[link to www.culturalsurvival.org (secure)]



"As Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala (the Americas), we have seen how our territories were turned into private property for the benefit of settlers and their governments. Although we might have lost our livelihoods in certain cases, we are resilient and we continue asserting our rights to collective lands and land protection. This time, we cannot stand by as Mother Water becomes one more commodity on the capitalist market. It is not right. New Zealand, Ecuador, and Bolivia in recent years have passed groundbreaking legislation giving personhood status to bodies of water as well as securing additional protection for nature. In India, there have been legal attempts to consider the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers as legal persons in an effort to combat pollution. In 2016, the Colombia Constitutional Court found that the Atrato River basin possesses rights to "protection, conservation, maintenance, and restoration."


This link goes on to talk about all of the conflicts and fighting that has taken place over the privatization of water.