Description of Water Wars.
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In Water Wars, Vandana Shiva uses her remarkable knowledge of science
and society to analyze the historical erosion of communal water rights. Examining
the international water trade, damming, mining, and aquafarming, Shiva exposes
the destruction of the earth and the disenfranchisement of the world's poor
as they are stripped of their rights to a precious common good.
In Water Wars, Shiva reveals how many of the most important conflicts
of our time, most often camouflaged as ethnic wars or religious wars, such as
the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are in fact conflicts over scarce
but vital natural resources.
Shiva celebrates the spiritual and traditional role water has played in communities
throughout history, and warns that water privatization threatens cultures and
livelihoods worldwide. She calls for a movement to preserve water access for
all, and offers a blueprint for global resistance based on examples of successful
campaigns like the one in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where citizens fought for and
retained their water rights.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Converting Abundance Into Scarcity
1
Water Rights: The State, The Market, The Community
2
Climate Change and the Water Crisis
3
The Colonization of Rivers: Dams and Water Wars
4
The World Bank, WTO, and Corporate Control Over Water
5
Food and Water
6
Converting Scarcity Into Abundance
7
The Sacred Waters
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Praise
"Shiva
contributes to the heated debate on the global water crisis.… Shiva argues
forcefully that the main causes of water scarcity are not population growth
and natural disasters, but greed and wasteful consumption."
—Lori Pottinger, World Rivers Review
"Colorful
and enlightening.… An excellent starting point for anyone who wants to
understand the forces driving water scarcity today and threatening its future
supply."
—Kerryn Higgs, Women's Review of Books
"A
chilling, in-depth examination of the rapidly emerging global crisis."
—Kristie Reilly, In These Times
"When
private corporations own and manage the supply of the scarcity of a natural
and essential resource, as Vandana Shiva writes in her thoughtful new book Water
Wars, the ramifications extend beyond obvious public health and agricultural
crises, to cultural disintegration."
—Lisa Sorg, San Antonio Current
"Water
is being targeted for privatization by multinational corporations. But citizens
around the world are fighting back, as both these books, by savvy activists
and thinkers, detail."
—Yes! Magazine
"Rather
than celebrate the Reclamation Act and ignore a century of environmental degradation,
those gathered at the Hoover Dam this week would have been ...
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Associated Articles
Deccan Herald, April 24, 2005
India’s water wars
Water, a daily commodity, is being privatised. Eco-feminists like Dr Vandana
Shiva who are battling this crisis, may be our only hope for a better future
in this regard, writes Malvika Kaul.
Today, 1.3 billion persons in the world don’t have access to safe drinking
water and some 2.4 billion are denied sanitation. According to experts, this
silent emergency kills 6,000 people daily. Increasingly, privatisation of water
services- where water becomes a commodity owned by a few instead of a natural
resource owned by common people- is being promoted as the new mantra to solve
the crisis. But eco-feminists like Dr Vandana Shiva are campaigning against
this corporate hijack of water.
At the recent Third International Conference on Women and Water- 2005, held
in Dehradun, Dr Shiva spoke about the politics of water and the “water
stress” women undergo in their daily lives.
More and more countries, including India, are taking the road to privatisation
of water. Yet you are against this concept....
How can you make water a commodity? Water is a living system, a life giver,
sacred to many communities. But private companies see water only as a commodity.
They see water only in terms of dollars, a moveable commodity that can be moved
from its original source and sold to a largely urban population for profit.<...
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