• Papers from the World Water Forum Session on Water and Cultural Diversity (March 2003).   The presentations from this session are currently being compiled for a UNESCO publication.   A few of the papers are available here, and more will be added as we receive permission from the authors.

Rutgerd Boelens, Local Rights and Legal Recognition:  The Struggle for Indigenous Water Rights and the Cultural Politics of Participation

David Groenfeldt, Water Development and Spiritual Values in Western and Indigenous Societies

• Documents on Water Rights and Legal Issues

Water Rights and Empowerment.   A workshop on "Water Rights and Empowerment" held in March 2002 at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, addressed many of the issues that were discussed in the indigenous sessions of the World Water Forum.

The workshop coincided with the release of the book, Water Rights and Empowerment (edited by Rutgerd Boelens and Paul Hoogendam, 2002), which is available in English or Spanish.  

• Documents on Indigenous Water Education

A curriculum for a 15-week course on indigenous water knowledge has been prepared by Darlene Sanderson, a Canadian Cree graduate student at Simon Fraser University.  The curriculum provides a systematic framework for indigenous elders to share their knowledge about water.

• Other Documents

Water Voices was a program of the Kyoto World Water Forum, to gather diverse statements and testimonials about water from people around the world.  Ms. Edith Wenger (Germany) collected brief statements at a Water Congress in South America.  Most of the statements come from representatives of  Indigenous peoples from Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay.