The human right to water: Salvadoran NGOs and a global campaign
The human right to water: Salvadoran NGOs and a global campaign
Should water be legally recognised as a human right? Campaigners around the world from El Salvador to Indonesia say yes
Wednesday 25 March 2015 08.19 EDT
We saw a group of strangers and asked what they were doing. When they said they were looking for mines, we told them naively that there were no landmines here,” says Felipe Tobar, the mayor of San Jose Las Flores.
This was his community’s first encounter with Aurora Mineral Resource Group, a large mining company that began exploration in the Salvadoran town in 2005. After learning that the government had permitted exploration for a gold mine without their consultation, the communities were anxious to protect their water sources from the mines. In Latin America’s most water-scarce country, 98% of fresh water is contaminated; metal mining has long been one of the contributing factors.
The villagers took matters into their own hands. They took away the markings that the prospectors had been putting into place and rebuffed company representatives. “They sent public relations people to speak to us, but each time they were escorted out by dozens of community members and eventually the company gave up,” says Tobar. For this community, as for many others in El Salvador, the need to protect water resources was far more vital than any employment that the mine might offer.
In terms of access to water, El Salvador is the third most unequal country in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a 2010 report by the UN. But now a powerful coalition of NGOs and community groups is attempting to get access to water enshrined in law as a human right. El Foro del Agua, a water coalition of more than 100 organisations and community groups, is calling for a national ban on metal mining, a constitutional amendment recognising the human right to water, and a general water law that would legally establish social control of water resources and services. Through consultation and research with communities on the front line of the water struggle, these strategies are aimed, in part, at shifting the power dynamics to strengthen the sovereignty of the Salvadoran people to determine their own freshwater future.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/mar/25/human-right-water-salvadoran-ngos-global-campaign
Environment & Energy:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1127
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