Indigenous peoples bring solutions to global water conference

For the first time, a forum within a major United Nations water conference was dedicated to indigenous peoples on 6 June. The forum was part of the Second High-Level International Conference on the International Decade for Action on Water for Sustainable Development, 2018–2028, which took place in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, from 6 to 9 June. The conference had been convened to lay the groundwork for the mid-term review of the decade next year.

As part of this exercise, participants in the Forum of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities on the Water Action Decade initiated the development of a roadmap which will channel the concerns of indigenous peoples about the state of water resources, as well as their insights and wisdom with regard to the peaceful coexistence of nature and society, into the mid-term review of the decade.

UNDP, UNESCO, FAO and UNEP jointly hosted this half-day forum, which included participants from Siberia, Central Asia, South and South East Asia, Southern Africa, Latin America and beyond. Two indigenous women from Mexico facilitated the forum, Yolanda Lopez Maldonado and Tania Martinez Cruz, an Ayuuk woman from the Oaxaca region.

Participants emphasised that they were living with climate change and that everything was connected. When we speak about water policy, they said, it needs to be harmonised with other policies dealing with biodiversity, ecosystems, climate adaptation and mitigation, along with economic development, energy production and equality between men and women. Speakers highlighted the need to involve more indigenous peoples in the design, delivery and oversight of development programmes, in order to ensure that governance and programme implementation are not only effective but also culturally appropriate.

The forum was chaired by Sharifjon Jumazoda Chair of the Committee for Local Development under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan. At the opening, he described how Tajikistan had been turning around its water strategy by harmonizing this with its approach to national development.

First Deputy Minister of Energy and Water Resources of the Republic of Tajikistan, His Excellency Shoimzoda Jamshed, emphasised the need for action on water, and spoke of the efforts of Tajikistan to ensure hydropower and provide remote rural areas with safe drinking water.

Tajikistan has historically thrived, thanks to the glacial waters of the Pamir Mountains. With climate change, however, it is evident that water can no longer be taken for granted. He welcomed the participation of diverse communities to work together for lasting change.

Diverse communities reliant on traditional fishing, nomadic pastoralism, hunting, rotational farming and dryland farming shared their experiences of water governance, management and cultural values. They reaffirmed that indigenous peoples and local communities saw water as being indispensable to their cultures, economies and future.

Prem Singh Tharu, a spokesperson for the Asia Indigenous Peoples’ Pact said of his native Nepal, ‘Water is inherent in our culture. Water is honoured and sacred for us’. The theme of the rights of nature and, in particular, the rights of rivers was echoed by a number of delegates. Water is not just an ecosystem service; it is integral to all life on the planet.

The delegates provided numerous examples of water conservation and restoration. The renowned water activist from Rajasthan in India, Rajendra Singh, evoked turning ‘a desert into an ocean of water’. Singh, who won the Stockholm Water Prize in 2015, described numerous initiatives taken by the community to harvest rainwater, build small clay dams and stabilise trees and plants to assist the water table, as well as the community’s efforts to improve governance. Singh’s example showed how his rural community had managed to address the drivers of groundwater loss and augment the availability of fresh water.

The Chair of the United Nations’ Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Darío José Mejía Montalvo from Colombia, joined the forum through a recorded message. He called for a more respectful relationship between humans and water and for greater regard for indigenous worldviews.

From Kyrgyzstan to Chad, participants spoke of how indigenous knowledge of land and water derived from sustained use. People had learned over many generations how to use water sustainably, while adapting to scarcity and valuing abundance. Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, United Nations Advocate on the Sustainable Development Goals, spoke about pastoralism in the Sahel and the need to see water as a cross-cutting issue that is inseparable from climate strategies and actions.

Two pastoralist advocates from Kyrgyzstan, Baibek Usubaliev and Kudaibergenov Kubat, of the National Pasture Users Association had similar messages about the need for decentralisation within a national framework. Local empowerment in water governance was a reliable foundation for building sustainability, they said.

Joram ǀUseb, a Haiǀǀom San man from northern Namibia who works with the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee, spoke on the sensitive nature of water in the Kalahari Basin. ‘People may think that water comes in a bottle’, he said, ‘but we have to find water in many places – the roots of plants, using straws to get water from sip wells in the desert, it is a precious resource’.

ǀUseb and others emphasised that indigenous peoples were often not heard in water policy forums, despite centuries or even millennia of successful water conservation. Dushanbe was an opportunity to turn that around, he said.

Elena Konoplianko, an indigenous woman from Eastern Siberia, explained how her people had survived on inland fishing since time immemorial. ‘Now the rivers are contaminated from mines and also the melting of permafrost, the collapse of the land. Fish used to be plentiful but now we face an uncertain future,’ she lamented.

Yolanda Lopez Maldonado, a Yucatec Maya hydrologist, amplified this point. ‘The key for us is that indigenous peoples need to be at the table’, she said. ‘We have solutions, we have experience. We need to be in a dialogue with decision-makers’.

She said that it was important to move past the view that scientists needed to explain water to rural communities. ‘It is these communities, with their own languages and knowledge systems, who have details about how the hydrological system operates and the governance of water resources. What is needed is more dialogue and trust-building’, she said.

The forum highlighted the natural connections between the Water Action Decade, the Decade on Ecosystems Restoration and the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. FAO colleagues recalled that water was integral to food systems and food security. There is an opportunity to have water as the connector, across government, across sectors and across society.

The year 2026 will be the International Decade of Rangelands and Pastoralism, a topic of importance for many countries, notably in Central Asia. Yon Fernandez-Larrinoa from FAO noted the importance of the global coalition of member states and indigenous peoples working on indigenous sustainable food systems.

Chief Viacheslav Shadrin closed the forum with this saying in the Yukhagir language from Western Siberia, ‘We say that both people and water are part of nature. We need to respect nature. When we try to control nature and water, it ends sadly’.

For further information, please contact:

• Nigel Crawhall, Chief, Local and Indigenous Knowledge Section, UNESCO (n.crawhall@unesco.org)
• Marianne Kjellen, Senior Water Advisor, UNDP (marianne.kjellen@undp.org)

More information:

• Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS)

Photo: Viacheslav Shadrin, from the Aborigen Forum in the Russian Federation, speaks on Arctic water issues at the forum