News and Announcements www.indigenouswater.org

Upcoming Events

4th World Water Forum, March 16-22, 2006, Mexico City. The Indigenous Water Initiative and the Indigenous Environment Network are organizing a session at the World Water Forum, under the title, Is Water Alive? Indigenous Understandings of Water This session will take place on March 17 from 4:30 to 6:30pm. The session will feature three cases: (1) Andean Social Vision, (2) the Ojibway (USA) Three-Fires tradition, and (3) the Hopi (USA) message of water. Panel discussants have been invited from the Water Research Institute, the International Water History Association, and Cultural Survival Two other sessions will address issues of indigenous water. For more information, refer to the program for March 17. In addition to the topical sessions, there will be other activities of interest at the Water Forum. For details, see the Forum website, http://www.worldwaterforum4.org.mx/.

Past Events of Interest

Commission on Sustainable Development Session 13, April 11-22, 2005.
The Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) is the UN department responsible for following up commitments made at the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit (Agenda 21) and at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) (Political Declaration, Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, Partnership Proposals). The first 2-year cycle focused on water, sanitation and human settlements. Policy measures to speed up implementation and mobilize action were the topic of the CSD-13 meeting in April 2005. Details can be found on the website of the Freshwater Action Network (FAN).

International Workshop on African Water Laws: Plural Legislative Frameworks for Rural Water Management in Africa, January 26-28, 2005, Johannesburg, South Africa. This workshop was organized by the InternationalWater Management Institute (IWMI), the Global Water Partnership (GWP); International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI); Natural Resources Institute (NRI) with the Faculty of Law and the Institute of Resources Assessment, at the University of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. The conference papers are available for download from the workshop website. Of particular interest to indigenous issues is the paper by Stefano Burchi, "The interface between customary and statutory water rights - a statutory perspective."

Canadian Forum on Our Waters, Our Responsibility: Indigenous Water Rights. A national forum highlighting Indigenous water rights was held May 13-15, 2004 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The forum was organized by the Anglican Church of Canada and drew together leaders, elders, and decision-makers from Indigenous communities who have been at the forefront of actions related to water rights in Aboriginal territories within Canada. The forum emphasized a rights-based approach to waters in Aboriginal territories, building a framework for action based on the recognition and implementation of Aboriginal title, rights, and treaties.

CSD-12 Meeting in New York. The twelfth session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-12 )met at UN Headquarters in New York from 19-30 April 2004 to focus on the theme of "Water, Sanitation, and Human Settlements." Part of the discussions addressed water resource policies relevant to indigenous communities. A discussion paper representing indigenous perspectives on this theme was prepared by Tebtebba Foundation and the Indigenous Environment Network (IEN). For more information about the CSD-12 meetings, visit the CSD-12 website.

Rio Grande Cultural Water Conference, June 2003. A 2-day conference was held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, organized by Jose Lucero, tribal member of Santa Clara Pueblo. The conference brought together about 60 participants from the region, including Indian tribes, environmental groups, acequia (irrigation) organizations, and interested citizens. The purpose of the conference was (1) to foster an understanding of how people from all cultures can begin to work with the beautiful and endangered Rio Grande, (2) to enable networking among the participants, and (3) to gather ideas for preservation and sustenance of the Rio Grande. The concluding document from the conference was not the usual set of recommendations, but a brief story entitled,

Indigenous Sessions at the World Water Forum, March 2003

At the 3rd World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan (March 16-23, 2003), indigenous issues were addressed in several sessions. Several indigenous leaders spoke during the opening plenary session of the theme, "Water and Cultural Diversity" (organized by UNESCO and the French Water Academy). Other sessions presented indigenous perspectives on how water is used and conceptualized, how indigenous communities face processes of encroachment and denial of access, and what "water resources development" looks like when the process is controlled by the indigenous communities themselves. These sessions were organized by the Center for Life and Respect of Environment (CRLE), Wageningen University, UN-ECLAC, Tebtebba Foundation, and Fundacion Solon. The two session topics were:

Indigenous spiritual and cultural values - How water is viewed socially and spiritually, and cultural consequences of water degradation from outside development
Indigenous water rights and management - strategies and actions being taken to gain legal and practical recognition of customary rights; how water management supports indigenous food production; how their management practices are under increasing pressure from new policies, interventions and outside stakeholders, and illustrations of indigenously derived agricultural development.

Kyoto Water Declaration. The indigenous participants drafted a declaration on water that presents an indigenous perspective on our relationship with water and implications for water development.