People Stories

Watergrabbing — A Story of Water

WATERGRABBING: HOW YOU CAN SAVE THE PLANET AND HELP THE ONES DEPRIVED OF THEIR RIGHT TO WATER — The expression water grabbing or water hoarding refers to a situation in which powerful actors, public or private, are able to take control of or reallocate precious water resources for their own benefit, at the expense of local communities and ecosystems on which the communities’ livelihoods are based. Families driven from their villages to make room for mega dams, privatization of water sources, water pollution from industrial purposes that benefit few and harm the entire ecosystem.

In what some call the world’s south, but also in some industrialized countries, water is transformed from a freely accessible common good to a private good controlled by those in power. Pressure mounts as the demand for water continues to grow because of increasing population, industrial growth in developing countries and the grip of climate change over our daily lives. Water is becoming a source of conflict and a scarce commodity that those in power hoard, even at the expense of others close by. Palestine, beduins have to take water from tank, because they have no rights to access aquifer[…]

About privatization and public water in the private sector:

Water Warriors and Other People Stories

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