional governance acknowledging bottom-up governance, with each Indigenous Nation managing their own lands and waters in a place-based way. This is how we understood our own sovereign way of life. Along with our mooja’s or friends of Martuwarra, I ask questions and propose solutions for humanity and Mother Earth: ‘What are we doing? Are we fit and proper human beings?’ These are not questions aimed only at those who are destroying the planet, but questions I am asking every Australian, every global citizen. If we are to have a climate chance, we need to focus on justice.

I tell my story from the frontline of the climate war. From here I advocate for the importance of listening to the wisdom of the oldest living culture on the planet. It is no longer justice only for our people that we call for. These unjust development projects have a negative impact on the lives of all those who live, love and die in our regions. We need a new Dream.

Respect to dream the future

Respect is a key concept in First Law. The law of the land is not the law of man. It is the law of land, which includes living waters and our non-human family and kin. Respect is felt, it is liyan, our moral compass for feeling when something is right, or something is wrong. Non-Indigenous and Indigenous friends, colleagues, family can learn to feel this liyan. We can teach all who are willing to learn about our sense of reciprocity and responsibility. To do so we must sustain our lifeways, our place in the world. That is the only way Mother Earth and humanity can have a climate chance.

Those of us who dream the future believe we must focus on our strengths, individually and collectively. Individually first, and yet connected with a sense of liyan. Connection to your liyan will enhance your lifeways and livelihood. A person who can dream will then be able to help themselves, their family and communities. This recognition and practice of personal sovereignty is powerful. The choice is between right and wrong, good and bad, trickery or honesty, all virtues to be a free thinker in words and deeds. As Kaka Paddy Roe said: ‘Send the Dream out and walk in it.’ To which I add: Share your Dream and act to change injustice.

Respecting Martuwarra

According to our cultural protocol and my cultural authority, the words I spoke in my introduction to people and place are nagyoo yimartuwarra marnin: I am a woman who belongs to Martuwarra. Martuwarra is greatly respected and loved as it created my identity, my family and my people and the world we have duly inherited as guardians and custodians. Importantly for me and my people, this respect begins with our ancestral serpent being, Martuwarra. Our sacred ancestor who created our lands, living waters, languages, law and custom. We have an inter-generational moral contract to love, protect and promote the well-being of Martuwarra, River of Life.

In October 2016, I presented a case to the Tribunal for Nature in Brisbane. This citizens’ tribunal heard cases presented by citizens and earth jurisprudence lawyers concerning the destruction of ecosystems, and the wider earth community in Australia. Together with friends of the Martuwarra, I brought my case, Martuwarra versus State of Western Australia and Federal Governments, to the tribunal. We were asking the court to recognize Martuwarra as a living entity with a right to life, to live and flow, like her sister, the Whanganui River in New Zealand. The Whanganui River has stood strong, and with the help of her Indigenous guardians and the strength and wisdom of their legal and cultural governance, she has now set international legal precedents across the globe. Her rights of nature give me hope in human beings who hold the lives of the other non-human beings, the birds, the trees, the rocks, the insects and the balance of life in their hands.

Since the tribunal I have been pushing the boundaries of legal pluralism, inspired by the story in New Zealand of the Whanganui River. I was so excited that that River had got legal personhood. I went back and spoke with other elders. I told them as we sat on the riverbank, ‘Do you realize that there’s a river in New Zealand that the law has recognized? The river has been given personhood!’ The other elders looked at me as if I was from another planet. And when I spoke of our ancestral River, they said to me: ‘The River is not a human being.’ They explained to me that we are pushing the boundaries of ancestral personhood. The River is more than human. The right to recognize that these places are sacred means that the rivers, the mountains, the trees, all these things have standing and merit, because they are part of our world, not because they are human or human-like.

The tribunal agreed that Fitzroy River is a living ancestral being and has a right to life and a right to flow. It must be protected for current and future generations and managed jointly by the guardians and custodians of the River. Following the Tribunal for Nature, custodians and guardians from the Fitzroy River catchment area met on 2 and 3 November 2016 in Fitzroy Crossing, on the banks of the River. As a result of the meeting Indigenous leaders developed the Fitzroy River Declaration.

The declaration is described by legal scholar and researcher Michelle Lim as a ground-breaking event. This declaration is Australia’s first negotiated legal instrument that recognizes an ecosystem as a living being, while incorporating the Law of the River. The challenge is how to engage and reform existing state law to give effect to some of the declaration’s key points. Importantly, Michelle Lim believes it is helpful to think about the window of time in which we must act as the Indigenous people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. We are concerned by the extensive development proposals facing the Fitzroy River and its catchments. The potential for cumulative impacts on Martuwarra’s unique cultural and environmental values, which are of national and international significance, are also of deep concern.

The custodians and guardians of the Martuwarra catchment agreed to work together to action a process for joint decision-making on activities in the Fitzroy River catchment:

• to reach a joint position on fracking in the Fitzroy River catchment;
• to create a buffer zone for no mining, oil, gas, irrigation and dams in the Fitzroy River catchment;
• to develop and agree on a management plan for the entire Fitzroy River catchment, based on traditional and environmental values;
• to develop a Fitzroy River Management Body for the Fitzroy River catchment, founded on cultural governance;
• to complement these with a Joint Indigenous Protected Area over the Fitzroy River;
• importantly, to engage with industry, regional stakeholders, shire/local and state government to communicate our concerns and ensure they follow the agreed joint process;
• at the same time to investigate legal options to support the key strategies, including strengthened protections under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act and the National Heritage Listing to strengthen protections under the Aboriginal Heritage Act; and finally
• to consider legislation to protect the Fitzroy River catchment and its unique cultural and natural values.

Ancestral wisdom in the Kimberley region of Australia has endured for over 60,000 years and continues to be passed by our elders to the younger leaders. We continue to sing, dance, paint, cry and perform ceremony. We continue to publish articles with Martuwarra, River of Life as first author. These new forms of sharing our strengths and ancient wisdom are critical to telling the climate change story from an informed basis.

Our Dream is to have a bi-cultural governance framework inclusive of regional Indigenous Nations. We are coming together to inform local government engagement as part of a wider stakeholder group of business, industry and community partners. This is a model for cooperation, informed decision-making that can guarantee water justice through procedural and distributive justice for all. We need to ignite our moral contracts at the personal level if we want to take on the responsibility for what my friend Greg Campbell agrees is required: a total reset! New responsibilities, in other words.

Responsibility

As First Australians our ‘responsibility’ lies in our ethics of care and love. Responsibility is grounded not only on the protection of our River and biosphere, but more importantly, in the need to ensure our young people carry on the responsibility through inter-generational equity. The right to inherit a world is the key to environmental responsibility. It is our First Law.

When I talk about First Laws, I’m talking about moral laws. It is time to put these concepts of customary law on the table. The first point I want to make is that we have not been brave enough in this country when it comes to incorporating First Law. Laws from nature, laws from the land – how do we bring them together with Crown Law? We must find the right people to help navigate the political goodwill towards the fusion of both laws and have a conversation about how we transform our legal practice. We allow inequity and injustice to continue. It cannot be business as usual.

If we as human beings seek to pursue the concept of ‘Just Development’ we must ground our philosophy and practice around Indigenous First Law. First Law offers a pathway to justice, equity and peace as it incorporates Indigenous lifeways and livelihoods. First Law and Traditional Ecological Knowledge, as well as Indigenous science, must be coupled with ‘western’ science and brought into action through genuine free, prior and informed consent. We as a Nation and across the world will need to be fully involved in addressing key questions, including:

• Who and what counts and is counted?
• How are values assigned?
• How do relationships between people and the natural world work to produce value?
• How are existing values of the riverine system understood and measured?
• Whose laws and values matter?
• What impacts and risks are accurately predicted and deemed acceptable?
• Who gets to decide? And what kind of evidence is weighed up in the decision-making process?
• How and where are decisions made?
• Whose visions of the future are being pursued?

At a time when laws, policies, management and regulations continue to collapse at every level, it is time to build a vision which unites Australians and all fellow human beings. Climate investment funds must be committed and well invested to help us adapt and respond to climate change. This type of investment must be directed towards the design and situational context to support the collaboration of regional governance frameworks, which shifts the balance of power to local people. We need to develop a unity pathway, share information and have informed decision-making through regional governance approaches.

Today, Indigenous leaders in the Kimberley region of Australia are looking for ways to govern the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Watershed. We believe that if we are to have a climate chance, we need cooperation, unity, organization and multiple syntheses. Climate change is complex, so we need collective wisdoms across a pluriverse of ideas, investments and actions, all geared towards an earth-centred, decolonizing approach.

António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, recently commented: ‘We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.’ Yet the solutions are right before our eyes. As my friend the Cherokee leader Jonathan Hook reminds us, if we’re to survive, everyone must listen to Indigenous peoples, building links between communities and partners in genuine partnership, as equals. When Indigenous people come to the table it doesn’t mean that we are simply sharing ideas, which is a very important part. It means being part of the decision-making process, not simply being informed after the fact, but being part of determining the steps that are taken forward and being true equals in that process. We are at a tipping point. Unless we act now, there will be no going back.

At the national level we have a policy in place until 2030 known as the National Reserve System, a bioregional framework where every watershed in Australia has been mapped out. Our watershed is known as Dampierlands – I do not agree with the name – in honour of William Dampier, a British explorer who came to our shores in 1688 and described our people as the most miserable and wretched people on the earth.

We need to go back to our ancient wisdom and watershed perspective. The River is the central life force providing food, medicine, sites for recreational and ceremonial activities that promote and support the health and well-being of our people. In turn, the people reciprocate as guardians of Martuwarra, the Fitzroy River. The focus must be to take responsibility for the well-being of Fitzroy River, and through the River, ALL people.

In response to increasing development pressure, Martuwarra custodians and guardians have pledged to work together to protect and manage Martuwarra as one of the most iconic watersheds in Western Australia. The 2016 Fitzroy River Declaration aims to protect the traditional and environmental values that underpin the River’s National Heritage Listing. It is because of Martuwarra’s exceptional natural and cultural value to the nation that the entire Fitzroy River catchment was added to the National Heritage Listing in 2011. The Fitzroy River is also listed as an Aboriginal Heritage Site under the Western Australian Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972. The Fitzroy River Declaration sets out a national standard for native land title as well as enshrining the principle of self-determination expressed by UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

I believe there are mechanisms there that we need to get right and do right, right now. We need to look at our River Country as we have done from the beginning of time, through a bioregional Wunan and Warloongarriy Law, our First Laws. First Law governs the responsible management of Martuwarra Watershed through Warloongarriy, the Law of the River, and the Wunan, the Law of regional governance. The Wunan Law is a Kimberley-wide network of reciprocal, place-based sharing and ceremonial exchange, based on cultural leadership, which reinforces kinship ties and extends people’s social world through an ongoing circulation of goods and ceremonies.

The Warloongarriy ceremony re-enacts the Woonyoomboo story, when the ancestor being Woonyoomboo speared the serpent Yoongoorrookoo. It was Yoongoorrookoo who created the Martuwarra River in the Bookarrarra, a primordial time that is at once past, present and future. Since Bookarrarra, Warloongarriy and the Wunan Law have provided a framework for understanding the central role of water in all things, and its relationships to everything else. What is required is the total watershed perspective from the top of the catchment to the mouth of Martuwarra, Fitzroy River and to stop breaking everything up into little parts. We need to ensure that the voices of Indigenous leaders who are at the front line of unjust development are amplified and not crucified.

The big question at the end of the day is how we come together to promote the idea that ‘It’s the people that matter, Indigenous or not.’ All of us need to be at the table. Thus, the guardians of the Martuwarra, Fitzroy River have invited industry, government and other stakeholders to work together to achieve the principles set out in the Fitzroy River Declaration. To achieve these aspirations, three important questions must be answered.

• First, will the government invest in a water stewardship model to develop an integrated and adaptive Water Resource Management Plan for Martuwarra, Fitzroy River?
• Second, can we establish a conversation with decision-makers whereby First Australians are respected in their right to self-determination and management of the Martuwarra, with Indigenous laws for the Martuwarra at the heart of decision-making processes?
• The final and third question is directed to the world and any potential partner investors: can we develop a transformational cultural governance model, combining geo-heritage and Indigenous heritage to showcase the Martuwarra as a new economy, transitioning from fossil fuels and large-scale agriculture to protect and ensure the survival of the Martuwarra as an integral component of Mother Earth and humanity?

We send this Dream out, and we continue to work hard with those who share our love and ethics of care through a coalition of hope. We uphold our law of obligations to ensure future generations can celebrate, share their due inheritance and reach their full potential to continue to live in peace and harmony. A world of balance and full of potential is what we seek: Just-us for All.

I conclude my story with the belief that, as my elders have sung and danced for thousands of years as part of our ‘Wake Up the Snake’ ritual performance, we can wake up the consciousness of all people. We can listen and act upon Indigenous wisdom across the planet to ensure human and planetary well-being. To ensure Mother Earth will not be lonely without the vibrations of human beings, we must dance, walk upon her girth, connect to and through her, dreaming a new justice of Indigenous wisdom for human and planetary well-being.

Photo: Celebrated cultural authority, renowned stockman and Ngarinyin man Patrick Chungal, who grew up on a remote cattle station in the upper catchment of Martuwarra. Patrick’s parents worked their entire lives for nothing more than rations of tea, flour and sugar. From the age he could ride a horse, he was put to work: ‘the saddle was my school, that’s where I learned from the old people, where to find food, medicine, water.’ Blue Bird Springs, Ngarinyin Country. Credit: Lachie Carracher.

The different meanings of the European water crisis

In the past, humans revered rivers and other water bodies as symbols of abundance, creation, fertility and, ultimately, life. Nowadays, water frequently conjures up images of death and human and environmental devastation. Be it in the context of the global climate crisis, when world regions across the globe are facing an unprecedented collapse of river systems. Or be it in the context of the global refugee crisis, when hundreds of refugees drown every week in the sea in search of hope and a better future – often as a consequence of the global climate crisis.

The planet is facing an unprecedented collapse of river systems and other water bodies.

ver the past 30 years, water pollution has further worsened in almost all rivers across the world due to wastewater, industrial and agricultural run-off, increased economic activity and population growth. Furthermore, the global river crisis is inextricable from wetland and ocean pollution, with approximately eight million metric tonnes of plastic entering the world’s oceans per year including via rivers, estuaries and wetlands – the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic every single minute. The collapse of freshwater systems is also a compounding factor in global warming, given the impact of water systems on the cooling capacity and climate dynamics of our interconnected planet.

But the global water crisis is more than just an environmental crisis. Like a prism, it refracts human disasters all around us. As highlighted by the UN Refugee Agency, the UNHCR: ‘The climate crisis is a human crisis. It is driving displacement and makes life harder for those already forced to flee.’ Focusing on Europe, consider recent refugee tragedies in the Mediterranean Sea, where water, as a vital life force and a fluid with the potential to deliver a person from war, famine or climate-related disasters, becomes the source of drowning and death. Thinking of water through the lens of the climate and refugee crises sheds light on water access concerns and scarcity issues, for example in refugee camps. It forces thought about water as an instrument of border control, bringing watery considerations to the lived reality of border crossings, as well as a number of intersectional forms of discrimination implemented in and through water.

These human challenges are magnified by climatic shifts that have brought on more and longer drought periods (drying out some of Europe’s most emblematic rivers, such as the Rhine in Germany, the Po in Italy, the Loire in France, and the Danube in Central and south-eastern Europe), devastating floods (which are only magnified by drought contexts) and persistent (forever) chemicals increasingly prevalent and concentrated in our environments.

This chapter argues that the water crisis is the result of the commercialization of water (water as a thing), an idea that originally emerged in Europe. It is fitting that our study of water governance should focus on Europe, even if Eurocentric governance systems have been spread across the globe by European empires and a state-centric international system. Simultaneously, the ancient understanding of water as kin was gradually marginalized. This process gave rise to a global water-governance architecture that has entrenched the control of water through elaborate water infrastructures, such as canalization, sewage systems and hydropower dams. As a second step, the chapter further argues that this modern water paradigm has major implications for today’s global water and refugee crises, transforming water into treacherous death zones for wildlife and humans alike.

The first section of the chapter traces how, over the past few centuries, different Eurocentric thought processes have transformed water from kin to thing. Then, there is a discussion of the failure of the ambitious European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive (WFD) to improve the water quality of the EU’s water bodies because of powerful national interests and strong industry lobbying.

In this context, the chapter presents recent examples of courageous civil society action campaigning in support of the WFD and introducing kin-based approaches in water policies. Thereafter, attention shifts to the implications of the commercialization of water (from kin to thing) for refugees arriving in Europe by sea. This section reveals how the instrumentalization of water has exacerbated the European refugee crisis, as water bodies are being used as forms of fortified border control.

People in European refugee camps and minorities and indigenous peoples worldwide are being denied basic water rights as a result of a disciplined access to water infrastructure. The chapter ends with a proposal to resurrect kin-based approaches that could help us navigate more safely through today’s environmental and human death zones, transforming water once again into a source of life and fertility.

The European roots of the modern water paradigm

How we relate to and value water is tightly woven into our relationships with one another and the Earth. Many hunters and gatherers, subsistence farmers and others who pay close attention to the living world around them make no strict distinction between human society and everything else. Enrique Salmón, Indigenous Tarahumara from Chihuahua, Mexico, for example, writes that such ways of life are grounded in what he terms a kincentric ecology in which people are ‘[part] of an extended ecological family that shares ancestry and origins … an awareness that life in any environment is viable only when humans view the life surrounding them as kin’.

Salmón describes a form of kinship that is more extended and all-encompassing than many people in a typical ‘western’ context might be used to, where kinship tends to be limited to human beings and the family ties between them. Parent to child, cousin to aunt, and so on. It is, rather, a kind of kinship that embraces a wide array of living relationships between people, places, plants, waters, animals and ancestors – with the understanding that it is these relationships that make us all what we are, that literally enliven us.

Archaeological and historical evidence, and recent interpretations of such evidence, suggest that something not entirely dissimilar to such kinds of kinship existed before the advent of colonial modernity across much of the region now called ‘Europe’. For our watery interests here, we can cast our minds over swathes of pre-Roman Celtic Europe: to northern France, where the River Marne was known simply as ‘mother’; to traditions of making offerings of exceptionally valuable items to springs, lakes, rivers and bogs from France to Germany, Denmark and Estonia. Yet more apposite, we might think of the Celtic female divinity Nantosuelta, whose name simply meant ‘winding river’, depicted in a first-century stone relief in Saarburg, within the watershed of the Rhine. Or water spirits who, until recent centuries, were associated with treacherous waters in the Danube. These waters so threatened eighteenth-century imperial Austrian power in the region – read as the ability to control nature – that Empress Maria Theresa took dynamite to the great river’s bed in order to ‘civilize’ its flow. Occasionally, we still come across some of these water spirits today. Opera lovers will certainly recognize the Rhinemaidens, the guardians of the mystical Rhinegold, who are among the many characters of Richard Wagner’s famous opera classic.

Geographer Jamie Linton makes the point that it was within complex socio-technological processes that the notion of ‘modern water’ emerged. He argues that while Eurocentric currents of philosophy have for thousands of years understood water in both local, animistic and generalizable naturalistic terms, it is with the invention of ‘modern water’ that only generalizable naturalistic portrayals – encapsulated in 1811 by the formula H₂0 – became considered as proper knowledge. Linton observes that imagining water as value-free, unfettered from all human entanglements, had in reality the opposite effect. Modern water – countable, governable, a potential commodity like anything else – did not wash human relations away from water. Instead, it fostered new kinds of relations, modulated through new infrastructures while – not coincidentally – advancing the ‘civilizing’ missions of imperial European states at home and abroad.

When people holding to such ways of relating to the world met people whose primary forms of knowledge and valuation lay in attempting to work with webs of relations that sustain both humans and other-than-humans, the former most often destroyed the latter. Neither their dominant ways of understanding the world nor their endlessly expanding markets could coexist within life-giving webs of kinship. Such webs could only be exploited to control cultures, save souls, and secure labour for mines, plantations and factories. Landscapes’ watery aspects – rivers, ponds, springs – imagined exclusively in terms of their physicality after their human relations had been expunged, could with almost no moral concern be turned into exploitable resources to satisfy exclusively human ends, generally in the service of the market: as genteel leisure-scape, as transport and as depository for all kinds of waste.

So, while a small percentage of the world’s human population used rivers for their own flourishing, this modern relationship to water became increasingly abusive. In many settings, human feelings of kinship with water withered, deprived of the rituals, concerns and care that are the source of any life-giving relationship. Paraphrasing ideas found in the inspiring works of Neil Kessler and Amitav Ghosh, we might well say that our ecological situation springs as much as anything from a derangement of relationships. Perhaps even more damning, in most regions of the world, this has become the majority and hegemonic position, against which kin-like ways of relating have become the minority and potentially counter-hegemonic position.

This derangement may have gathered its first real momentum during industrialization in Europe and its colonies starting in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but such ways of relating to water are still powerful today, tied closely to the dire state of the region’s waters. They find expression in the fourth principle of the 1992 Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development, which states that ‘[m]anaging water as an economic good is an important way of achieving efficient and equitable use’ (emphasis added). This principle is a central element of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM), the dominant concept within global water governance, steering all major undertakings across national, European and global scales. IWRM is codified as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, namely target 6.5. Current global water-governance models, as expressed by these examples, are inadvertently reproducing the commercialization of rivers, aggravating the global water crisis.

Water and the national interest

International legislation and legal frameworks on water cooperation first emerged in Europe, dating back to the early nineteenth century. In the wake of the 1814–15 Congress of Vienna, European powers set up the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine, the first transboundary river governance framework worldwide to govern this crucial river in Central Europe, traditionally used as a vital trading and navigational route. Over the following decades, similar river commissions came into existence across the continent. One of them was the European Commission of the Danube, established in 1856 to increase control of the second-largest river in the region and a fundamental trading link between Central and Eastern Europe. The commission was created to mediate conflicts among the many riparian powers, transforming the river into an international space to facilitate trading and navigation along its waters. Both commissions are still in place today.

The Rhine Commission and the Danube Commission are prime examples of joint diplomatic efforts among European powers to tame and control large transboundary rivers and transform them into safe navigational spaces to benefit national and imperialist interests in trading, economic growth and development. It can even be argued that these river commissions institutionally entrenched the dominant logic that still shapes global water governance today: the creation of complex legal and political governance frameworks to exploit water for economic interests, which ultimately set in motion socio-economic and political processes that facilitated the destruction of fragile water and river ecosystems.

Given this long history of international cooperation that emerged to control transboundary water bodies in Europe, it is not surprising that water policies are among the EU’s oldest environmental frameworks, taking shape in 1972 after the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, the first UN conference on the environment. The EU’s water policies that emerged in the 1970’s and 1980’s resembled a fragmented patchwork of water-use directives that aimed to monitor drinking water, bathing waters, fishing waters, shellfish water, habitats, urban wastewater and nitrates. Apart from setting standards targeted at specific aspects of water pollution, a holistic approach that would also consider the problems and origins of water pollution was entirely missing. In other words, the EU approached water policies in an isolated way, ignoring that water bodies are embedded in larger environmental ecosystems. The 1990’s witnessed a gradual shift towards a more holistic and integrated understanding of water governance, prioritizing the interconnected nature of land, water and environmental pollution, while simultaneously foregrounding ecosystems approaches that integrate environmental, economic and social aspects of water governance.

In the EU, this global trend resulted in the adoption of the WFD in 2000, aimed at establishing a framework capable of protecting European water bodies from pollution and reaching ‘good ecological status’. In many ways, this directive represented a shift away from the traditional paradigm of water governance to a more holistic understanding of water bodies. While the 1992 Dublin Principles still regarded water as an economic good, the WFD goes further, emphasizing that ‘[w]ater is not a commercial product like any other but, rather, a heritage which must be protected, defended and treated as such’.

In principle, the WFD set a new paradigm for water governance in the EU. Moving away from a command and control paradigm, the WFD established the systemic understanding of rivers as catchments rather than administrative and political boundaries that often fragment governance efforts of river bodies. A catchment approach underlines complex human–nature relationships as well as the interconnections between water bodies, land, agriculture and other environmental stress factors. This understanding also entails an interdisciplinary approach to appreciate the complexity and interdependencies within the ecosystem, and calls for a participatory approach that promotes decentralized policy-making with the inclusion of water users on the ground.

Despite its innovative wording, the implementation of the WFD has proved disappointing. More than 20 years after the adoption of this EU directive, water bodies across EU member states remain in a critical status. Particularly in highly populated areas with significant industry, such as in Belgium, many parts of Germany and the Netherlands, more than 90 per cent of surface waters were found to be less than good. In the same vein, many parts of Eastern and Southern Europe have a low percentage of water bodies in good ecological condition.

Why is the condition of Europe’s surface waters still so dismal when considering the innovative and often paradigm-changing language of the WFD? The often ineffective implementation of the directive’s principles is largely due to two interrelated factors: first, the complexity of EU governance. And, second, the continuing dominance of the traditional water paradigm that remains deeply entrenched in pre-existing water-governance mechanisms of EU member states.

The directive needs to be implemented by EU member states and their administrative bodies at national and local levels. Member states enjoy a high degree of flexibility in their implementation efforts, which ultimately rely on pre-existing administrative bodies and socio-political mindsets at the national level. That is, EU water law principles are not imposed on member states. Rather, member states need to integrate these principles through their own legal and political order, which ultimately leads to varying degrees of implementation. The directive required member states to set up integrated environmental management systems that used an ecosystems approach, considering the water body (and pollution factors) within its larger ecosystem. This goal was to be achieved with integrated river basin management plans.

Given the often vague and ambiguous wording of the text, the WFD’s integrated river basin management plans have been interpreted by member states in different ways. This was the consequence of the original negotiation process among the EU’s two supranational bodies, the European Parliament and the European Commission on the one hand, which advocated for an ambitious and legally binding document, and the Council of the European Union on the other hand, the EU’s intergovernmental body and representative of EU member states, which pushed back and supported a stronger role of member states in implementing the WFD.

Also, traditional decision-making structures at the national level steeped in the old water paradigm led to narrow interpretations and reductionist implementation of the directive’s goals. Hence, many countries without already established river basin management practices did not transform their administrative structures to make ecosystems thinking a priority. Instead, the WFD principles were merely added as another legal layer to pre-existing water and environmental policies. These often heavily centralized and hierarchically structured decision-making processes thwarted any meaningful transformation of water policies and river management as envisioned by the WFD. As a further complicating factor, many member states have used poorly justified exemptions to delay the implementation process or water down the directive’s ambitious goals.

The pre-existing governance structures of the Rhine and the Danube are a case in point. Even in these cases of well-established collaborative governance, dating back to the nineteenth century, member states can only realize the potential of the WFD on the basis of these pre-existing international treaties, thus thwarting any serious efforts of incorporating an ecosystems approach and establishing shared responsibilities for the rivers’ ecological health. After all, both the Rhine and Danube commissions were established to guarantee the rivers’ use as a vital space for trading and navigation rather than the protection of their ecological health.

In other words, an EU-led approach to transforming water policy paradigms is doomed to fail if it is not accompanied by bottom-up processes within EU member states, with civil society movements challenging these traditional political and legal structures from below.

The importance of these bottom-up processes became glaringly clear in 2018 when the European Commission embarked on a two-year evaluation to assess if the WFD is still ‘fit for purpose’, a standard process that all EU legislation is subject to. Many member states and industry groups from the agriculture, mining and energy sectors hostile to the WFD saw this moment as an opportunity to lobby the European Commission and weaken the directive’s objectives, introduce new exemptions and postpone implementation targets. After significant pressure from European civil society, represented by the NGO-led Living Rivers Europe coalition (formed by the World Wide Fund for Nature, the European Environmental Bureau, the European Anglers Alliance, the European Rivers Network and Wetlands International), and one of the largest public consultation processes in the history of the EU, involving more than 375,000 European citizens, the European Commission decided in 2020 not to give in to political and economic pressure from member states and industry and instead to uphold the WFD.

Recently, civil society mobilization in Spain has shown that it can have an impact beyond merely protecting the existing wording of the directive against industry and member states and, instead, stimulate transformative change in our understanding of our relationship with water, which is akin to the idea of kin. The Mar Menor is Europe’s largest, and one of its most endangered, saltwater lagoons, located in the region of Murcia in southern Spain. The region is also one of the most intensely farmed in Europe, producing fruits and vegetables for the European market, and relies on a strong tourism sector. For decades, the Mar Menor lagoon has been under immense pressure from sewage discharge, metal mining, urban development, tourist infrastructure and excessive nitrate and phosphate contamination from fertilizers in agriculture.

With the impending ecological disaster, resistance has formed among the local population. In 2018, local activists decided to set up a legal campaign for a citizen-driven bill to transform the lagoon into a legal person with legal rights. This new legal status would allow citizens to hold to account the industry sectors responsible for the environmental degradation of the lagoon before the law and demand reparations for the damages caused. Within a few months, the campaign for this citizen bill gained so much public and political support that it easily reached the threshold of 500,000 signatures necessary to be discussed by parliament. And on 21 September 2022, Spain’s Senate approved the bill, creating a new law that transforms the lagoon into the very first ecosystem in Europe to become a legal person. Of course, it remains to be seen how this new law is being implemented and whether agricultural businesses are held to account. But this legal victory in Spain is inspiring similar legal initiatives in other European countries, mobilizing to grant legal personhood to the River Loire in France and the North Sea in the Netherlands.

Denying water rights in European refugee camps

The environmental crisis facing most water bodies is compounded by a human and refugee crisis that is often linked to water. As water remains dominated by scientific management and the hierarchical control of nation-states, it also plays an important role in bordering the countries of Europe from their former colonies. Hydrology was a colonizing science that defined the public spaces and differentiated metropolitan from subaltern ones. As a physical barrier, maritime waters present dangers to vulnerable refugees that Europe’s citizens would rarely tolerate.

Access to clean water was a mobilizing call for modern nationalism in tumultuous nineteenth-century Europe. As the industrial age drew farmers out of the fields to become workers in the cities, water quality collapsed, with water-borne diseases like cholera taking tens of thousands to their graves. Science, technology, public health and moral certainty established municipal water management systems that distanced modern European metropolises from colonies. National engineering, state investment and construction to control nature were the defining hallmarks of Europe’s metropolitan cities. The huge embankments in Europe’s great river cities – along the Danube, the Seine and the Thames – all evidenced the modern conquest of nature by humans but would also extend a ‘colonial hydrology’.

Such public goods were the things that rationalized the growth of the public sphere. They were created through order, discipline and hygiene that presented an enlightened national community that was not subaltern. Water sanitation extended beyond the public sphere into the body to establish individual subjects that were hygienic and modern. For this personal transformation to be possible, water had to be clean, contained, situated and owned by private or public utilities to demonstrate value for public money or investor returns. Public virtue, personal cleanliness and private profit were closely linked around the construction of national utilities and their accessibility.

According to UNHCR, by the end of 2021 there were 89.3 million people in the world forced to flee their homes, more than double the number of displaced people after the Second World War. This displacement has been driven by forces familiar though different to the colonial era, namely, persecution, war, trade, cultural transfer, and ecological and environmental destruction. Hostility has come to characterize the contemporary responses of most European governments to migrants, including refugees fleeing oppressive regimes. National politicians have separated an increasingly unstable idea of citizenship from the excessive presence of ‘others’ in a discourse that has much in common with that of colonialism 200 years ago.

Europe’s borders have been defended by stripping water of its social and human meaning and relying on its status as a thing to do unspeakable things to refugees in ways that bypass accountability under human norms and laws. The agency of water as a dehumanized thing has been essential to the maintenance of Europe’s sovereign borders. Water has been securitized to allow drowning to be a tool of management in the Mediterranean Sea and controlled as a commodity to restrict access to water in refugee camps. The convergence of state, technology, commerce and subjugation continue to confirm the dependence of European countries on their demarcation from their former colonies through boundaries mediated by water.

Refugees and the use of water bodies as border control

Tens of thousands of refugees and migrants have been allowed to drown in the past decade to protect European borders. And while the real numbers can never be known, the practice of European and national policy is to use water, and the risk of drowning, as an instrument of border control.

Using the sea to dispose of inconvenient lives is well documented as a historical practice. Slavers threw captured Africans from the British slave ship Zong in 1783 to save money; the MV Struma sank in 1942 after the British refused entry for its Jewish passengers to Palestine; and in 1973, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s thugs hurled political prisoners into the ocean from helicopters. The waters of the seas have hidden many crimes against humanity. As these bodies disappear under the waves, they enter new realities, where friends and families become corpses, and where the laws and conventions of life and civilization have no meaning at all. Once there, crimes are hidden beyond the law – the motive is dispersed, the weapon is water, and the culprit is nowhere to be seen. Unsurprisingly when bodies disappear into the sea, they also disappear from the legal structures that regulate the world, making it extremely difficult to hold perpetrators to account.

Conventions of maritime law, social practices among mariners and voluntary rescue agencies offer kinship to those on the sea. But European states even prosecute those who seek to help refugees as they cross open water in flimsy craft. This is in contrast with the founding principles of the EU, with Article 2 of the Lisbon Treaty stating that ‘[t]he Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.’ Principle 18 of the 1998 UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement stresses the importance of ensuring without discrimination safe access to ‘[e]ssential food and potable water’. Several UN Special Rapporteurs have made declarations on delivering water rights to internally displaced persons, refugees, asylum seekers and migrants while en route.

But even if these rights were accessible to migrants, and even if they were enforced through legal channels, they would not guarantee access to water nor protect refugees from drowning. In many countries, the very processes used to regulate migration are drawn from penal codes. So, it is unlikely that criminalized migrants would ever experience justice. Furthermore, the delegation of authority to EU border agencies like FRONTEX has altered sovereignty over Europe’s borders, creating a lack of accountability. The governance of water safety for refugees is, at best, arbitrary and far from respectful of human dignity.

Meanwhile, the growth in bordering industries has created lucrative opportunities for corporate investors to profit from these gaps. The global border industry is growing at a projected rate of 7–8 per cent a year to a total of US$65–68 billion by 2025, especially in new drone and AI (artificial intelligence) technologies. FRONTEX awarded €50 million in contracts to service companies in 2020. In practice, the securitization of migration, on top of the long-standing use of criminal justice to manage refugees, has allowed thousands to drown in the Mediterranean Sea.

Water can be turned from being an objective thing to a human space in which rules and frameworks apply. But these norms can also be exclusionary, and the microphysics of racist and sexist exclusion is present in the regulation of public access to clean water and sanitation to refugees and other marginalized groups. Patriarchal gender categories that designed municipal water infrastructures to be different for women and men, have seen public toilets become sites of political conflict. In the United Kingdom, for example, transgender women accessing female toilets regularly report that they face abuse. This and related debates have led to a sharp rise of transphobic hate crimes; the number recorded by the UK police rose by 26 per cent during the year to March 2022.

These quotidian forms of discipline and judgement show just how contingent the right to water is when administered through Europe’s national water infrastructures, especially when viewed from the margins of society. As access to high-quality drinking water became monetized through structured water systems, capital became a core currency, replacing water as the currency for life. Certainly, there have been examples of municipal pushback against the privatization of water companies in the last fifty years.

The World Health Organization reports regularly on the exposure of refugees to water-borne diseases because their access to quality water is compromised by poor sanitation. Refugee camps are frequently sites of exposure to water-borne diseases, as they are often located close to arrival sites rather than urban areas, and so lack the emergency infrastructure to accommodate growing wastewater disposal. Meanwhile, WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) indices capture the extent to which minority groups, such as Roma in Europe, are excluded from clean water in high-income countries. The same is true in some of Europe’s humanitarian camps. Water may be conditional on the camps’ access to water mains infrastructures, or water provided by private suppliers.

Yet kinship may empower people around water in remarkable ways. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, many people have sought to swim in open water as a distraction and form of exercise. For many women’s groups, entering the cold sea has allowed them to reconnect with their bodies in new and empowering ways. Open-water swimming has generated communities out of locations and generated new insights into how we relate to nature. Swimming has helped people to connect with refugees in ways that engage with vulnerability, caring and creating kinship with host communities. All around the world, refugees are sharing swimming experiences with local communities, training to become lifeguards and learning to swim again. The Swimmers, a feature film about a pair of refugee sister swimmers, was even nominated for a British BAFTA film award in 2022.

While making water a thing was the product of imperial nation-building, denaturing water has made it the medium for unspeakable crimes. As we rethink how we connect with water to make it clean, we also need to face up to the ways that water has been both the site of crimes against humans and the weapon for executing those crimes. Recognizing this power is another step closer to healthier forms of kinship between people and water.

Water as kin: challenging the modern water paradigm

How to navigate through today’s water crisis? The thingification of water over the past few centuries has created myriad environmental and human death zones on land and in the sea. These death zones not only include dried-out rivers, extreme flood events and heavily polluted lagoons. They also extend to refugee camps as zones of the denial of water rights and water bodies as fortified symbols of border control.

In the midst of these urgent environmental and humanitarian crises, some of the most inspiring movements that have questioned and contested the modern water paradigm draw on kincentric ideas. Be it the legal rights movements that advocate for granting legal personhood to specific water bodies. Be it in the form of swimming initiatives that have helped people to reconnect with water bodies and rediscover kincentric relationships with water.

The various examples discussed in this chapter show how kincentric ideas are being rediscovered and experimented with in different ways. Kincentric ideas are ways of relating to local rivers and other water bodies as familiar and cognate living beings, intimately entangled with human life through personal, social and cultural practices defined by reciprocity. These kincentric ideas are not romantic fabulations. They are taken up by grassroots movements around the world to contest the modern water paradigm that over the past few centuries has deranged our relationship with water bodies. This return to kinship thinking in the last five to ten years, principally symbolized by indigenous-led struggles for the recognition of the personhood of rivers outside of Europe, is also increasingly inspiring grassroots movements in Europe, as the legal campaign to grant legal personhood to the Mar Menor lagoon in Spain has demonstrated.

The modern water paradigm is deeply entrenched in our political and legal systems, fundamentally influencing our own relationships with water. The commercial usage of water emerged over several centuries, shaped by developments in Europe and related imperialistic efforts, transforming the ancient understanding of water as kin and channelling the subsequent economic interest on water into imperial and state-centric governance structures that ultimately gave rise to a European and global water-governance architecture. This architecture has shaped our understanding of water as a thing to be sold, tamed, controlled and exploited for trade, energy security, agriculture, disease control and border control. At the same time, ancient understandings of and relations with water have faded away into the murky depths of instrumental reason.

The civil society initiatives discussed in this article, taking inspiration from kincentric ideas, will not undo this process. But they can question the status quo and inspire new thinking about how to navigate through the death zones of today’s water bodies. The disappointing results of the WFD, the EU’s most ambitious water policy to tackle the environmental degradation of the EU’s water bodies, have demonstrated that bold, new thinking is urgently needed. The humanitarian disaster on Europe’s shores underscores that the legal and political status quo of water bodies as fortified border control will only exacerbate Europe’s refugee crisis further.

The question is: how can the relationship between humans and water bodies be recast and regenerated? Water bodies are the living veins of the Earth’s interconnected ecosystems, giving life to forests, plants, non-human animal species – and to us. Hence, no matter where we live, we cannot escape the manifold catastrophic consequences of today’s water crisis. Once, water was a symbol of creation, fertility and life because of our kincentric relationships with water. Indigenous peoples and many minorities have never lost this worldview. To tackle this crisis, we need to seek inspiration from this ancient wisdom, healing our deranged relationship with water.

We are grateful to members of the Water Value Research Group at the University of Leeds for their collaboration in the production of this chapter.

Photo: Migrants wait at the Italian French border of Ventimiglia, Italy. Credit: Marco Alpozzi/LaPresse via Associated Press/Alamy Stock Photo.

A planetary dilemma

It is hard to address the impact water stress is having on minorities and indigenous peoples across the globe without considering the plight of water first. Not as resource. Not as thing. Water as living cycle. The planetary disruption of the water cycle is having a systemic impact not only on human beings, but all animals, plants and fungi on this planet. In short, the issue of water access and water shortage – of floods and droughts – is planetary. Not global – planetary. The inadequacy of global, international and national governance is evident when it comes to water. Governments can just about align when it comes to climate change, not so when it comes to water. Water is understood in terms of integrated river basin approaches at best, yet water is not only territorial. It is also atmospheric, oceanic and subterranean. Atmospheric rivers are super-saturated streams of water vapour, some containing more water than the Amazon River, which move according to distinct meteorological and geographic patterns.

Can these atmospheric rivers be mapped? Can they be included within the framework of territorial and state-based governance? Waters are cross-boundary and cross-regional. Disruption of the water cycle is happening at a planetary level. Unless states act in the interest of the planet and can include planetary forms of thinking and acting within their current water frameworks, it is hard to see a way out of the impasse. Destabilization of oceanic and atmospheric currents, the melting of glaciers and polar ice caps, the drying of rivers and lakes, are sending the world’s climate into chaos. Nowhere is this collapsing planetary balance felt most strongly than in the arid regions of Central Asia and West Africa.

For many people across this mega-region, whether minority or majority, whether indigenous or non-indigenous, water means everything. It is an existential matter. As such, water is not merely an issue for development narratives and the Sustainable Development Goals – it is a living entity that exceeds the human ability to control and manage. Water is not a line in a map. As vividly shown in the opening chapter of this report, water is First Law. Water is governed by its own principles and laws. First, water is a cycle. Second, water is freely available. Third, water is diverse – it takes on many forms and colours. Fourth, water purifies and filters itself. By interrupting its cycle, most current global, international, national and regional frameworks for water management are blind to the planetary nature of water, insisting on a territorial mindset that is inadequate when it comes to comprehending, let alone preserving, water’s flow.

This chapter appeals to a planetary and therefore interconnected understanding of water, which is often found not in state laws but in indigenous forms of governance. To illustrate this underlying point, we focus on the world’s largest continuous land mass, the Asia and Africa mega-region, which are interconnected by common climatic atmospheric systems and patterns of rainfall distribution. The mega-region we focus on also includes the world’s largest landlocked countries, where a trail of disrupted ecological systems, as well as recurring signs of extreme water stress, have become commonplace.

Across West Africa and Central Asia, lakes, rivers and aquifers are drying up. Drought has become extreme across large swathes of these regions. Desertification has also become a grave reality across many landlocked countries and nations. Large sections of land have become uninhabitable or are in the process of becoming uninhabitable for human life, sending tens of thousands of local populations into forced displacement. Many of the most vulnerable belong to minorities and indigenous peoples, as their lives are often so closely intertwined with their local ecosystems. Multiplying this immediate environmental threat is the systemic exclusion and discrimination they face, adding to their vulnerability if displaced. The impact of the planetary water crisis on minority and indigenous communities can hardly be more direct and acute.

The landlocked predicament

The Sahara and Sahel are often cited as two of the regions of the world most seriously affected by climate change. The Western Sahel is a semi-arid area stretching from the Atlantic Ocean eastwards to Chad, bordered by the Sahara Desert to the north and the Sudanian savannah to the south. The region is also one of the poorest and most environmentally degraded in the world. This is partly due to the fact that many of the countries in the region are landlocked. The landlocked predicament, as we call it, is a major factor slowing down both the regeneration of Sahelian countries and the depletion of water sources, not least given the vulnerability of water bodies found in dry regions, far from the cooling and humidifying effect of seas and oceans. Indeed, the Sahel is one of the regions that is most vulnerable to climate change, with temperatures expected to rise 1.5 times higher than in the rest of the world. Climate vulnerability is compounded by the region’s heavy dependence on rain-fed agriculture, rapid population growth and chronic humanitarian crises due to recurrent droughts, floods, food insecurity, epidemics and violent conflicts.

In order to feed growing populations in the region, it is necessary to deploy vast amounts of resources, including for instance food relief. Unfortunately, given the ongoing food, humanitarian and security crises in Chad, Niger and Mali, it is difficult to mobilize aid from nearby ports to the landlocked countries of the Sahel. For example, in addition to depending on Libya and Sudan, Chad depends on seaports in Cameroon and Nigeria. Niger’s economy and commercial activities rely on the ports of Nigeria. Drought and famine have considerably increased the need to import food and other basic necessities into landlocked regions. However, the presence of jihadist groups such as Boko Haram have made routes from Nigerian ports to Chad and Niger almost completely impassable. Insecurity has made it difficult to supply assistance and relief to vulnerable populations in areas affected by famine, water stress and insecurity, especially within remote, landlocked regions.

The Sahel and Sahara are still recovering from food crises caused by the severe droughts of 2005, 2008, 2010 and 2012. Research suggests that more than 20 million food-insecure people and nearly six million malnourished children live in the Sahel alone. With significant population growth (on average 3 per cent per year) and recurrent problems of environmental degradation, widespread poverty and political instability, climate change in the Sahel and Sahara will exacerbate existing vulnerabilities. Water scarcity, longer dry seasons and the impact of rising temperatures could trigger new conflicts and forced migration across Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad.

As we will see in the rest of the chapter, the dilemma faced by arid, landlocked countries in West Africa is not dissimilar, in general terms, to the case of landlocked countries in the arid regions of Central Asia. Indeed, as the 2022 Water Risk Atlas produced by the World Resources Institute highlights, the world’s most ‘extremely water stressed regions’ are found in the large swathe of landmass from West Africa through to East Asia, covering the Sahara, the Sahel, the Middle East and Central Asian regions.

Burning water problems across Central Asia: Melting glaciers

One of the most dramatic ways in which water systems are being affected by human activity is the melting of permafrost. The capacity for the planet to store water in a solid state is fast declining. There are numerous consequences to this environmental issue. Melting ice is exacerbating global warming. Releasing fast-running waters onto the land is also causing floods and inundations, which reduce the capacity for soil to retain water, not to mention the devastating effects of major flood disasters on human and animal populations. The phenomenon is particularly acute in Central Asia.

Increased meltwater production in the high mountains of Central Asia threatens the populations of this arid region of the planet with water stress. Meltwater also masks predatory forms of water use. In the Tien Shan mountains of China (also known as the Tenghritagh mountain range), where the sources of the Ili River and many other Central Asian rivers lie, peak meltwater production has not yet been reached for most of the existing glaciers. Meltwater production is expected to increase in the next two decades, before it starts declining. The situation may then change dramatically overnight.

‘When glaciers shrink to a small fraction of their current size, river flow could drop rapidly, with severe consequences for many Central Asian regions’, says Todd Katzner, Research Wildlife Biologist for the US Geographical Survey. Melting ice will affect not only river flow, but also the survival of many lakes in the region. Nurtazin Sabir from the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University reminds us that the volume of water in Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan is equivalent to less than seven years of water input from the entire basin. This means that Balkhash is extremely sensitive to abrupt changes in glacial melting or evaporation.

Vanishing lakes

In spite of the overwhelmingly arid climate, the Central Asia region is a rich hydrological network of rivers, lakes and mountain catchments. The Caspian Sea, which is shared by Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia, is the world’s largest inland body of water. The Aral Sea, shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, used to be the fourth largest lake in the world. Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan is the third largest in Asia and fifteenth largest in the world. Thus, the five Central Asian states that gained independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union not only share borders but also major water systems. From the Communist period onwards, however, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan have inherited outdated water infrastructures and predatory approaches to water use. At the same time, the region is particularly endangered by the intensified effects of climate change.

As with other landlocked countries around the world, including Bolivia in South America and the African states mentioned earlier, the Central Asian region is affected by its landlocked condition, which means that these countries are deprived of the balancing hydrological effects and rainfall brought on by oceanic currents and air pressures. Kazakhstan is the largest landlocked country in the world, and it encompasses areas which are further away from the ocean than any other landlocked region in the world. Uzbekistan is also a major landlocked country, as are its neighbours Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, home to one of the world’s highest mountain systems. Many river basins in Asia are formed in the mountain ranges of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Yet the particular problems experienced by landlocked countries are causing major water issues for populations across the five former Soviet Republics of Central Asia, especially among minorities and indigenous peoples marginalized within the discriminatory centralized policies operating across the region.

As is the case in West Africa, Central Asia is heavily dependent on agriculture. Farming – especially intensive or industrial farming – is impossible without irrigation. Due to poor water management policies inherited from Soviet days, the region is not only experiencing serious issues around water access, but also major national and international water conflicts. A region rich in water has become increasingly water-stressed and vulnerable to the consequences of receding water bodies and greedy national policies intent on turning water ‘resources’ into economic profit. Perhaps the world’s most iconic case in this regard is the Aral Sea.

The death of the Aral Sea

Central Asia has suffered one of the most spectacular man-made environmental disasters of the twenty-first century: the destruction of the Aral Sea. This water body, previously boasting a surface area of 68,000 square kilometres, sustained the livelihoods of thousands of people. The lake was brought to near extinction within a matter of decades. The decline of the Aral Sea has led to severe environmental, ecological and social upheavals with dramatic consequences across this already volatile region.

The cause of the Aral Sea disaster was extreme overuse of the two main rivers feeding the lake: Amu Darya and Syr Darya. In the Soviet Union era, water from these two mighty rivers started to be diverted for agriculture, especially in the Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, which needed water to sustain large-scale cotton and rice production. One of the ambitious water engineering projects that made use of Amu Darya’s waters was the Karakum canal. Construction started in 1954 and continued for three decades. Karakum remains one of the largest irrigation and water supply canals in the world. Over-ambitious production plans designed in Moscow forced local administrations to boost agricultural performance, resulting in unsustainable levels of water consumption. The water was allowed to run through open channels and much of it evaporated or soaked into the ground before reaching its destination. Soviet agriculturalists also used enormous amounts of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, many of them hazardous, which were then washed off into the local drainage ditches and into the Aral Sea.

The first signs that the lake was receding were detected in the 1960s. By the early 1970s, boats had to be moved several hundred metres to reach the water line. In the 1980s the shoreline was already many kilometres away from human settlements once located by the lakeside. When the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, the Aral Sea was a shadow of its former glory. Its rapid decay caused alarm among local populations and scientists. The calls of the people of the Aral region, including many minority and indigenous communities, were ignored by central authorities, who believed the waters of this ‘unproductive’ lake would evaporate in the hot Central Asian climate. Today, the vestiges of the Aral Sea are three bodies of water: North and South Aral and Barsakelmes Lake, which represent some 10 per cent of the former lake surface. In many parts, salinity levels exceed those found in the Dead Sea. The rest of the Aral seabed has turned into the Aralkum desert – thousands of square kilometres of sand covered in dryland shrubs and rusting shipwrecks.

In an effort to save the North Aral, Kazakhstan constructed the Kok-Aral Dam. Finished in 2005, this dam blocks the flow from the North Aral into the South Aral, which is at a lower elevation, in Uzbekistan. The dam has helped water levels to rebound significantly, and even wildlife and fisheries returned to the basin. This shows that with some attention and proper action, the process of desertification can be stopped or perhaps even reversed. For thousands of square kilometres of land and its inhabitants, however, this realization came too late.

Lake Balkhash

Located in south-eastern Kazakhstan, the sickle-shaped Lake Balkhash stretches over 600 kilometres and covers an area of approximately 17,000 square kilometres. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that the lake consists of two parts featuring different water compositions. The western freshwater part is divided by a narrow strait from the eastern, brackish one. A fifth of Kazakhstan’s population (over three million people) lives within the lake’s basin. Balkhash is crucial for the local energy sector as well as a number of important large- and small-scale industries. The lake supports local populations engaging in fishing, animal husbandry and farming. The Ili River, which flows into the lake, creates the largest remaining natural delta in Central Asia, supporting a unique ecosystem for both wildlife and domestic animals.

Balkhash lies entirely within the borders of Kazakhstan. However, it takes most of its waters from the Ili River, a transboundary waterway that Kazakhstan shares with China. The Ili originates in the Tien Shan mountains and flows through what is nowadays the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China before it reaches Kazakh territory. Out of the Balkhash’s total catchment area of 413,000 kilometres, only 15 per cent is located in China. Nevertheless, this fraction is of strategic importance, as the Ili contributes as much as 80 per cent of the lake’s waters. Herein lies the crux of the problem.

The demographic situation of Xinjiang and its strategic importance to China has a direct impact on the Ili River and Lake Balkhash. Home to the Uyghur minority, Xinjiang is a target of the Belt and Road Initiative, a gigantic Chinese infrastructure programme launched in 2013. Massive investment and development projects aim to transform the region, inhabited mostly by Uyghurs and other ethnic minority populations, into the main demographic and industrial centre of western China. Thousands of migrants, mostly Han, have settled in Xinjiang. This population growth is placing the fragile environment of this arid region under increased pressure. Within just the last decade the population in the area has increased by 20 per cent. Satellite images show an explosive growth of croplands in the upper Ili, as well as a number of hydroelectric power plants that have been constructed to produce energy for the expanding cities and new industries.

According to different sources, China diverts as much as 43 per cent of the water from the Ili River. Information on the water flows in the upper Ili is extremely limited. China is reluctant to share data, referring to this issue as an ‘internal affair’. The River Ili crisis illustrates China’s general approach to water relations with its neighbours, and also the Chinese government’s appalling treatment of ethnic minorities.

Frameworks such as the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (the UN Water Convention, 1992) and the Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (UN Watercourses Convention, 1997) regulate the management of transboundary water resources only in theory. Kazakhstan has ratified them, but China has refused to do so. Beijing claims that these legal texts fail to represent the interests of ‘upstream nations’ and constitute an attack on the country’s national sovereignty.

Rather than signing international treaties on transboundary water management, China insists on bilateral agreements with its neighbours. Forced into an arrangement that jeopardizes water flows and the safeguarding of Lake Balkhash, the Kazakh government has proposed a barter contract for a ten-year food supply to China in exchange for more river flow. China has rejected this proposal. Thus, Kazakhstan remains dependent on the goodwill of China and can only hope for a fair deal that would allow the necessary water flow to ensure the survival of Balkhash.

The Kazakh side of the problem

The government of Kazakhstan is likewise cautious about publishing data about Lake Balkhash. Instead, it prefers to focus on reversing the negative effects of the construction of the Kapchagay reservoir, which is not being filled to the maximum currently, in order to protect the lake. Independent media reports show that the water levels in Balkhash are fast declining. Between the 1970s and the beginning of 2000s, the southern part of Balkhash is said to have lost about 150 square kilometres of water surface. Desertified lands now cover one-third of the basin. Of the 16 lake systems located around Balkhash, only five units have been preserved. The shallowing process affects especially the western (less deep) part of the lake. At the same time, the salinity of the whole lake is increasing, and the Ili River delta faces biodiversity loss.

‘It is not only China’s fault’, says Nurtazin Sabir, professor of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, who has been working on Lake Balkhash for years. Sabir stresses that Kazakhstan has also contributed to the lake’s problems. This has been particularly clear since the Kapchagay Dam was constructed in the middle reaches of the Ili River in 1969. The Kapchagay reservoir is important for electricity production and irrigation for farming. Already, in the planning phase, critics warned of the project’s negative impact on Balkhash and its ecosystem. The voices that raised concerns over the lake’s future were, however, ignored by Soviet authorities, who pushed for extravagant water engineering projects and for intensified agricultural production at any cost.

As critics expected, the construction of the Kapchagay reservoir seriously disturbed the water balance of Balkhash. Between 1970 and 1985, when the reservoir was being filled, the lake’s volume declined by almost 40 cubic kilometres. By 1987 the water level of the lake had dropped by over two metres. Although the situation has stabilized, the water quality has significantly deteriorated, and it has become increasingly saline. Pollution levels in the lake increased as well. Finally, the reservoir has also had a negative impact upon fish populations. Declining groundwater levels have made long-term farming along the lake’s shores impossible.

In Kazakhstan, farming also relies on the Ili River for irrigation. Irrigation is carried out in a rather outdated manner. Water travels through open, clay or concrete canals, many of them built in the Soviet Union era. Infrastructure lacks proper maintenance. It is estimated that water losses due to leakage and evaporation reach as much as 40 per cent. At the same time, flooding remains the main irrigation method. The government of Kazakhstan encourages the use of more water-saving technologies and pushes for change in the consumption habits of its population. However, many actors in the Kazakh agriculture sector cannot afford the transition to more sustainable practices. Only large companies or landowners can buy expensive sprinkle technologies. Smaller farmers have only one option: to flood.

Toxic sands

The lakes of West and north-central Africa and Central Asia are not disappearing without a trace. Inhabitants of the former Aral Sea basin, for instance, know this better than anyone. Where once the Aral Sea was, today Aralkum, the world’s youngest desert, spreads its sands. Dust storms carrying sulphates, phosphates, chlorinated hydrocarbons and other toxic substances found in fertilizers and pesticides which accumulated in the lake over the years, travel across large distances. Inhabitants of towns and villages located hundreds of kilometres away from the lake tell of storms covering the ground with thin layers of toxic salt. ‘If I watered my garden later, it would burn all my vegetables’, a local farmer in Nukus, Uzbekistan, says. ‘And to make matters worse, we have to breathe burning air,’ she adds.

Salinized soil loses its value for farming and livestock breeding, pushing local populations into economic precarity. According to local sources, six million hectares of agricultural lands were destroyed due to salinization and desertification brought about by the decay of the Aral Sea. Thousands of people who worked in fishing and fish processing industries lost their economic base. Unemployment ravaged the region, forcing people to migrate internally or abroad, for legal or illegal work. In Kazakhstan, many of those who worked on the former shores of the Aral Sea sought jobs in the fishing sector in Kapchagay reservoir and Balkhash. In Uzbekistan, the areas around the former Aral Sea still have the highest poverty levels in that country.

Even more dramatic is the impact desiccation of the Aral Sea has had on human health. Inhabitants of the former Aral basin lack sustainable sources of potable water. The water that is available is often brackish and not appropriate for consumption. Due to dust storms carrying salt and other toxic particles, respiratory diseases, liver and kidney ailments and anaemia are common. At the same time the infant mortality rate, especially in Karakalpakstan, an ethnic minority region in the southern Aral basin of Uzbekistan, soared to levels never before recorded.

The desiccation of the Aral Sea has impacted the climate as well. Summer temperatures have increased, and winter temperatures have decreased by several degrees Celsius. ‘We’re paying for this brutal case of water mismanagement, and we’re paying with our health, our climate and our livelihoods,’ says Yusup Kamalov, a minority rights activist from Uzbekistan, who has fought for the preservation of the Aral Sea. The case of the Aral Sea, he argues, shows the extent—and inhumanity— of regional and ethnic discrimination. Downstream regions face water shortages or are forced to use waters polluted in the middle and upper basins. ‘This is the case of Aral, but also Balkhash and other rivers and lakes,’ he says. ‘If the water stops flowing, we are the first to feel the consequences, also in our health and economy.’

The situation of Central Asian minorities and indigenous peoples

One of the population groups most affected by the desiccation of the Aral Sea are Karakalpaks. This Turkic-speaking ethnic minority native to Uzbekistan inhabits the southern part of the former Aral Sea basin and the lower reaches of Amu Darya. Estimated to number over 700,000, Karakalpaks are Uzbek citizens, but the majority live in an autonomous republic within Uzbekistan. Karakalpaks were given autonomous status within the Soviet Union and were able to preserve this status until now, although not without difficulties.

Covering 40 per cent of the landmass of Uzbekistan, Karakalpakstan used to be a fertile agricultural region. Traditionally, Karakalpaks lived a nomadic lifestyle, while embracing a mixed economy that relied not only on livestock breeding but also on farming and fishing. When the waters of the Aral Sea shrank and the salty seabed was exposed, it was the Karakalpaks who had to cope with this dramatic change. At the same time, the economic and social benefits of their fishing, farming and tourist industries came to an end. The 1990’s and early 2000’s brought dramatic droughts. Virtually no water from Amu Darya reached the region, and the periods without precipitation continued for as long as half a year at a time. A number of international organizations entered Karakalpakstan with aid projects and well construction technologies; however, the Uzbek government seemed uninterested or unwilling to support international efforts to assist ethnic minorities within its borders.

Today, Karakalpakstan is the least prosperous region of Uzbekistan, and one of the poorest regions in Central Asia. Official sources state that unemployment is at 9 per cent, and the poverty rate exceeds 16 per cent. Many inhabitants who lost their jobs in agriculture or fishing due to the death of the Aral Sea migrated to neighbouring countries, mostly Kazakhstan and Russia. Relatives left behind rely on remittances sent from abroad. This makes local livelihoods highly insecure and unstable in the long term.

During 2022, the region witnessed a wave of political protests in response to the Uzbek government’s attempt to strip the republic of a significant part of its autonomy: the right to secede. Peaceful demonstrations were crushed with brutal force. Official sources state that 14 civilians lost their lives. Local protesters claim that the number of dead and injured was in the hundreds. Prison sentences for demonstrators followed. Although the government withdrew the proposed amendment to the Constitution, the situation in Karakalpakstan remains tense. The prospect of gaining speedier access to gas and oil resources in the region might explain why reducing Karakalpak autonomy may benefit the Uzbek government.

Investigative journalists have disclosed a state-driven policy of forced sterilization of Karakalpak women. Although the policy was documented mostly in the 1990s, some cases were reported as recently as 2012 and 2019, which suggests that the state takes active measures to keep the Karakalpak population low. Plagued by water crisis, poor health and economic poverty, Karakalpaks can only hope for a future where their rights and freedoms are respected.

A similar panorama across the Sahara and Sahel

Like the Aral Sea, Lake Chad is gravely threatened by the effects of climate change. As in the case of Karakalpak people in Uzbekistan, the drying of Lake Chad is causing a major humanitarian disaster in West and north-central Africa. The countries bordering Lake Chad are Cameroon, Republic of Chad, Niger and Nigeria. In the past, this lake was one of the largest water reservoirs in the world. Due to water overuse and changing climate over the past decades, the lake has shrunk by 90 per cent, from 25,000 square kilometres in 1963 to less than 1,500 square kilometres in 2001. If the water level continues to fall at its current rate, this lake could disappear, as climate forecasts and satellite imagery produced by the US space agency NASA clearly show. Despite the unusual amounts of rainfall experienced in 2022, which caused heavy flooding throughout the region, the increase in water levels in the lake and its main tributaries, the Chari and Logone rivers, was short-lived. Given the fast-flowing nature of floods, waters withdrew or evaporated, and were not absorbed by soils, groundwater aquifers or local vegetation, only causing further soil erosion and depletion of local environments.

In addition to the 60 per cent drop in fish populations, pastures have deteriorated leading to a drop in fodder availability (by 46.5 per cent in some areas in 2006) and a reduction in livestock and biodiversity. The Lake Chad Basin Commission, established in 1964, and officials from riparian countries, meet regularly to regulate and control the use of water and other natural resources in the Lake Chad Basin. Despite actively seeking new models of adaptive water management that take into account both traditional and modern agricultural techniques, the future of many minorities in the region, including Kanembu and Kanuri peoples, remains uncertain.

While the Republic of Chad faces the alarming desiccation of its two main rivers, in nearby Niger the Niger River is causing equally serious concerns. According to the Niger River Basin Agency, the drying up of the Niger River is alarming and could reach its 1985 critical level (the lowest level ever observed). The low levels of the river are due to the scarcity of rainfall caused by climate change, drought and the silting up of land across the Sahel. Like many other rivers across the West African and Central Asian mega-region, specialists say that the Niger River is heading towards ‘certain death’ if nothing is done.

The capital of Niger, Niamey, will face major water shortages in the future due to the continued drying up of the Niger River. Currently, around 54 per cent of Niger’s population lacks access to clean water, placing this country among the worst for water access in the world. According to local authorities, currently the low water period of the river in Niamey and its surrounding areas covers a period of almost four months, whereas the water shortage period was around 50 days in the years before 1960. At the same time, the flow rate of the river has dropped to 19 cubic metres per second, which has a serious impact on the water supply of the capital, more than 80 per cent of which is supplied by the river. To face this problematic situation, Niger’s Ministry of Hydraulics is calling on the managers of the Niger Water Heritage Company (SPEN) to take appropriate emergency measures, particularly to prevent the river from silting up at the Goudel water retention weir (on the outskirts of Niamey), and to raise the population’s awareness of how to avoid wasting water.

The Niger River is about 4,100 kilometres long and feeds nine countries; it is the third longest river in Africa. It plays a crucial role in the livelihoods of millions, not only in Niger, but in every other country that shares its watercourse. Once again, at the forefront of the impending water emergency in the Niger basin are vulnerable groups, among them displaced communities affected by the Sahelian herder–farmer conflict, the ongoing Boko Haram crisis, as well as inter-ethnic and gender violence, mostly underpinned by fierce competition for dwindling resources.

The voices of Tuaregs

Tuaregs are a large group of nomadic herders found in more than six countries in West and North Africa. This group of indigenous pastoralists have made the Sahel and parts of the Sahara their ancestral home. Tuaregs are estimated to number more than three million in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Libya, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. Tuareg civilization is above all nomadic. As such, trans-Saharan trade plays a significant role in the Tuareg way of life.

In an era marked by the scarcity of water, it is important and urgent to better guarantee the rights of Tuareg communities in their respective countries. Article 8 of the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) emphasizes the threats that loom over indigenous peoples throughout the world, and hence over those of the Sahel, as well as the obligation of states to protect them. Drawing on this framework, it is appropriate to argue that, like many of the minority and indigenous communities whose ways of life are threatened by climate change and water crisis in Central Asia, the right of Tuaregs to water security must be one of their core demands. Much like Fulani people discussed in the Niger case study in this report, Tuareg people need access to wells and water sources to provide for their animals. Tuaregs also require access to trans-Sahelian migration routes that connect the rich hydrological landscape with cultural traditions and memory.

Unfortunately, water scarcity, coupled with the weakness of states and their inefficiency in managing water resources in a way that is inclusive of minority and indigenous rights, have aggravated underlying conflicts between herders and sedentary groups, especially in the landlocked countries of Mali, Chad and Niger. West Africa is characterized by endemic problems concerning historical sedimentation of conflict, a traumatic colonial legacy, lack of adequate governance, political instability and insecurity, to which we must add the threat of violent extremism, in particular the continued presence of Boko Haram.

Tuareg populations are used to nomadism as a means to living sustainably. Because of this way of life, Tuaregs have seen their social and family structures broken by discriminatory and brutal administrative restrictions that disrupt their lifestyle through bans on mobility. Tuareg herders are subjected to severe restrictions, such as transhumance corridors, forced sedentarism, mobility restrictions, confiscations of cattle, and denial of water access, so as to avoid conflicts with farmers. Although the reasons cited by local authorities for these restrictions are to maintain peace and social cohesion between the different communities, minority and indigenous communities are suffering gross violations of their human rights.

In the Sahel, water points are central to the management of grazing land, especially during the dry season. Herds depend on both grazing and watering. Ideally, for Tuareg families to move from one waterhole to another, water points should be open to multiple users. This is often not the case for Tuareg nomads in areas held by sedentary farmers. Even if global warming is kept below the 2° Celsius target set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement, it would be judicious to consider disaster prevention and effective protection for minorities and indigenous peoples across the Sahara and Sahel, such as Tuaregs.

Any attempt to relocate or resettle indigenous peoples must be the result of meaningful participation by the communities concerned. Without free, prior and informed consent, there is a serious risk of violating the rights of nomadic populations across the region. In terms of public policy, legal texts at the level of the African Union must include strict provisions to this effect. Policy change must be carried out in the best interest of indigenous communities who, according to the UN Declaration dedicated to them:

cannot be forcibly removed from their lands or territories. No resettlement may take place without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned and agreement on fair and just compensation and, where possible, the option of return (UNDRIP, Article 10).

It should be recalled that the states of the Sahara and the Sahel, that is, those in which Tuaregs live, are obliged to establish and implement, in consultation with the communities concerned, a fair, independent, impartial, open and transparent process that takes due account of the laws, traditions, customs and land tenure systems of indigenous peoples, in order to recognize and adjudicate on the rights of Tuaregs with respect to their lands, territories and water resources.

What remains?

Unless a balanced approach that takes into consideration the entire water cycle – including atmospheric and underground water – is reached and implemented at a local water-governance level, many more Central Asian and West African rivers and lakes will disappear within a lifetime. Along with the vanishing water, countless local cultures, many of them minority, indigenous or marginalized by displacement and other factors, may dwindle or, worse, disappear. Environmental collapse will most likely lead to further migrations, and the formation of new minority groups, as well as new forms of oppression and discrimination towards displaced communities.

Solutions are right under our own noses. Answers to what seems like an insurmountable problem are often found in the worldviews and lifestyles of communities who have lived in harmony with their natural surroundings for thousands of years – namely indigenous peoples. Like all living creatures, humans are water’s children and can call upon water to refresh bodies, spirit, fields and forests – a truism well-known and passed down in many minority and indigenous cultures, among them those mentioned or briefly covered in this article: Tuaregs, Fulani, Kanembu, Kanuri, Uyghurs, Karakalpaks and countless others.

If we wish to preserve the future of our planet, we must relearn how to move with water again, and call upon water’s wisdom and memory to help shape a thriving future. We must learn not only the techniques of water storage and conservation expressed through ancient traditions, but also cultural practices of reverence, renewal and respect. It is only since the Industrial Revolution that humans have begun to impact the living body of the planet through large-scale destruction of our biosphere, breaking up the interaction between biomes and the water cycle. Humans are disrupting this metabolism across regions, and not only across the landmass and landlocked countries highlighted in this chapter. Everywhere else in the world it is possible to find the same destructive and predatory behaviour underpinning the planetary water crisis. Life has begun to die back, and we are nearing the tipping point of irreversible freefall.

Many minority and indigenous cultures have known all along that life is interconnected as part of a planetary system. Planetary thinking is a defining characteristic of many traditional knowledge systems across the world, where water often plays a central role as the source of cosmic life. Water carries wisdom and memory and is therefore honoured and prayed to in ceremonies, song and dance. Rivers are life-giving spirits and family members. As are clouds. Modern science is only slowly catching up with this understanding. Western science, technology and the narratives of development must catch up fast with the indigenous ethics of life. Across the world, communities will need to reconnect and learn from ‘those who know’. To restore the abundance that is freely given to us, water and forests are our only gateways to planetary healing. It is this traditional knowledge that holds the key to activating our urgently needed process of planetary restoration.

Photo: A Tuareg woman fetches water from a pond for her daily needs, Menaka, Mali. Credit: Tiécoura N’Daou.

Tsumkwe is a small settlement situated about 60 kilometres west of the Botswana border and 300 kilometres east of the town of Grootfontein in Namibia’s Otjozondjupa region. This case study provides a general overview of infrastructural discrimination faced by the indigenous people of Tsumkwe. Key issues include the lack of government investment in boreholes for water supply; the lack of investment and maintenance of the sewerage system; and the lack of existing legislation that recognizes the customary rights of indigenous peoples in Namibia to water access, as well as its management and governance.  

The population of Tsumkwe is composed mainly of former hunter-gatherer, indigenous people of Southern Africa (often referred to collectively as San). It is worth pointing out that the term ‘San’ is used pejoratively in Namibia to refer to nomadic indigenous peoples in the country. Although the term will be used in this case study, given its common usage, it is not the term preferred by the San peoples themselves, who instead identify by their specific ethnic group names. 

Thus, San peoples are divided into four main groups, each with their own history, customs and language. These groups are Ju/’hoansi, Hai//om, !Kung and Kxoe. What was formerly known as Bushmenland (which includes Tsumkwe) is the area in Namibia that is most frequently associated with San peoples. Their language differs among the various groups, but it is characterized by numerous click sounds. 

San roamed the plains of Southern Africa for thousands of years in small nomadic groups. The wealth of rock paintings and engravings in mountains and hills throughout Namibia bears witness to the extent of their traditional lands. The oldest rock art in Namibia dates back some 28,000 years.

Boreholes

Water is sparingly shared among the inhabitants of Tsumkwe from six boreholes, whose water supply also serves two local state schools with a population of 1,200 pupils and 42 teachers. Last year, the councillor for the Tsumkwe constituency, Johannes Haufiku, pleaded with the Namibia government to drill two new boreholes and repair old ones in the local community. ‘There is a crisis at Tsumkwe,’ Haufiku maintains. ‘Schools have no water and water is only available at night. The boreholes are not able to fill six tanks and therefore, they are never full.’

Although he has brought the matter to the attention of Elijah Ngurare, Director of Water Supply and Sanitation Coordination, there has been no official response to Haufiku’s demands on behalf of the people of Tsumkwe. Haifiku added that the government has promised to drill two new boreholes, but this has not yet been done. ‘People are very much angry with the government,’ Haufiku concludes.  

Sewage

In October 2022, the Otjozondjupa regional leadership brought the situation to Namibia’s Minister of Works and Transport, John Mutorwa, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform, after the pump station at the settlement and schools stopped working, leading to blocked sewerage. The sewerage system in Tsumkwe has not been maintained for over nine years.  

A May 2010 assessment of water supply and sanitation in Tsumkwe, commissioned by the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia (DRFN), found that much of the water infrastructure at this particular settlement is in a state of disrepair, partly due to poor management and lack of communication between the three organizations that oversee the scheme. Namibia Water Cooperation (NamWater), Namibia’s water utility company, manages the boreholes and water towers at the settlement and sells water in bulk to the Regional Council. The Ministry of Urban and Rural Development is responsible for collecting water tariffs from the residents and paying the Regional Council. It is not clear where the profit is currently being spent. 

N!aici cooks government food aid at ╪omlolo village, one of the 38 villages of the Nyae Nyae Conservancy surrounding the town of Tsumkwe in the Otjozondjupa Region of Namibia. Credit: Tristen Taylor.

Legislation

In terms of legislation, Namibia has a number of laws related to access to water. In Namibia, water is a fundamental right for citizens as provided by the Constitution under Article 6, which guarantees protection and respect for life. The Water Resource Management Act, No. 11 of 2013, provides for the management and conservation of all water resources in the country, including the whole or any part of a watercourse or an aquifer, the sea and meteoric water. Established through the NamWater Corporation Act, No. 12 of 1997, NamWater’s duty is to consider applications for bulk water supply by potential customers and subject to the availability of water. 

Ways forward

The problems with the water supply and sanitation at Tsumkwe are primarily caused by lack of maintenance and poor management, as nearly all the taps are in need of repair or replacement, and a significant portion of the water distribution system has been installed informally by untrained workers. The settlement will need to identify the exact location of water and sewage pipes; the locations of all lines should then be marked with surface markers to facilitate future repairs to the water lines. NamWater and the local government should determine where leaks occur and repair these leakages.  

A crucial step will be community engagement and participation. Given that water is such a limited resource for the town, Tsumkwe residents want support for ways to store and conserve water. These include alternative sanitation methods such as the use of Otji toilets (dry toilets) and the use of human waste as fertilizer.  

These measures would ensure that the community is invested in the future of Tsumkwe and the overall well-being of the settlement. Once these steps are implemented, the local government may begin to enforce cost recovery methods. An equitable tariff should be implemented, so that the cost of water may be affordable for residents. Low-income households should pay proportionally less than high-income households. Finally, according to the DRFN assessment, an immediate priority is to ensure adequate water provision and sanitation at Tsumkwe through the repair of septic trucks, which will cater for the current sewage pumping demand. Prioritizing the various issues the community faces with regard to water is essential, which is why, of all the measures highlighted in this case study, it is the treatment of raw sewage that is the most pressing, as it presents a major health risk to the community.

Photo: Di//ao G╪kao, Xoan// Niani, Se//ae /Ai!ae, N//ing /Ai!ae, and Baqu /ui (left to right) on the main street of Tsumkwe. Credit: Tristen Taylor.

As in the rest of the world, water plays an important role in the daily life of national minorities in the Kvemo Kartli (Borchali) region of Georgia. The main minority population in the region is ethnic Azerbaijanis, who in some areas of the region make up more than 80 per cent of the population. The region is also inhabited by environmentally displaced people resettled from elsewhere in Georgia. Other small minority communities include ethnic Armenians and Greeks. Agriculture is what sustains the livelihoods of many of these communities. An equally important aspect is access to safe drinking water for personal or household needs. Thus, it is safe to say that access to water for agriculture and daily water use go hand in hand with the implementation of the rights and freedoms of national minorities. Water availability directly affects the economic stability of Georgia’s Azerbaijani community.  

This stability is directly related to the resilience of communities and village life in terms of ensuring food security both in the region and in the country as a whole. Food insecurity caused by water shortages has led to forced migration; indeed, national minorities have begun to emigrate en masse to other countries. When water was available and access to it was not regulated, 90 per cent of the country’s agricultural crops came from the Borchali region. Since the 1990’s, water-related policies advanced by the central and regional authorities have led to wide-scale privatization of land and water in the region. As a result of aggressive policies and expropriation, local farming communities have been losing their plots of land, pastures for livestock and, of course, water resources. The Azerbaijani community has decreased to less than 200,000 people (official statistics give us a figure of 233,000), from a total of 600,000 recorded 25 years ago. 

Every year, from May to September, the region of Kvemo Kartli is riddled with thirst. Agricultural lands belonging to minority farmers suffer from severe water shortages. A number of human rights activists have argued in recent years that the supply of irrigation water is regulated on a residual basis, which means that official water-governance policy in the region is guided by a discriminatory practice, according to which water is given to representatives of the titular nation. Only if there is enough water left do the villages inhabited by national minorities receive water. Human rights activists argue that this policy is an indirect way of squeezing ethnic minorities out of the region.  

Asad Aliyev, a human rights activist from the village of Gachagan, notes that from 1995 to 2022 the problem of water access has been acute. He explains:  

The main income of the population of our village and the entire Marneuli region come from agricultural products. Lack of water makes thousands of hectares of arable land unsuitable for farming. There are certain forces in the region that want this situation to continue, especially representatives of the church clan from the Khujabi diocese. People who took out loans to cultivate the land became bankrupt and were forced to sell or return the leased land at half price, which forced many to leave their farms. 

Human rights activist Samira Bayramova points out:  

Most of the problems in our municipalities are caused by humans, not climate change, and are associated with a number of interrelated factors. One of the factors is the unfair distribution of the local budget in municipalities according to priorities. Another factor is the lack of special skills of Sakrebulo [Municipal Council] members and employees in the local self-government system. 

Bayramova adds:  

The existence of local clans also hinders the solution of social problems. Large tracts of land in many villages are illegally in the hands of officials. They do not allow small entrepreneurs to irrigate their small plots of land. If we compare villages and communities where national minorities and the titular nation live, then we observe an unequal social environment, especially in municipalities. Accordingly, the main cause of socio-economic problems in the villages is the unequal distribution of public money. Only recently, we won a case on unfair distribution of the budget.

Over the past 10 years, more than 50 demonstrations have been staged by local residents both in the village squares and in front of municipal buildings throughout the region, as well as in other regions densely populated by ethnic Azerbaijanis. Hundreds and even thousands of written appeals, public speeches at all levels, appeals to human rights organizations, especially before local municipal and central elections, have been presented. Before the Marneuli self-government elections in 2021, one of the promises made by mayoral candidate Zaur Dargally was to provide villages with drinking water. The promise did not include access to irrigation water. Dargally promised to provide drinking water to the residents of ethnic minority villages, yet the villages experienced severe drought during the summer of 2022. 

Residents of Dashtepe village in Marneuli municipality held ongoing protests, both in the centre of the village and in front of the municipality building, over the issue of lack of irrigation water. According to residents, within three or four days of the start of the action, a certain amount of water was given to villagers. However, the same problem recurs. According to residents, a water canal near the village of Imir was destroyed, yet the Marneuli municipality is not interested in repairing water infrastructure and does not want, or have the capacity, to do anything in this regard. According to the villagers, due to the lack of irrigation water, plants cultivated by them in 2022 were burned by the sun, and entire crops were destroyed. 

A resident of the village of Gachagan, Nasimi Aliyev, tried to influence this deplorable practice through participation in local authority elections, but to no avail. Aliyev gives a picture of what is happening as a purposeful and conscious action by the authorities:

The villagers gathered in the centre and held a protest action in connection with the problem of drinking and irrigation water. There is no irrigation water in the village, so they cannot water their crops. Residents say the corn, tobacco, watermelons and other crops are being destroyed due to the drought. Residents say that the authorities came to the village before the parliamentary elections and promised to address the crisis, but the problem has not yet been solved.

Alibala Askerov, who has been dealing with the rights and freedoms of ethnic minorities in the region for more than three decades, notes that:  

[T]here is a vicious practice of restricting equal access to water. After all, there used to be a lot more population, and traditional water distribution schemes worked well. Today we see that there is a major reduction in the volume of water in our rivers and lakes, and against the backdrop of climate change, the plight of the Azerbaijani community in Georgia is becoming hopeless. Dozens more villages are likely to hold protests this coming summer. But the problem of thirst is not likely to go away … 

Activists hope that water governance in Kvemo Kartli will be reconsidered from a human rights perspective. Currently, the way water is being distributed shows systemic problems that lead to massive violations of the rights and freedoms of national minorities. As water becomes increasingly scarce due to climate change and drought, it is imperative that discriminatory policies of water governance in Georgia are addressed as a human rights issue. It has become apparent that, since local and central government authorities are not willing to recognize the violation of rights and freedoms of Azerbaijani and other ethnic minorities in Georgia, the implementation of international legislation at the local and regional levels has perhaps become the only way forward.

We are grateful to members of the Caucasus Center of Human Rights Monitoring (CCHRM) for their collaboration in the production of this chapter.

Photo: An Azerbaijani woman with cans of water in Georgia. Credit: Aitaj Khalilli.

The province of Esmeraldas in the northern coastal part of the country is one of the most strategically located, ecologically rich and biodiverse regions of Ecuador. It forms part of the Chocó, a celebrated ancestral territory for Afro-descendants that stretches from Panama down to Manabí province, Ecuador. Known as the Gran Comarca and Reino de Los Zambos, the Ecuadorian Chocó region is renowned for the rebellious spirit of African descendants who settled in these lands centuries ago. The historical presence of Afro-descendants in the region resulted from the establishment of palenques – settlements and camps made up of escaped or freed formerly enslaved persons – independent of colonial rule. 

Despite the geographic and cultural wealth of the region, the Afro-descendant population in Esmeraldas – Afro-Esmeraldeños – often confront high levels of poverty. While the Afro-descendant and Black population makes up 70 per cent of the total Esmeraldas population, 85 per cent of them live below the poverty line and 23 per cent have little or no access to basic services such as water, health and housing. Added to this is the daily racial discrimination Afro-Esmeraldeños encounter, rooted in colonial prejudices towards African descendants.  

The exclusion of Afro-Esmeraldeños is evidenced by the many water challenges faced by this community. Among the problems they face is lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation services. Ecuador broke new ground in 2008 when its parliament adopted constitutional amendments granting rights to nature and other environmental safeguards in its Constitution. Article 12 mandates that ‘the human right to water is essential and cannot be waived’. The document adds: ‘Water constitutes a national strategic asset for use by the public and it is inalienable, not subject to a statute of limitations, immune from seizure and essential for life.’ Additionally, the 2014 Organic Law of Water Resources, Uses and Utilization of Water amplifies the articles enshrined in the Constitution to protect the right to water deeming it inalienable, imprescriptible and indefeasible. Despite these legal frameworks, Esmeraldas’ Public Water and Sanitation Company (EPMAPS) does not currently supply local communities with sufficient water.  

Afro-Esmeraldeño communities are mostly located in remote and hard-to-reach areas, making access to water challenging. Even though 64 per cent of urban houses have public water access, in parts like the northern cantons of San Lorenzo and Eloy Alfaro infrastructure for water supply and sanitation is woefully inadequate. Residents often depend on public water delivery tanks or else have to purchase water storage tanks to access potable water supplies.  

Such is the case for Mirian Orejuela and her family, living in the city of Esmeraldas. Water is rationed in most neighbourhoods, leaving families with supply for only two or three days of the week. Mirian explains:  

People are used to having water storage tanks in their homes in case of water failure. Quite often us Esmeraldeños are without water for two weeks at a time, sometimes three weeks, even months. Sadly, people are used to living like this. In Esmeraldas people cannot live without water tanks, but not everybody can afford them.

In the more precarious parts of Esmeraldas city there is hardly any water, yet people have no option but to continue paying water bills. ‘This is absurd,’ Mirian complains, ‘because poorer people are paying for a service that is not even being delivered! Besides, the infrastructure has never been well thought out, that’s why it fails. It always, always, fails,’ Mirian concludes.  

The cost of buying a water tank from a private water company can be anywhere between US$25 and US$40 for 8–10 cubic metres. Since purchasing water tanks is beyond the reach of many Afro-Esmeraldeños, people often rely on water supply from local rivers, canals or wells. This is especially the case in rural areas, where many communities do not have access to piped water or proper sanitation facilities; indeed, only 9 per cent of rural houses have access to public water services in the Esmeraldas province.  

Rosa Mosquera, a resident from Limones, a small island that forms part of the Eloy Alfaro canton close to the Colombian border, explains: ‘This has been an issue since I was a little girl. We used to collect water from the well or we would rely on water delivery in tanks to access it. We had to use water carefully to make it last. The various governments we have had over the years haven’t resolved this crisis. It’s a serious issue.’

Despite the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars by the National Development Bank in the maintenance and development of EPMAPS’ water system, Afro-Esmeraldeños continue to be denied their right to safe drinking water. Juan Montaño, another resident of the city of Esmeraldas, argues that despite the financing of infrastructure, there is no guarantee water quality will improve, as failures in the piping network are a regular occurrence in his neighbourhood. For Juan, governmental corruption, coupled with political and administrative deficiencies, are the root causes of Esmeraldas’ water crisis. For him, widespread corruption and greed are the main reasons why Afro-Esmeraldeños cannot fully enjoy their right to water. There is no formal mechanism at central government level capable of overseeing how funds and resources are channelled, and where money is being spent at the municipal level.

Although Ecuador’s constitutional and legislative provisions may seem promising on paper, the reality of Afro-Ecuadorian communities in Esmeraldas is starkly different. The implementation and enforcement of water rights is not happening on the ground. Unless corruption, government inefficiency, lack of capacity and endemic racism are addressed as root problems, Afro-Esmeraldeños will continue to face major water challenges in years to come.

The voices of people on the ground further highlight the need for the central government to institute a governing body with a rigorous and transparent framework to oversee water investment, infrastructure, monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning. Unequal distribution of water and sanitation services in northern Ecuador is a systemic problem that hinges on social, economic and political factors that authorities cannot continue to overlook or ignore. For a province with such vibrant historical and cultural significance as Esmeraldas, the violation of such fundamental rights as the right to water is a clear sign that Black and Afro-descendant communities in Ecuador continue to suffer neglect, even after hundreds of years of discrimination and marginalization.

We are grateful to members of Haiti Support Group for their collaboration in the production of this chapter.

Photo: A young man lights a torch to avoid insect bites while collecting shells in the Tambillo mangrove swamp, San Lorenzo. Most inhabitants survive on this economic activity. The mangroves are in an alarming state of environmental pollution caused in part by sewage and solid waste. San Lorenzo, Esmeraldas, Ecuador. Credit: Johis Alcaron.

Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority in Myanmar who for decades have experienced violent persecution in their home country. Over one million Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar in successive waves. The repression by the Myanmar government intensified in 2017, resulting in mass killings, the burning of dozens of villages and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, further increasing the number of people seeking refuge across the border in Bangladesh. Rohingya refugees have primarily settled in Cox’s Bazar district in eastern Bangladesh. Over 600,000 live in the world’s largest refugee camp situated in Kutupalong. 

Given the growing number of people living in this border region, key resources have started to become scarce. Overpopulation is exacerbated by environmental problems derived from the growth of the refugee camp, among them the high levels of deforestation in surrounding areas, and the excessive amount of groundwater extracted to supply the growing number of people. Basic infrastructure, which was once capable of coping with the numbers of displaced people, has begun to show signs of serious strain.  

One of the multiple challenges faced by Rohingya refugees is access to clean water. Although lack of clean water and sanitation is a generalized problem facing the whole of the Rohingya population in Kutupalong, it affects women and girls especially. Among other things, women and girls require clean water to practise good hygiene, wash clothes and deal with their menstrual cycle.

Mostafa, a 34-year-old Rohingya refugee woman, takes a rest beside a neighbour’s shelter after a long journey to fetch drinking water from a distant tube well, in a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Credit: Sahat Zia Hero/ Rohingyatographer.

This case study focuses on the daily experiences of four young Rohingya refugees living in Kutupalong: Rubaida Begum, aged 16; Sanjida, aged 20; Semon, aged 27 and Notiba Khatun, aged 31. These residents of Kutupalong have been living in one of the camp’s many makeshift settlements for five to six years, in family households made up of four to eight family members. 

According to the women, water quality depends on where the groundwater is collected and how deep the water level is. In the refugee camp, the same water is re-used to cook, wash clothes, observe personal hygiene and drink. Given the intense use of water in the camp, it is vital that the condition of the water is appropriate for consumption and that it is not contaminated. To supply growing needs, around 15 million litres of groundwater are drawn every day for internal use in Kutupalong camp. The area is therefore under threat of critical water shortage. 

Besides this immediate risk, camp residents must also worry about the issue of water collection. All four women interviewed as part of this study mentioned that water collection points are not far from their household, up to a 10-minute walk away from their home. The access route is not free of challenges, however. Thus, Semon points out that the surface of the pathway leading up to the tap is ‘rough’, while Notiba Khatun maintains that during the rainy season, she faces difficulties when collecting water due to the muddy condition of the roads.  

Rubaida Begun and Semon also point out that they do not feel safe when collecting water, mainly because they feel exposed to the scrutiny and gossip of men. Notiba Khatun adds: ‘It is much easier to collect water from the water point while wearing my burka.’ The toilets and latrines are located outside the home, which is also inconvenient for the women. When asked if there was a possibility of people not using these services, Semon, 27, explained: ‘Some people don’t use latrines because it’s far away from the household.’ Contamination of water is thus a serious issue in the camp, as reported in a study made by Zahid Hayat Mahmud in 2019, which showed that 73.96 per cent of the water collected from the supplying wells were found to be contaminated with faecal coliform, and 34.5 per cent reported the presence of E. coli. 

Bathing spaces are usually situated inside the women’s households, which offers them some degree of safety, particularly when it comes to having showers, washing clothes and, crucially, washing reusable pads for the days of menstruation. Reusable pads and reusable underwear are provided by World Vision, an NGO that also raises awareness of menstrual hygiene and practices.  

Sanjida agrees that hygiene awareness in the camp is vital, and she adds: ‘I feel [that] now we have a good knowledge on MHM [menstrual hygiene methods] in Camp as we know how to take care of ourselves during our menstruation.’ Like Sanjida, Notiba Khatun points out that access to water and being able to wash their reusable pads is very important because most women in the camp still feel self-conscious when needing to deal with menstruation in a place shared with men. Sanjida continues: ‘I wash and reuse [my pad] but after reusing it I bury it. I don’t like throwing them in the waste bin because if men see them, it is a matter of shyness for us.’ This shows again the nature of the relationships between women and men in the community, and the fact that hygiene is viewed as a delicate topic.

In March of 2023, a major fire broke out in Camp 11 in Cox’s Bazar, which resulted in the destruction of 2,000 shelters, as well as the facilities available in that area. This disaster has made the situation related to access to water considerably more difficult. Local Rohingya photographer Mohammed Shaker states: ‘We lost everything. We are only left with what we had on our bodies.’ In addition to the shelters, the fire destroyed the water collection points, the toilets and latrines, and bathrooms.  

The women now need to collect water at points that are eight to ten minutes away from where they used to collect it. This has led to an increase in the number of people collecting water at the same point, exacerbating the shortage of water. Lack of water to put out the fire also points to underlying problems concerning the vulnerability of refugee populations such as the Rohingya community in Cox’s Bazar, who had no available water to control the flames. 

The story of the young women of Kutupalong camp shows that access to water in refugee camps is a matter not only of health and basic needs, but also of safety and dignity. To be able to wash clothes and clean reusable pads inside the home in a safe and dignified way is an important intersectional issue, cutting across several women’s rights. Denying women access to clean water poses multiple threats, including the exacerbation of gender-based violence and ethnic discrimination, and increased vulnerability to major disasters, such as the March 2023 fire.  

The basic right to water is at risk of being violated in Kutupalong. The experiences of these four Rohingya women, coupled with the recent devastation by fire, expose a lack of provision for minority refugees in Bangladesh, and the inadequacy of support and relief mechanisms available to the young women of Kutupalong.

Photo: Rohingya refugee women and men collecting their water from a water point in a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Credit: Sahat Zia Hero/ Rohingyatographer.

Lake Bogoria is located in Baringo County, in the Great Rift Valley region in Kenya. It is a salt alkaline lake, which makes it an essential breeding ground for lesser flamingos. Fringed by pastures for cattle, the lake and its surroundings constitute the ancestral lands of the indigenous Endorois people. This case study explores the community’s land rights battle to retain access to the lake and the impacts that persistent flooding is having, particularly on indigenous women and people with disabilities.  

Lake Bogoria is an area of spiritual importance to the Endorois community, an agro-pastoralist community of around 60,000 – 70,000 people living in Baringo County. Christine Kandie, Director of the Endorois Indigenous Women’s Empowerment Network (EIWEN), explains how the Endorois have been historically connected to this lake and its waters through community rituals. To Endorois people, Lake Bogoria is a prayer site, and an area of great economic value given the fertile grazing fields and the abundance of trees for timber construction and firewood. 

Eviction

In 1974, the Endorois community were evicted from their ancestral lands by the Kenyan government. Affected families received KES 3, compensation of less than US$ 1 in today’s currency. However, only a few families received this amount and many years after they had been promised it. Kandie explains, ‘After some time, our elder brothers and sisters who had activism and human rights in their hearts felt that whatever the government did to us was not fair’. These evictions, like others across the region, were part of nature conservation efforts to develop tourism through the creation of the Lake Bogoria Game Reserve.  

Endorois activists began to challenge the government-led evictions by seeking justice in local courts, while facing harassment and arrests for public assembly along the way. By 2003, all national remedies had been exhausted and the community took the issue to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, represented by the Endorois Welfare Council, and assisted by Minority Rights Group, WITNESS and the Centre for Minority Rights Development. Kandie adds:

‘We were accorded our rights by the Commission because they saw that our rights were truly violated. We were denied access to our own lands and waters. We were not identified as Endorois. We were not allowed to register as an organization on behalf of the community so that we could self-identify and achieve self-determination. We were not allowed to strengthen our collective identity together, despite the fact that we were being displaced.’ 

Flooding

In the last decade, the waters of Lake Bogoria have been rising, along with six other water bodies in the Great Rift Valley region, swallowing 60 square kilometres of land traditionally inhabited by the indigenous Endorois and displacing countless numbers of people. Climate change is one of the issues contributing to the rising water levels. Environmental issues affecting Lake Bogoria are directly linked to deforestation for charcoal burning, exacerbated by high unemployment rates in the area. The impacts of these issues are felt keenly by the community, particularly as the Endorois are still dealing with the unresolved land rights case. Kandie adds: 

‘When we received the decision in 2010, a new scenario started coming up slowly; the issue of climate change. We experience rainfall that we believe has been moderate, like the way it has been the previous years, but because of the bareness of the land, there is a lot of water running and bring a lot of huge soil deposits into the lake. People are cutting down trees to support their livelihoods.’ 

 In addition to the displacement of the population inhabiting the lands around the lake, the flooding has caused health facilities to close down. What is more, soil fertility has been affected, and areas for community rituals have disappeared. Some Endorois have been displaced not only once but multiple times throughout their lifetimes, as the lands on which they were resettled post-eviction have been inundated multiple times by the encroaching waters.

Disability

Kandie talks about Tartok, an Endorois woman with a disability whose story provides an example of the difficulties faced by those who are most vulnerable within the community. Tartok was newly married when the evictions took place and lost her sight a few years later. Having been resettled on government land that is inaccessible and underdeveloped, she is unable to provide for her family. One time she tried collecting food near her home but was bitten by a snake. Without a personal assistant, and with no means of paying for the travel that is required to get the documentation to register as disabled, she is left without access to the national social security fund for people with disabilities and must also deal with stigma. Kandie explains: 

‘We have the issue of stereotyping within the community, that a person with disabilities is not productive. When you are not productive, you are being rejected, so it becomes very difficult to be integrated even at the family level.’ 

It was through her work at the community level on the land rights case that Kandie first noticed some of the key issues facing Endorois women and people with disabilities. She details: 

‘The moment I go to the community and the moment I view the women, after elaborating on issues of implementation of the human rights case they would come back to me asking specific, unique things. Maybe the case was not speaking to them, you know? And I realized that there is a huge gap, despite the fact that all of us are from a marginalized indigenous community.’ 

Although the community was engaging in collective action to challenge the government to regain access to their ancestral lands and tackle other issues, not everyone was included or had their interests represented in this effort. According to Kandie: 

‘I realized that thousands of persons with disabilities were not part of the discussions. Most women were just coming to fill the chamber quota, but in a real sense, there was no ownership when it came to issues of the community.’ 

Ubuntu

This realization led Christine to set up the Endorois Indigenous Women’s Empowerment Network (EIWEN). EIWEN now works primarily on the rights of women and people with disabilities within the Endorois community, focusing on land rights and economic empowerment but also working on social issues like political representation, gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and female genital mutilation. Kandie adds: 

‘You know, our story can strengthen someone else, and, in that process, we build one another. There is the issue of Ubuntu; “I am because we are”. So, there is no way Africa can be improving when other people are left behind. There is no way we can also leave women with disabilities behind and talk about the issue of development. We need to make Ubuntu a reality, and that is how we came to register EIWEN in 2019.’  

In addition, EIWEN has started to engage in international advocacy, through the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), trying to highlight the issues of indigenous women with disabilities across all spheres and connecting with other organizations nationally, regionally and globally which are doing similar work. Kandie explains: 

‘We want to break those barriers, to be in the lead in terms of making the women grow, speaking about the issues they are facing themselves. It is also very important to have those people on the team, taking the lead in terms of growing our indigenous persons with disabilities movement.’ 

The work of EIWEN has been well received by the local and national government, which have acknowledged that community dialogues are required to amplify the voices of those who are most vulnerable within marginalized, indigenous communities, and to make their stories visible. Kandie concludes: 

‘Some of the government officials sit there at those higher levels, so it’s very hard for them to understand what is happening on the ground. They were acknowledging that EIWEN is really trying to bridge the gap that existed before. It becomes really a good opportunity for all of us to strengthen our government to maybe understand better our specific challenges.’ 

Photo: Josephine, an Endorois community health volunteer, standing near the submerged Loboi Dispensary in Baringo County, Kenya. Credit: Billy Rwothungeyo/MRG.

Soviet water and energy infrastructure legacies have been painfully problematic for the countries of Central Asia for years. Relations between the countries of the region recently show a gradual shift away from that historical legacy, particularly in terms of a desire to renovate old infrastructure, overcome border conflict, enhance multilateral cooperation and trade, while seeking to mitigate the damages caused by climate change. However, bilateral border agreements are adding new complexities to old problems. Central Asia is a region where the issue of disputed borders still lingers on three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and these border treaties have become a point of contention and violent inter-ethnic conflict. 

On 11 December 1965, the Councils of Ministers of the Uzbek and Kyrgyz Soviet Union Republics (SUR) adopted a resolution commissioning the construction of the Kampyr-Ravat (now Kempir-Abad) reservoir. This major hydroelectric project, located on the disputed border between the two former Soviet republics and in an area inhabited by a significant Uzbek ethnic minority, has a capacity of 1,750 million cubic metres of water. Geographer and cartographer Temirkul Eshengulov explains that the name of this water infrastructure project comes from a mineral found in the ground. Ironically, more than 5,000 hectares of fertile land in the Uzgen district of Osh province lie under the reservoir’s waters.

The Kempir-Abad reservoir and the Andijan Dam. Credit: Danil Usmanov.

The hydroelectric complex lies in the mountains of Khanabad at the outlet of the Kara-Darya River within the Fergana Valley. Waters of the Fergana canal flow from the Kempir-Abad reservoir and pour through the Aravan District to Uzbekistan. Meanwhile, water flows into the reservoir along the Zhazy River. The main purpose of the hydroproject is to regulate water flows in the interest of irrigated agriculture, with associated power generation. There are two hydropower plants at the reservoir, which are used by Uzbekistan. Following the construction of the reservoir, Uzbekistan received the main rights for the regulation of the Kara-Darya River and its three major canals. Kyrgyzstan was entitled to irrigate 58,000 hectares from the Kempir-Abad reservoir, including 8,000 hectares of new irrigation land.  

Although at one time the Kempir-Abad reservoir was leased to Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan still uses 14 per cent of its waters. The remaining 86 per cent is used by Uzbekistan. In Uzbekistan, the dam is known as the Andijan reservoir; it is of strategic importance inasmuch as it provides water to a large part of the Fergana Valley population. Following years of border dispute, at the heart of which were unresolved claims from both countries for the use and jurisdiction of the Kempir-Abad/Andijan reservoir, officials from both governments have finally decided to settle on an agreement.  

In October 2022, members of the Jogorku Kenesh Committee on International Affairs in Kyrgyzstan approved a draft agreement for the delimitation and demarcation of the country’s borders with Uzbekistan. Under the agreement, 4,485 hectares of land within the Kempir-Abad reservoir would be transferred to Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan would receive 19,699 hectares in exchange. Ethnic distribution remains a major problem, as the shifting of the border would lead to the creation of new minority groups, mainly ethnic Uzbeks on the Kyrgyzstan side of the border.  

The agreement was signed off by the respective foreign ministers in early November 2022 and passed through the two respective parliaments in the following weeks, after which it was ratified by the two presidents. The agreement is deemed to lack transparency, particularly in Kyrgyzstan where political decision-making has been called into question. Fears of water and land handovers to Uzbekistan have become cause for serious political dissidence, not least among minority activists. 

On 15 October 2022, kurultai or public gatherings were organized in the Uzgen district near the Kempir-Abad reservoir, bringing together thousands of people, including current and former MPs, politicians, local residents and minority activists. Many of those who travelled from the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek were stopped by traffic police, who sought to prevent access to the reserve, citing limited travel in the winter period and ‘flat tyres’. Despite police blockades, thousands of people managed to get through to join public consultations on the future of Kempir-Abad.   

A few days later, the Committee for the Protection of Kempir-Abad Water Reservoir conducted its first gathering, bringing together activists, as well as current and former politicians. During the meeting, members of the committee discussed further action, including the need to raise public awareness of political decision-making in Kyrgyzstan. Discussions were followed by peaceful marches calling for national unity. This coincided with peaceful marches throughout Uzgen district demanding that water jurisdiction should not be handed over to Uzbekistan.  

Fast forward to 23 October 2022. The public in Kyrgyzstan now refer to this day as ‘Black Sunday’. On this day, 16 activists were detained following accusations of public disorder. Pending a final ruling, these activists could be sentenced to anywhere between 7 and 10 years’ imprisonment. Among those currently detained are Rita Karasartova (human rights activist), Asiya Sasykbaeva (former MP), Perizat Suranova (journalist), Klara Sooronkulova (former candidate for Presidency), Gulnara Jurabaeva (former Central Electoral Committee member), Ravshan Jeenbekov (former MP) and Kanat Isaev (former MP), among others. Prior to detention, the police and intelligence services raided their homes looking for compromising materials. According to a report published by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), raids were carried out in violation of basic human rights. Several politicians and political parties accused the Kyrgyz government and called for national dialogue. Notwithstanding the public appeal, the overall number of people detained as part of the Kempir-Abad conflict has increased to 22 people. These detainees are now commonly referred to in the press as the ‘Kempir-Abad 22’ and a campaign for their release has raised major international concerns over human and minority rights violations in Kyrgyzstan. 

It is important to emphasize that a lack of openness and transparency in decision-making is cause for much suspicion among the ethnic minorities including Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan (who are primarily engaged in the agricultural sphere), whose fear is that a lack of water resources might have a negative impact on the cultivation of fruits and vegetables and consequently reduce their source of income.

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has met with activists and residents of the minority-dominant districts whose waters will be transferred to Uzbekistan as part of the border agreement with that country. The visit has further polarized the public, whose questions concerning the transfer of water jurisdiction remain. Among the meeting participants was Karasartova, who released a 30-minute video in the Kyrgyz language explaining in detail the outcome of the political process. Karasartova also urges the public not to trust the government. She finishes her video with an appeal to the public to protect the reservoir as it has strategic significance for the country and the minority local residents whose survival depends on this water. According to political analyst Mars Sariev, the conflict has become highly politicized, to the point where it may destabilize the broader region, and disrupt the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway, currently under construction, among other things.

Kasiet Mamyrbay, daughter of detained human rights activist Rita Karasartova, speaking during the #Reaction march, a peaceful protest supporting the prisoners in the Kempir-Abad case. Bishkek, Kyrgsztan. 25 November 2022. Credit: Danil Usmanov.

Clashes in Fergana Valley

Since the Central Asian states gained independence in 1991, most irrigation systems in the region have deteriorated and water consumption has reached levels that are increasingly difficult to maintain. Climate change causes the rapid melting of glaciers, a major source of fresh water, which has also taken its toll on river systems, lakes, and their dependent populations. According to the most pessimistic predictions, by 2070 river flows in the region could be reduced by 40 per cent. 

Conflicts between the countries of the region periodically erupt over the use of water from the two main rivers in Central Asia – the Syr Darya, the Amu Darya and their tributaries. As the competition for resources intensifies, underlying ethnic tensions, particularly between the Kyrgyz majority and the Uzbek ethnic minority are exacerbated, raising concerns over further hate crimes and intensified discrimination in cities like Osh, where the Uzbek ethnic minority makes up nearly half of the population.  

As minorities continue to face discrimination on economic, security and other matters, and as Uzbeks are often targets of harassment, arrest and mistreatment by law enforcement agencies based on dubious terrorism or extremism charges, so water stress and border agreements without community support all conspire to aggravate an already critical and volatile situation. Ethnic divisions underpinning the uneven distribution and scarcity of fresh water in Central Asia is, as the media have repeatedly pointed out, a major threat to regional security. 

Attempts at land redistribution have in the past led to violent conflicts, the largest of which was the Osh massacre in 1990. According to official figures, more than 300 people died, although unofficial estimates are far higher. Underlying tensions were never resolved, hence the violence that occurred again in Osh in 2010. Water conflict has degenerated into inter-state violence in many border villages across Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in recent years. During the May 2021 clashes, 41 people died and 224 were injured on both sides of the conflict. More than 20,000 local residents were evacuated, and houses, schools, shops and restaurants were burned down. The Golovnoy water distribution point, around which the conflict first erupted, is on the Isfara River (called Aksai in Kyrgyzstan). Geographically, it is at the south-western edge of the Fergana Valley and the spurs of the Turkestan Ridge, from whose northern slopes the river flows. After Tajikistan, the Isfara flows through Uzbekistan, where it formerly flowed into the Syr Darya. Today, the river’s waters are diverted for irrigation and do not reach its mouth. 

As the Kempir-Abad dispute demonstrates, current conflicts over water in the border areas of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are not only underpinned by environmental problems concerning water shortage, but also ethnic tensions caused by unresolved minority and majority border delimitations. In order to achieve any kind of national integration, meaningful and equitable participation by all affected communities is critical, as the ‘Kempir-Abad 22’ stress. And without national integration, the future of the region remains both politically and environmentally uncertain.

Photo: A Kyzyl-Oktyabr resident herds sheep in a pasture next to the Kempir-Abad reservoir. Credit: Danil Usmanov.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is one of the largest hydropower mega-projects ever conducted in Africa. The project, which will have a total capacity of 15.3 million cubic metres of water, is expected to reduce the risks of flooding of the Blue Nile for downstream countries. Among the expected benefits is electricity generation by hydroelectric power stations installed at the foot of the dam, through which Ethiopia is aiming to generate 15,700 GWh per year to expand its energy-dependent industries and address urban demands. The project, hailed as a national regeneration or ‘renaissance’, was funded by bonds sold to Ethiopian citizens. Thus, the project has led to a national mobilization campaign steered by the Ethiopian government and galvanized by a political ideal of unity in the midst of deep divisions running along ethnic lines.  

Little has been said in local and international media circles about the lack of transparency behind this project and the way it has impacted indigenous people. This case study will shed light on various issues that are inconsistent with the renaissance narrative and state ideology that this dam symbolizes, in particular the lack of participation by local Gumuz communities, their lack of prior consent, and their forced displacement – the latter having had a direct impact on the escalation of armed conflict in the region. 

Gumuz – A marginalized people The Gumuz community has a long history of marginalization in Ethiopia. Some accounts have labelled them ‘the least defensible and resilient population group’ of the Kusa (as the Beles River, a tributary of the Blue Nile, is known in the Gumuz language) basin. Gumuz are made up of 10 clans, who speak a distinctive Nilo-Saharan language. In 2008, there were 179,348 Gumuz in Ethiopia according to the official census, of whom 20,000 were situated along the Kusa River. Gumuz people have traditionally practised hoe cultivation, fishing, livestock herding and gold panning for a living. Raided for slavery since the fifth century, the collective memory of their enslavement and domination lives on in the modern period, particularly as unofficial forms of slavery continue to this day. Relocation programmes in the Gumuz area of Metekel steered by the Ethiopian government in the 1950s, and subsequently in the 1980s, have led to claims by the community that the area is being annexed by other ethnic groups, especially Amhara people, in an effort to control land and natural resources. Conflict between Gumuz people and neighbouring communities, including Amhara people living north of the Blue Nile, has intensified with the shift in power among these groups. Inter-ethnic and political conflict is directly exacerbated by the building of the GERD, not least given the unrest and social pressures caused by the resettlement process.

A Gumuz woman sieving a bucket of Ethiopian Mustard to separate the straw from the seeds. Oda Godere District, Benishangul Gumuz Region, Ethiopia. Credit: Michael Metaferia.

The construction of the GERD has added to the historical fear that many Gumuz have of annexation. More than 20,000 Gumuz farmers have been displaced as a result of the construction of the dam, as houses are expected to be submerged by water after completion. While Ethiopian workers from different regions (and about 350 foreign workers) have been brought in to build the dam, the relocation process has been marred by non-participatory and elite-centred decision-making. The resettlement plan, which started back in 2013, was coordinated by the Federal GERD Project Office along with the Ethiopian Electric Power investment authority. The project requires the resettlement of all people living below 645 metres, amounting to 5,391 households or 20,000 inhabitants, who are currently being rehoused in 17 new villages or resettlement centres. 

Access to basic services has been negatively impacted. The right to education and to health have also been seriously affected, as the newly built clinics and schools in the resettlement centres lack trained staff, teaching materials and other resources. The right to adequate housing has also been affected, since the new buildings lack electricity as well as running water. While power lines run along the main road, sometimes close to the resettlement areas, especially Guba, resettlement centres in many woredas (local districts) are not connected to the electricity grid.

The GERD’s impact on the Tigray conflict

As part of the recent conflict in Tigray, the Ethiopian government has been relying on ethnic militias in coalition with government forces, to fight against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). When the Benishangul-Gumuz region requested the assistance of federal troops in September 2020 following attacks by militiamen, the intervention of state forces compounded ethnic tensions and violence. Old fears that Gumuz were being displaced by Amhara were reignited, which led to the deepening of inter-ethnic conflict in the region. The federal authorities fuelled the conflict further in November 2020 after federal police produced a documentary, broadcast on state-owned channels, claiming that a Tigrayan businessman in Metekel was paid by the TPLF to organize Gumuz militias and attack Amharas in the region. This led to more warfare rather than any strengthening of social cohesion. 

In the context of an increasingly complex and layered series of political, military, regional and international conflicts, the dam has become a target for many groups. The Benishangul-Gumuz People’s Liberation Movement led an attack near the GERD in 2017; 10 of its members were subsequently sentenced to lengthy prison terms following the deaths of nine people in the incident. In 2021, Tigrayan fighters reportedly tried to attack the dam but were thwarted by federal forces, who killed 50 and wounded 70 others. Amharan militias, on the other hand, who have mobilized troops in coalition with federal forces, are also reportedly seeking to gain a stronger foothold in Metekel.

Conclusion

Rather than unifying and mobilizing the country, the dam has become a linchpin in the dynamics of conflict caused by the various groups vying for power in the region. By allowing a major hydropower project to go ahead in a region affected by the marginalization of minority and indigenous communities, insecurity, environmental degradation and inter-ethnic violence, the historical tendency to oppress Gumuz farmers and dispossess local communities has escalated to the point of serious human rights violations, including denial of water access, lack of services, violence and mass killings. Furthermore, as the brutal war in Tigray has been conflated with ethnic conflicts already raging in the region, so various ethnic groups have turned their attention to the GERD – a symbol of national progress and unity through hydropower development – as a potential war target.

Rather than unifying and mobilizing the country, the dam has become a linchpin in the dynamics of conflict caused by the various groups vying for power in the region. By allowing a major hydropower project to go ahead in a region affected by the marginalization of minority and indigenous communities, insecurity, environmental degradation and inter-ethnic violence, the historical tendency to oppress Gumuz farmers and dispossess local communities has escalated to the point of serious human rights violations, including denial of water access, lack of services, violence and mass killings. Furthermore, as the brutal war in Tigray has been conflated with ethnic conflicts already raging in the region, so various ethnic groups have turned their attention to the GERD – a symbol of national progress and unity through hydropower development – as a legitimate war target.

It is vital that the structural weaknesses that contribute to the ethnic fragmentation and collapse of social cohesion in the region should be addressed by the Ethiopian state. Importantly, the state should ensure that it upholds the rights of the indigenous peoples and minority groups whose ancestral homes will be flooded by the mega-dam. State development efforts must go hand in hand with a stronger participatory element from the different indigenous peoples in the country, particularly those who will be most affected by these projects. Immediate efforts are needed to assess and address the full range of rights that have been affected as a result of the dam’s construction. A more participatory approach must also take into consideration the needs of the resettled communities in the new villages and resettlement centres. The Ethiopian state must be able to guarantee security, livelihoods and cultural rights. A truly meaningful participatory discussion on the impacts of the dam on affected communities can only be envisioned in the context of a full-fledged national dialogue, where the needs and concerns of minorities and indigenous peoples are put on the table and agreed upon so as to find a way forward.

Gumuz people returning home from market day, carrying their supplies over their shoulders. Oda Godere District, Benishangul Gumuz Region, Ethiopia. Credit: Michael Metaferia.

Photo: The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile in Bameza, Ethiopia. Credit: Yirga Mengistu/Adwa Pictures Plc/dpa/Alamy Live News.