To the World Water Council

My objec­tive today, com­ing here with my canoe, row­ing from Bor­deaux to Mar­seille, is to draw everyone’s atten­tion on the impor­tance of water as pre­cious source of life for all liv­ing beings of our plan­et, and remind once again that it is a liv­ing resource and not a good.

The poli­cies lead in rela­tion to water and the dan­ger­ous com­mer­cial drifts and mon­ey relat­ed rela­tion­ships should remain out of the mean­ing of exis­tence of a riv­er. Water is nec­es­sary for all liv­ing and non-liv­ing enti­ties, with­out mak­ing any dif­fer­ence between human beings, ani­mals, plants, stones or soil; it is essen­tial to life on Earth. This is why it should be pro­tect­ed, why it should not be pol­lut­ed, it should not be tak­en out of its riv­er bed and it should not be sold to make prof­it out of it.

The price of the fren­zy of con­sump­tion of our indus­tri­alised soci­ety – based sole­ly on human beings – is paid by local pop­u­la­tions liv­ing far away from cities and con­sump­tion cen­tres and paid by the Nature. In order to avoid abuse and to allow a fair dis­tri­b­u­tion of water, we ask the World Water Coun­cil to adapt its work to the require­ments of today’s reality.
Why the mem­bers of this Coun­cil are not vol­un­teers work­ing for envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, or activists, or social work­ers instead of peo­ple work­ing for the com­pa­nies which try by all means to make prof­it out of water, which extract water out of the rivers, which sell water in packs or destroy woods, wet­lands and their inhabitants?

The Ama­zon Riv­er and its for­est are pol­lut­ed and dev­as­tat­ed every day by oil, ener­gy and log­ging busi­ness com­pa­nies. This region is defor­est­ed, trans­formed into tra­di­tion­al or GMO soya fields by Burg­er King or Mon­san­to Bay­er. As regards the indige­nous pop­u­la­tion and activists, they are killed by hench­men paid by these com­pa­nies. In Hon­duras, Berta Cac­eres, activist opposed to the build­ing — by Energéti­cos SA and Agua Zer­ca, inter­na­tion­al­ly financed com­pa­ny — of a hydro­elec­tric pow­er plant threat­en­ing the Gual­car­que Riv­er, is just anoth­er vic­tim along so many oth­ers. The authors of her mur­der are still free and active.

The Belo Monte dam, project of French ener­gy com­pa­nies, became an over-ambi­tious project for water extrac­tion and ener­gy pro­duc­tion. In a polit­i­cal point of view, it is a good exam­ple of col­lu­sion between pri­vate com­pa­nies and states, includ­ing the pay­ment of bribes. Despite all this, life goes on and will still go on. The liv­ing beings of rivers and forests of Ama­zo­nia will still exist in their great diversity.

With its 41 mem­bers (13%), Turkey is the third coun­try rep­re­sent­ed in the World Water Coun­cil. These 41 mem­bers are rep­re­sen­ta­tives of big com­pa­nies in the world of pub­lic works in Turkey, main­ly active in build­ing and engi­neer­ing works like Cey­lan İnşaat (Con­struc­tion), Doğuş İnşaat, Ece­tur, Eren İnşaat, Güriş İnşaat, İçt­aş İnşaat, Kiska İnşaat, Limak İnşaat, Nurol İnşaat, Peker İnşaat, Tefken Hold­ing, Yük­sel İnşaat and Ünal group, among oth­ers. The com­mon char­ac­ter­is­tic of these com­pa­nies is the fact that they all have a part of their activ­i­ties linked to water like the build­ing of dams, water infra­struc­tures, water treat­ment plans… and that they all col­lab­o­rate with world­wide water trust companies.
Let’s remind the main prin­ci­ples and respon­si­bil­i­ties men­tioned in the Mex­i­co World Water Forum in 2006: We con­sid­er water as the main vital ele­ment on our plan­et and as a right for life for all liv­ing beings. We insist on the impor­tance of cre­at­ing a sol­i­dar­i­ty between the present and the future gen­er­a­tions on water con­ser­va­tion. We refuse water to be sold or bought and insist on the fact that access to water is fun­da­men­tal and is cru­cial for life.

Fac­ing the indus­tri­al suprema­cy, peo­ple liv­ing in places where drought is dra­mat­i­cal­ly endured devel­oped tech­niques to pro­tect water and showed that lack of water could even lead to fer­til­i­ty with low­er water needs.
Exam­ples exist of alter­na­tive democ­ra­cies where peo­ple can par­tic­i­pate to deci­sion mak­ing, like “Pani Pan­chay­at” in India. This move­ment tries to cre­ate, in a region threat­ened by drought, a fair, eco­log­i­cal and sus­tain­able water man­age­ment sys­tem. This move­ment began in 1972 when the Maha­rasthra was con­front­ed to a severe drought. Lim­its to the use of water were imposed to the sug­ar cane plan­ta­tions, sug­ar cane being a prof­itable prod­uct that requires too much water. In the Alwar region, in Rajah­stan, the exces­sive use of water low­ered the lev­el of ground­wa­ter reserves of one meter every year.

After this peri­od of drought, the youth organ­i­sa­tion Tarun Bharat Sangh mobilised the pop­u­la­tion to build “johads”, tra­di­tion­al water tanks, to col­lect water. The local groups suc­ceed­ed to col­lect 2.2 mil­lion dol­lars to finance the build­ing of 2,500 tanks in 500 vil­lages. Each vil­lage shares the “johad” col­lect­ed water and deter­mine them­selves the allo­ca­tion of water between irri­ga­tion and home use. This col­lec­tive deci­sion-mak­ing process about the build­ing of water sys­tems and use of water helps avoid­ing conflicts.

Ini­tia­tives from organ­i­sa­tions like Swad­hyaya, Atarub, Bharat Sangh, Muk­ti Sang­harsh and Pani Pan­chay­at show that a demo­c­ra­t­ic con­trol on water man­age­ment leads to a sus­tain­able use of water. A col­lec­tive con­trol pre­vents social con­flicts and eco­log­i­cal and envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion. Over the cen­turies, local water man­age­ment sys­tems, based on aged-old expe­ri­ence, turned slow­ly into sys­tems focused on the use and mar­ket­ing of a sin­gle prod­uct: water.
This change leads to the sup­pres­sion of the core rights of all beings liv­ing in har­mo­ny with nature and to line the pock­ets of peo­ple con­sid­er­ing nature as a pure mar­ket­ing item.

The Sioux in Stand­ing Rock – and many oth­er Native Amer­i­can tribes joined them in the mean­time – began to strug­gle against the build­ing of a pipeline, called “Black Snake”, cross­ing the sacred lands of their ances­tors and destroy­ing bur­ial, prayer and oth­er cer­e­mo­ni­al sites. They named them­selves “Water Pro­tec­tors”. They stand on the fact that a leak from the pipeline in the Oahe Lake or the Mni Sose (Mis­souri riv­er) is a real envi­ron­men­tal threat that could poi­son all liv­ing beings in the area. We hope that such threat will not be ignored and that, just like the Water Pro­tec­tors, states, gov­ern­ments and even pri­vate com­pa­nies won’t devel­op and main­tain such projects. Pro­tect­ing water is pro­tect­ing life, the plan­et and our future. Because with­out water, no life!

Man-made water short­age, con­flicts due to water could be dras­ti­cal­ly reduced by estab­lish­ing the main prin­ci­ple of water being a com­mon source of life. All move­ments pro­mot­ing water con­ser­va­tion also prove that the solu­tion to the water cri­sis resides in the ener­gy, the efforts, to the atten­tion that humans ded­i­cate to its con­ser­va­tion and the result­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty. The most effec­tive alter­na­tive to water monop­o­lies are local democ­ra­cies built around local water management.

Anoth­er exam­ple is “Alakır Nehri Kardeşliği” (Alakır Riv­er fra­ter­ni­ty) in Ana­to­lia. This is a group of vol­un­teers per­form­ing legal and activist actions to pro­tect the val­ley of Alakır riv­er val­ley and imple­ment­ing a sus­tain­able life project. They make use of local polit­i­cal and eco­log­i­cal actors for long-term solu­tions, in oppo­si­tion to big com­pa­nies’ the­o­rists who would pro­pose a mar­ket approach. Strug­gles go on in many places like Hasankeyf, Mun­zur or in the Black Sea Basin.

The out­come of these strug­gles, of the actions done by these activist groups, these move­ments is the cre­ation of a ‘Char­ter for Envi­ron­men­tal Rights” includ­ing the right to a clean indus­try, to a rein­forced secu­ri­ty for haz­ardous waste, a right for infor­ma­tion, for par­tic­i­pa­tion and an oblig­a­tion to a tax, to com­pen­sate, to clean up for the pol­luter (the “pol­luter pays” prin­ci­ple). These rights are fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples for water democ­ra­cy, where all aspects linked to water are pro­tect­ed for the cit­i­zen and for life. The States are oblig­ed to ensure the enforce­ment of these rights.

There are nine prin­ci­ples under­pin­ning water democracy:

1. Water is nature’s gift. We receive water freely from nature. We owe it to nature to use this gift in accor­dance with our sus­te­nance needs, to keep it clean and in ade­quate quan­ti­ty. Diver­sions that cre­ate arid or water­logged regions vio­late the prin­ci­ples of eco­log­i­cal democracy.
2. Water is essen­tial to life. Water is the source of life for all species. All species and ecosys­tems have a right to their share of water on the planet.
3. Life is inter­con­nect­ed through water. Water con­nects all beings and all parts of the plan­et through the water cycle. We all have a duty to ensure that our actions do not cause harm to oth­er species and oth­er people.
4. Water must be free for sus­te­nance needs. Since nature gives water to us free of cost, buy­ing and sell­ing it for prof­it vio­lates our inher­ent right to nature’s gift and denies the poor of their human rights.
Water is lim­it­ed and exhaustible if used non-sus­tain­ably. Non-sus­tain­able use includes extract­ing more water from ecosys­tems than nature can recharge (eco­log­i­cal non-sus­tain­abil­i­ty) and con­sum­ing more than one’s legit­i­mate share, giv­en the rights of oth­ers to a fair share (social non-sustainability).
6. Water must be con­served. Every­one has a duty to con­serve water and use water sus­tain­ably, with­in eco­log­i­cal and just limits.
7. Water is a com­mons.Water is not a human inven­tion. It can­not be bound and has no bound­aries. It is by nature a com­mons. It can­not be owned as pri­vate prop­er­ty and sold as a commodity.
8. No one holds a right to destroy. No one has a right to overuse, abuse, waste, or pol­lute water sys­tems. Trad­able-pol­lu­tion per­mits vio­late the prin­ci­ple of sus­tain­able and just use.
9. Water can­not be sub­sti­tut­ed. Water is intrin­si­cal­ly dif­fer­ent from oth­er resources and prod­ucts. It can­not be treat­ed as a commodity.

Community environmental bill of rights”
Vandana Shiva, Water Wars.

Sadık Çelik

Inhab­i­tants of the Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des ZAD | Span­ish, Cat­alon­ian, Basque, Swiss and French activists for social ecol­o­gy | Janet Biehl | Vin­cent Ger­ber | Mer­ha­ba Heval­no Col­lec­tif | Stand­ing Rock Dako­ta Access Pipeline Oppo­si­tion | Hasankeyf’i Yaşat­ma Gir­işi­mi (Ini­tia­tive to Keep Hasankeyf Alive) | Alakır Nehri Kardeşliği (Friends Of Alakır Riv­er) | Mun­zur Çevre Derneği | Karad­eniz isyan­dadır Plat­for­mu (Black Sea is in Riot) | Mag­a­zine Gaia Dergi…

You can also sign this letter. Follow this link…

Mul­ti­lan­gual : Türkçe | Eng­lish | Français | Español


Photo Christophe EYQUEM, Freemages 2009 CC
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Sadık Çelik
REDACTION | Journaliste 
Pho­tographe activiste, lib­er­taire, habi­tant de la ZAD Nddl et d’ailleurs. Aktivist fotoğrafçı, lib­ert­er, Notre Dame de Lan­des otonom ZAD böl­gesinde yaşıy­or, ve diğer otonom bölge ve mekan­lar­da bulunuyor.