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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Water Is Life - Bioneers
  • Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 19:43:41 -0700


Water Is Life
By Arty Mangan on Jun 22, 2010
http://www.bioneers.org/campaigns/food-farming-1/blog/water-is-life

Ethics and economics compete for fair distribution of water among people,
industry & ecosystems as rural New Mexico communities and Central Valley
California farmers face serious challenges.

“The irrigated lands are the sacred lands”... Dr. Sylvia Rodriguez of
University of New Mexico

Doing research for the Dreaming New Mexico project I went to Zia Pueblo and
spoke with Native American tribal leader Peter Pino, who said,

“Because we live in a semi-arid region everything within our traditional
calendar has to do with praying for rain. When we are out in the field we
compose new songs singing to the corn, asking the clouds to come and to
shower us with rain to soak into the ground and water the crops, because
without water nothing can exist.

“Not only humans need water, birds need water, our four-legged brothers and
sisters need water, insects need water, plants need water. We always pray for
rain on a daily basis.”

More recently I attended the Celebrando Las Acequias event in Dixon, NM. The
acequias are an ancient irrigation technology originating in the Mid East and
arriving in New Mexico with the Spanish in the late 1500’s.

Not just a means of delivering water to crops, the acequias have historically
been a way that people have culturally organized themselves in rural
communities in Northern NM and southern Colorado. Mayordomos, or ditch
managers, and parciantes collectively maintain the ditch and water-flow and
see that water is fairly distributed.

Modern pressures on traditional life-ways, as portrayed in the movie the
Milagro Beanfield War, are unraveling the agrarian life that has been the
cultural heart of rural Southwestern Hispanic communities for hundred’s of
years. Under Spanish law water was seen as a community resource with water
rights connected to the land. That concept was based on the Muslim “Law of
Thirst” that said one could not deny water to other humans, animals and
plants.

But now water is viewed as a commodity that can be sold off away from the
land to developers downstream, condemning, in semi-arid New Mexico, the land
to be forever barren agriculturally.

Stewardship, conservation and equitable distribution of water among
agriculture, industry, households, recreation, and ecosystem needs are
difficult calculations. What rights does the river have?

In California’s Central Valley last year the heat on the culture wars was
turned up when Sean Hannerty of Fox News made a personal appearance lathering
up farmers, who are under great duress because of a three-year drought
(2007-2009). Hannerty’s mission was to vilify the delta smelt (and those who
want it protected), as if this small endemic fish were Reverend Jeremiah
Wright.

The delta smelt, an indicator species of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Estuary,
is in severe decline and has been protected by a court injunction that
reduced water flow to farmers in the Central Valley and southern California
urban areas exacerbating the water shortage due to the drought.

Farming is the largest global user of water using 70%- 80% of all water
consumed. The EPA has identified farming as one of the most important sources
of water quality degradation. Vast areas cleared of natural vegetation reduce
essential watershed functions as well as produce large amounts of green house
gas.

Vandana Shiva, in the movie Flow, says that green revolution crops use five
to ten times more water than organic and traditional crops.

In the Dreaming New Mexico booklet: Local Foodsheds and a Fair Trade State
Peter Warshall writes, “ Today there are many disharmonies between humans and
water sources… Water can be viewed as a monetary commodity, an option for
growth in the future that must be ‘banked’ in the present or for it’s
intrinsic worth to all life (fish, trees and riparian birds)”.

Brock Dolman, of the Occidental Arts an Ecology Center’s Water Institute
says, “The movement of water over and through the living ecosystem connects
us to one and another and to all species living in our Basin of Relation. The
quality and quantity of this precious liquid can determine which and how many
of each species can sustainably live in each watershed. The better we
understand the relationship between our actions and the water shed we live
in, the more likely we are able to ensure water security for all species that
share the water shed.”

Judiciously managing what is probably our most precious resource in ways that
are specific to each watershed by monitoring groundwater withdrawals and
recharge, mapping critical recharge areas that contribute to the
replenishment of ground water, developing rainwater catchment systems,
building swales and berms that slow down the flow to saturate the soil and
prevent erosion, growing climate appropriate crops, and installing more
efficient irrigation technologies are some practical ways to practice good
stewardship of water and optimize its distributed use.

Respecting all species in our Basin of Relation by invoking the Law of Thirst
are the ethics that can form the foundation for a moral economy in which the
irrigated lands are truly sacred.





  • [Livingontheland] Water Is Life - Bioneers, Tradingpost, 01/31/2011

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