Behind each land grabbing there is also water grabbing. Land and water are interlinked and inseparable, and water, in this sense, is an essential aspect of land and life. It flows, transforms, nourishes and is being nourished by other living cycles. Water is thus an essential part of communities’ struggles.
Bulletin 262 - September 2022
Defending water is defending land and life
This Bulletin articles are written by the following organizations and individuals: Two quilombola activists from Sapê do Norte, in the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil; villagers from the Yaproko community in Ivory Coast and from four villages in Gabon; the Amazonian Indigenous Peoples United in Defense of their Territories platform (PUINAMUDT) in Peru; a filmmaker from France-Bolivia; GRAIN and KRuHA, Indonesia; an associate Professor at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil, and members of the WRM International Secretariat.
WRM Bulletin
262
September 2022
OUR VIEWPOINT
DEFENDING WATER IS DEFENDING LAND AND LIFE
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12 September 2022The quilombola communities of Sapê do Norte, Brazil, are living a violent process with the expansion of large-scale eucalyptus monoculture. After many hardships, they started a process to take back their water and land. And the struggle to take back what is theirs continues. WRM talked to two quilombola activists to reflect on this difficult but fertile process of resistance.
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12 September 2022Industrial palm oil production in West and Central Africa is mainly controlled by five multinational corporations, and could continue expansion. Plantations take up large tracts of land. Land and water are interdependent. Yet, the current water crisis in these territories would not exist if corporations had not grabbed the land from communities.
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12 September 2022In the northern Peruvian Amazon, indigenous communities affected by contamination from oil exploitation are also prevented from accessing clean water. One hundred communities and their federations have been waging a unified, constant and coordinated fight for eleven years to defend their territories and rivers.
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12 September 2022People in Pari Island are seeing their houses and business more frequently under water. Besides their struggles against corporate-led tourism, four Island’s residents are taking legal action against one of the major emitters of carbon dioxide in the world and hence a major responsible for their situation: the Holcim cement corporation.
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12 September 2022The Beni River in the Bolivian Amazon is under threat. While the government seeks to install mega-dams that would flood an area much larger than the capital, La Paz, mining and its concomitant mercury contamination continue to bring illness to these territories.
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12 September 2022There is no other crop that has grown faster globally in the last decade than palm oil. This almost uncontrollable expansion leaves a deep trail of destruction and conflicts around its giant areas of plantations from Southeast Asia to West and Central Africa. As companies take over more community land, they also grab the water sources from them.
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12 September 2022The discourse of the 'energy transition' is usually used to justify the expansion of the mineral extractive frontier. However, in addition to local pollution and impacts on forests and people, the extraction and processing of minerals require large quantities of water, with long-lasting and far-reaching effects on territories.
RECOMMENDED
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12 September 2022A report was compiled based on workshops to share the discussions, proposals and challenges ahead in order to strengthen water justice struggles.
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12 September 2022A research by the Urgent Action Fund- Africa (UAF-Africa) underlines how it is women who bear the brunt of lack of water and how this has an impact on their health and livelihoods as well as that of their families and wider community.
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12 September 2022A recent publication from the organization The Oakland Institute reviews 15 projects from agribusiness in 11 African countries, evidencing how the large loss of land has entailed a dramatic impact on communities’ access to water.
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12 September 2022An article in the news portal Mongabay exposes how six years after complaints were filed against the company Oro Rojo for polluting the rivers, wetlands and air, with its palm oil mill, nothing has changed.
