Water Campaign
Youth, Students and Water
Youth Activism and Global Engagement: Part I; OneWorld US Special Report
Youth leadership has played a central role in nearly every social movement this century has seen. WILPF recognizes and celebrates this fact, and thus an important goal of the Save the Water Campaign will be to engage college students, high school students, and non-student youth in the struggle to take back our water.
WILPF sees collaboration with student networks such as the Student Environmental Action Coalition, The Sierra Student Coalition, Campus Greens, Earth First!, United Students Against Sweatshops Killer Coke Campaign, and community based youth-led environmental justice organizations as strategic partners in the campaign. Young people have already begun to chip away at the bottled beverage industry, through the Killer Coke Campaign and the Ice-Mountain (Nestle) Boycott. WILPF seeks to amplify that work by building the capacity of youth organizations to tackle the issue of water.
Misleading “CEO Water Mandate” Threatens Global Commons
Updated: 4/4/08
On March 20, a letter was delivered to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in New York urging him to withdraw his support from the CEO Water Mandate - a voluntary initiative promoted as a way for corporations to make progress toward protecting water resources. Laura Roskos of US WILPF was among leaders from more than 125 environmental, public health, water justice, human rights and corporate accountability organizations in 35 countries who signed the letter. The Letter was delivered by Tony Clarke of the Polaris Institute (Ottawa, CA) and others to coincide with the U.N.'s World Water Day on March 22 to call attention to the threats posed by corporate control of public water resources.
Download Bottled Water Free Zone Toolkit
Celebrate Blue October!
Blue October is an international month of action to challenge corporate control of water and to protect water as a shared natural resource available to all.
1. Take Back the Tap! Celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act, one of our most important environmental laws, by calling on Congress to invest in clean, affordable public tap water for future generations. More info: vkaplan@fwwatch.org or 202-797-6556
Stop the Mining of Sacred Tribal Land!
Stop the Mining of Sacred Tribal Land!
We need your immediate support to stop the proposed copper mining that would irreversibly desecrate lands sacred to Apache and other tribes and devastate the environment and health of the people in Superior, Arizona, and many other neighboring Arizona communities.
Background
On July 24, 2007 Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and John McCain (R-AZ) introduced bill S. 1862, the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act of 2007, in the US Senate. A related bill, H.R. 3301, was introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Pastor (D-AZ) on August 1, 2007,. The House bill is co-sponsored by Representatives Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Harry Mitchell (D-AZ), and John Shadegg (R-AZ). The proposed bills would, among other things, convey federally-owned land known as Oak Flat, Devils Canyon, and Apache Leap near Superior, Arizona, to Resolution Copper Mining, a subsidiary of a multi-national mining corporation. The land sought by Resolution Copper is believed to have one of the largest copper deposits in the world and is worth an estimated $65 billion. That land, however, contains sites and artifacts that are of deep spiritual, cultural, and historic significance to the Apache and other tribes in the region. Further, Apache Leap is a breath-taking butte where Apache lookouts were once posted to warn of attacks by the US Cavalry and leapt to their deaths rather than be captured.
Cape Cod Takes Bottled Water to the Streets
Cape Cod raises awareness about the wasteful nature of bottled water.
Water As International Commerce
By Louis-Gilles Francoeur
Download Water Petitions!
One of WILPF's campaign initiatives is to pressure the UN Human Rights Council to create a binding convention on Water as a Human Right. We've created a petition to send to the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights demanding implementation and accountability of the Human Right to Water.
Click here to sign our online petition!
Download and collect signatures here!
The Water Campaign is also working to Boycott the Bottle! Bottled water is expensive, wasteful and toxic, and not so pure! Say no to bottled water.
The Tanzania Gender Networking Programme Statement on Water Privatization
The Tanzania Gender Networking Programme this morning issued a strong statement condemning profit hungry companies that came to Aftica to reap profits from our natural resources such as water. The statement signed by TGNP Executive Director Ms. Usu Mallya mentioned Biwater Gauff as being a one such case, saying such trends were quite appalling and that the dispute currently under litigation at the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) was far more a human rights issue than an investment dispute.
A Human Right to Water
The WILPF Save the Water Campaign calls for the United Nations to pass a binding Convention on the Human Right to Water. This letter, of which WILPF is a signatory, was sent to to the Human Rights Council, urging the High Commissioner to support the Human Right to Water.
Fast Track drains our democracy...
Defeat Fast Track Postcard Now Available for DownloadWater is a human and earth right, not a commodity to be bought and sold. Free trade deals like NAFTA, CAFTA and WTO/GATS put our public water commons on the market for private profit, and threaten the availability of safe and affordable drinking water for all. The Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) or “Fast Track” process allows the White House to negotiate and sign free trade deals that deny Congress and We, the People, a voice. Free trade deals override national and local sovereignty. We need just and democratic trade that respects the rights of communities and nature.
Don’t Trade Away Our Water! Defeat Fast Track!
Defeat Fast Track Postcard Now Available for download
Fast Track drains our democracy...
Water is a human and earth right, not a commodity to be bought and sold. Free trade deals like NAFTA, CAFTA and WTO/GATS put our public water commons on the market for private profit, and threaten the availability of safe and affordable drinking water for all. The Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) or “Fast Track” process allows the White House to negotiate and sign free trade deals that deny Congress and We, the People, a voice. Free trade deals override national and local sovereignty. We need just and democratic trade that respects the rights of communities and nature.
Write your Congressperson today!
Sample Letter:
Dear Member of Congress,
Fast Track is up for renewal June 30, 2007. I am staunchly opposed to legislation granting new Fast Track authority to President Bush during the 110th Congress. Free Trade deals like NAFTA, CAFTA and WTO/GATS have been passed via the Fast Track process, and have opened the flood gates to privatization of our public water services and resources. Multinational corporations must deliver profit to investors. Water privatization severely limits access to safe and affordable water for people and ecosystems.
Water for life, not for profit!
Do not grant Bush's White House Fast Track Authority!
Name:…………………………………………………………………………….. Address:……………………...City:……………… State:……..Zip:…………..
Email:……………………………………………………………………………... Signature: ………………………………………………………………………...
Say No To Bottled Water
Cape Cod Takes Bottled Water to the Streets
Cape Cod raises awareness about the wasteful nature of bottled water.
Bottled Water: Nectar of the Frauds?
by Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON - Water, water everywhere and we are duped into buying it bottled.
Consumers spend a collective $100 billion every year on bottled water in the belief--often mistaken, as it happens--that this is better for us than what flows from our taps, according to environmental think tank the Earth Policy Institute (EPI).
For a fraction of that sum, everyone on the planet could have safe drinking water and proper sanitation, the Washington, D.C.-based organization said this week.
The pumped-up price of water
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| Daniel Marsula, Post-Gazette Related story: |
Priced per gallon, it's way higher than gasoline
By Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
That 9-ounce bottle of Evian spring water at $1.49? That'll cost you about $21 a gallon, thank you very much. That 16-ounce Dasani or Aquafina -- filtered tap water brought to you by Coke or Pepsi, respectively -- that will be $1.50 at your nearest vending machine.
Of course, lots of things cost more than gasoline these days. Diet Snapple goes for $10.32 per gallon. Heck, Pepto-Bismol is $123.20 a gallon.
OWASA: Our water just as good as the bottled stuff
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| OWASA lab analyst Monica Sherbrook runs tests several times a week for specific amounts, if any, of phosphorus, iron and aluminum in the drinking water at the OWASA Water Treatment Plant Laboratory. OWASA is considering a promotional campaign touting its taste and quality. |
CHAPEL HILL -- Dasani drinkers and Aquafina fans, the Orange Water and Sewer Authority has an alternative to those convenient, sized-to-quench bottles with the fancy labels.
Sierra Club Bottled Water Brochure
Although bottled water may be needed in emergencies such as when local drinking water is contaminated, the bottled water industry, led by Nestlé,Coca Cola,and Pepsi Cola,is aggressively promoting non-essential uses of bottled water. The withdrawal of large quantities of water from springs and aquifers for bottling has depleted household wells in rural areas, damaged wetlands, and degraded aquifers. In the United States alone, more than 10 billion plastic water bottles end up as garbage or litter each year.
When Water Becomes a Political Challenge:
Uruguay moves for a constitutional amendment declaring water to be a public right
original from portal.unesco.org
In an overwhelming majority vote, water was enshrined in Uruguay's constitution as public property - a world first. As a result, the state must now decide what will happen to private concessions that managed the supply network before the vote, and also undertake the task of monitoring water quality.
In terms of water resources, Uruguay is somewhat blessed. According to the Second United Nations World Water Development Report, published in March 2006, the country is ranked 26th for the quantity of water available per inhabitant.
224 billion cubic metres of rain water falls each year in the country. However, a third of this volume evaporates or is lost, almost 183 billion litres of water per day.
In this South American country of three million inhabitants, this resource is used unsparingly. 6,000 litres of water costs a family only six dollars per month. However, only 43% of drinking water produced by the company is billed, as shown in a report commissioned by the state-owned water utility OSE (Obras Sanitarias del Estado). Also, it is not rare for a damaged pipe to leak for days before the authorities deal with it.
Yet it is now constitutionally enshrined that water belongs to the community. The result is that only state-owned companies can supply drinking water and sewage services.
The Uruguayan voters decided this by an overwhelming majority (64.58% of the votes) in a referendum in October 2004. Since then, a delicate process of negotiation has been underway to transfer the private concessions to the public domain.
