Introduction

This paper is intended to serve as a backgrounder for an exciting process originating from the Inspiration of Harriet Barlow and the hard work of members of the new organization called On The Commons (previously known as the Tomales Bay Institute). It brings key activists, writers and thinkers together to address the global water crisis by naming and reclaiming the freshwater Commons. Most of these participants have been engaged in exploring the concept of the Commons in a variety of areas and feel the time has come to turn their attention – and their pioneer work on the Commons – to the earth’s declining freshwater supplies. We view water as the most crucial Commons, one of the very few things on which everyone is dependent, and believe that approaching the future of water through the Commons lens offers the possibility of a path to a sane and just future for water use and management. This paper is accompanied by a survey of water Commons practices around the world gathered by a leading group of academics and practitioners.

The life affirming water Commons can be used as a framework to bring water justice to all.

There are two competing narratives about the earth’s freshwater resources being played out in the 21st century. On one side is a powerful clique of decision-makers, heads of some powerful states, international trade and financial institutions and transnational corporations who do not view water as part of the global Commons or a public trust, but as a commodity, to be bought and sold on the open market. On the other is a global grassroots movement of local communities, the poor, slum dwellers, women, indigenous peoples, peasants and small farmers working with environmentalists, human rights activists, progressive water managers and experts in both the global North and the global South who see water as a Commons and seek to provide water for all of nature and all humans. This paper describes the tense – and globally threatening – relationship between these two prominent narratives and points to ways that the life affirming water Commons can be used as a framework to bring water justice to all.

OnTheCommons.org