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International Conference Mirrors Local Struggles to Protect Water from Profiteers

by Jamie Dunn, Council of Canadians, Blue Planet Project

From July 5 to 8th,2001, one thousand people from more than forty countries took part in "Water for People and Nature: A Forum on Human Rights and Conservation". Organized as an opportunity for activists and experts from around the world to share information and ideas on protecting the environment and our basic human right to water from corporate control and exploitation, it mirrored and inspired local struggles.

The conference was held on the campus of the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada where only the week before local activists had won a hard fought battle to stop the privatization of the region’s water filtration system. The usual band of global corporations were bidding hard to get a toehold in Canada where very little of the water system is in private hands. Companies like Bechtel Corp. infamous for its record in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

What made the difference was a movement in Canada called Water Watch. Water Watch is based on a simple idea, that many groups in a community share a common interest in protecting our water from privatization. Environmental groups, trade unions, social justice organizations, anti-poverty groups, churches and farmers all recognize the role water plays in a community and must come together to fight privatization.

With many groups under the Water Watch banner and in turn working with others around the region, they organized, lobbied, argued and showed up in large numbers at regional meetings where privatization was being discussed. They simply said that they would not tolerate their water and the health their environment and their community being turned over to corporate greed.

The argument that proved to be key in their victory was the reality of privatization in a world of trade and service agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA and the General Agreement on Trade in Services or GATS under the World Trade Organization. The key issues that killed the privatization deal were the realities that under NAFTA and the GATS governments at all levels have their regulatory powers severely limited and live under the constant threat of enormous corporate claims for compensation ranging into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Trade agreements put corporate rights to profit before communities’ rights to safe, clean water.

Many of these messages were reinforced by presentations from around the world during the four days of "Water for People and Nature". Participants from Central and South America who are facing the Free Trade Area of the Americas, learned that many of these horror stories about NAFTA will be inflicted upon them in an expanded and even more powerful hemispheric trade agreement.

Indigenous workshops discussed fights for control of their resources, in particular water, around the world. An indigenous declaration called for the universal recognition of their inherent rights to water and the wisdom of their traditions.

The conference ended with the unanimous endorsement of an initiative for an international treaty to protect water as part of the global commons reflecting the growing international rejection of the empty promises of privatization.

Only one week after "Water for People and Nature" ended, we celebrated another victory in British Columbia. The city of Kamloops won a long fight to stop the privatization of its water system, again, due to the fears of the implications of international trade agreements for the municipality and widespread grassroots mobilization.

Fighting together works.

For more information about the "Water for People and Nature" conference visit www.canadians.org/blueplanet or email blueplanet@canadians.org.

For more info about Water Watch visit www.canadians.org or www.cupe.ca

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