The Global Water Crisis: Addressing an Urgent Security - Unu-inweh ...

y its interconnection to encompass the management of forests and of the territory. For this reason, integrated measures were
proposed spanning both productive projects, such as forestry, crop diversification for self-consumption and commercialization,
development of organic agriculture, establishment of domestic and collective greenhouses, tank building for aquaculture, and
husbandry of small livestock, to communitarian projects such as improving water supply and quality, building of distribution
tanks, sewage, dry latrines and paving, among others.
In response to the indigenous people’s mobilizations and political pressure, the National Commission of Water and the government
of the state of Mexico acted towards satisfying part of the demands. A convention was signed between the government ministry
and the Mazahua movement to aid the realization of several social projects, but these can be characterized more as short-term
‘band-aid measures’, such as the building of piped water distribution and sewage networks and of dry latrines. The problem
is that several Mazahua communities were either excluded or only partially covered because of political divergence between
groups due to the strategy of the state to weaken and fragment the social movement.
However, despite their exclusion from economic aid from the state, the perspective of the Mazahua Women’s Movement since
2006 has not centered on the actions of the state, but instead has given impulse to self-managed regional development based
on principles such as integrated management of the territory and its natural resources, the strengthening and diversification
of agriculture for food production and for improving the diet and nutritional level of the population, and the conservation
and protection of the sources of water and of their forests in order to guarantee the quality and quantity of water for present
and future Mazahua peoples.
Conclusions
Water has played a primordial role in the pattern of human settlement, productive strategies, and development of indigenous
peoples in Latin America. The socio-cultural value of water is expressed through the various cosmo-visions, myths, perceptions
and archetypes connecting the indigenous peoples with a sacred and divine origin. For Mesoamerican and Andean cultures,
water was a gift from the gods that must be cared for and earned through rituals and practices of use and appropriation that
were supported by a balance of respect and integration with nature.
Water rights arose in a socio-cultural and ecological context that was founded on the concept of belonging to a territory: the
notion of water as a collective good and the respect for social agreements for its management were the normative bases of
the uses and customs of indigenous peoples. At the same time, it was an adaptation mechanism used by indigenous peoples
in ecological settings with difficult climatic conditions and water scarcity (such as in the Andes and in the arid zones in Mexico).
Until today, there are indigenous regions in Latin America in which cosmo-vision and socio-cultural strategies persist, and in
which, for centuries, a culture of sustainable management of water has been generated and adapted, having as its principle
the collective rights and the communitarian management of the territory with its associated natural resources.
However, in recent years, due to state reforms and changes in the economic model that privilege private property and free
markets, the socio-cultural valuation of water has been replaced or even annulated by an economic valuation. In other words,
during the recent neo-liberal period, water has tended to lose its integrated meaning to become a merchandise having an
economic value and a price, a trend which finds support in legal and institutional reforms made by the state regarding access,
appropriation and management of the resource.
Resistance and disputes for the defense of water as a common good with regulated access and free and collective beneficial
ownership have occurred in Latin America. Unfortunately, the channels for negotiation and management of the conflict have
closed as a result of the new legislation and water policies that have directly affected the rights of indigenous people, with the
clearest expression of these being the privatization of water rights and land in their territories.
In order to find mechanisms to avoid and resolve many of the socio-environmental conflicts associated with water that exist
today in the indigenous communities of Latin America, the following are required, among other things: i) going beyond the
economic vision of water resources and revaluing its social and cultural importance for the indigenous peoples; ii) rethinking
novel schemes of water management in the indigenous territories, such as co-management and decentralized management;
iii) recognizing the water rights of the indigenous peoples as a form of legal pluralism or co-existence of state laws with the
consuetudinary right; and iv) linking the legislation and national policies of international commitments about human rights
with indigenous rights.
Access to Water and Conflict: An Indigenous Perspective from Latin America
Part 3
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