The Global Water Grab: A Primer

By Jennifer Franco and Sylvia Kay
Transnational Institute
March 2012
Download water grabbing primer HERE

Water grabbing refers to situations where powerful actors are able to take control of or divert valuable water resources and watersheds for their own benefit, depriving local communities whose livelihoods often depend on these resources and ecosystems. The ability to take control of such resources is linked to processes of privatisation, commodification and take-over of commonly-owned resources. They transform water from a resource openly available to all into a private good whose access must be negotiated and is often based on the ability to pay. Water grabbing thus appears in many different forms, ranging from the extraction of water for largescale food and fuel crop monocultures, to the damming of rivers for hydroelectricity, to the corporate takeover of public water resources. It also inheres in a model of development which is underwritten by a trade in virtual water.

Water grabbing is not a new phenomenon and has much in common with earlier resource grabs and what has been called the “enclosures of the commons.” The new dimension of contemporary water grabbing is that the mechanisms for appropriating and converting water resources into private goods are much more advanced and increasingly globalised, subject to international laws on foreign investment and trade. There is thus a real concern that a new generation of ‘Mulhollands’, the early 20th Century Los Angeles official who made water grabbing infamous, will profit from this scenario to the detriment of local communities and ecosystems, and at a scale that has not been seen before. In the context of a ‘global water crisis’, where 700 million people in 43 countries live below the water-stress threshold of 1,700 cubic metres per person, there is an urgent need to put an end to the global water grab.

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How To Save Our Great Lakes

By Maude Barlow
HuffPost
December 14, 2011

There are huge and growing problems in the Great Lakes.

Water use is growing at a rate double that of the population, and we now know that by 2030, global demand will outstrip supply by 40 per cent. Lack of access to clean water is the greatest killer of children by far.

So we who live around the Great Lakes of North America have a very special responsibility to preserve and care for them in the light of the global reality now so clear.

Waking the Green Tiger

Peru's Gold Mine Conundrum

HuffPost
Green Canada
November 25, 2011

Peru's biggest mining investment is under threat and government social welfare programs with it as highlands peasants step up protests against a gold-and-copper mine they fear could taint and diminish their water supply.

About 400 protesters tried to enter the mine's grounds Friday and some hurled rocks at police, who responded with tear gas and shotgun blasts, wounding one protester in the leg, Interior Minister Oscar Valdes told a Lima TV station.

On Thursday, an estimated 10,000 residents marched to protest the project

Opposition to the $4.8 billion project, an extension of the Yanacocha open-pit gold mine that is Latin America's largest, poses the first major challenge to President Ollanta Humala's leadership.

TransCanada Says Keystone Pipeline Could Be Used for Bulk Water Removals

Council of Canadians

August 16, 2011

Ottawa and Washington, D.C. — The Council of Canadians and Food & Water Watch are sounding the alarm over TransCanada’s speculation that the Keystone Pipeline could potentially be used for bulk water removals from the Ogallala aquifer.

TransCanada pipelines operations director Jim Krause testified at the Nebraska state assembly earlier this year that the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline could be used in the future to mine or transport water, potentially from the Ogallala aquifer. Krause is quoted as testifying that, if approved, the pipeline would only be decommissioned “if the pipeline is not needed for oil somewhere down the road and there is no other use for any other product to go through that pipe, let’s say gasoline, or maybe by that time in the future, water” [emphasis added].

The UN Is Aiding a Corporate Takeover of Drinking Water

By Scott Thill
AlterNet
July 3, 2011

Early last month, pharmaceutical titan Merck became the latest multinational to pledge allegiance to the CEO Water Mandate, the United Nations' public-private initiative "designed to assist companies in the development, implementation and disclosure of water sustainability policies and practices."

But there's darker data beneath that sunny marketing: The CEO Water Mandate has been heavily hammered by the Sierra Club, the Polaris Institute and more for exerting undemocratic corporate control over water resources under the banner of the United Nations. It even won a Public Eye Award for flagrant greenwashing from the Swiss non-governmental organization Berne Declaration. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Canada a major exporter of virtual water, says new Council of Canadians report

Council of Canadians
May 25, 2011

Ottawa - The Council of Canadians is releasing a new report today called Leaky Exports: A portrait of the virtual water trade in Canada. This report highlights the daily loss of massive amounts of the country’s fresh water used to produce commodities, minerals and energy for export. Virtual, or embedded, water is the sum of water used in the production of a good or service. Virtual water trade refers to the embedded water transferred across borders when these goods and services are internationally traded.

One of several major findings in the report is that Canada is the second net virtual water exporter in the world. Canada’s net annual virtual water exports (exports minus imports) amount to just under 60 Bm3 (billion cubic metres), which is enough to fill the Rogers Centre in Toronto 37,500 times.

“Because Canada has more abundant water supplies than some other countries, successive provincial and federal governments have built their economies on the ‘myth of abundance’ and the assumption that these supplies are unlimited,” says Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow, one of the authors of the report. “Most of our provincial and federal governments depend to this day on exports that may endanger Canada’s fresh water legacy.”

The virtual water trade is now coming under close scrutiny as some impoverished and water-poor countries are depleting their water supplies in order to maintain export markets, while other, more wealthy countries import most of their “water footprint” (the total volume of water needed to produce the goods and services for their citizens) in order to protect their own limited water resources.

“While Canada is often touted as having 20 per cent of the world’s water supplies, in fact it has 6.5 per cent of the world’s renewable water,” cautions Barlow. “Many parts of Canada are facing some form of water crisis and nowhere is our groundwater properly mapped. Yet the practice of allowing almost unlimited access to our rivers, lakes and aquifers for commodity, energy and mineral production and export continues without public debate or oversight.”

Other major findings in the report include:

• The increase in virtual water exports to the U.S. is closely related to the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA, due to the post–trade agreements’ increase in water-intensive exports to the U.S. and the integration of key parts of the North American agriculture and energy sectors.
• Agriculture consumes 70 per cent of Canada’s fresh water.

“It is our hope that the findings of this report will spark the debate and research so long overdue in Canada,” adds Barlow.

The report is available HERE.

NGOs Warn of Corporate Role in UN Water Policy

By  AFP
May 23, 2011

A report prepared for non-government organizations said Wednesday that corporate interests have gained too much influence over UN water policies, creating potential conflicts of interest in addressing the global water crisis.

The report prepared for the Council of Canadians, the largest NGO in Canada, and endorsed by 139 organizations was sent to the UN and opposed "the increasingly widespread lobbying of the United Nations by transnational water corporations."

Canada urged to protect boreal forest watershed

Report cites untouched lakes, rivers and wetlands - says conservation efforts often overlook watershed

By Allan Dowd
Reuters
Wed Mar 16, 2011

VANCOUVER, March 16 (Reuters) - Canada's northern forest harbors a vital freshwater reserve, but the environmental value of the resource is underappreciated and it needs more protection, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The boreal forest, stretching right across much of Canada from the Atlantic into Alaska contains the world's highest concentrations of large wetlands, lakes and rivers without dams, according to the report funded by an environment unit of the Pew Charitable Trust.

The region's wetlands and peatbogs have international importance in the battle against climate change by storing up to 25 year's worth of man-made carbon emissions, according to the report.

Much of Canada's boreal watershed remains pristine, but environmental conservation efforts for the region have often focused on the region's forests and wildlife and overlooked the need to protect the water itself, the report's authors said.

The study did not call for a ban on development in the region, but said there needed to be tighter regulations.

The scientists said billions of dollars are being spent around the world to restore damaged freshwater systems, but many rivers and lakes in the Canadian boreal region remain largely untouched.

"This area provides a real opportunity to get in front of the curve to protect those systems before they're lost," said Peter Raven, who chairs Division of Earth and Life Studies at the U.S. National Research Council and who helped review the study's findings.

Canada's boreal watershed has been less affected by development than those in Russia and Europe because much of it is less accessible, but the report's authors warn that technology is overcoming that natural protection.

The report cites the C$16.2 billion ($16.3 billion) Mackenzie River Valley gas pipeline, which was approved by Ottawa last week, as an example of pressures on the region, saying it will open up the "world wildest river valley to development."

The report also expresses concern about the amount of water demanded by oil sands production in northern Alberta.

The scientists said that while conservation efforts are underway, many environmentalists have focused on protecting trees and wildlife and overlooked the role freshwater plays in the broader ecosystem.

"In general, conservationists have had a higher focus on the role of tropical forests in storing carbon, whereas the vast boreal forests, not only in Canada but in United States and Siberia, are of extraordinary great importance," Raven said.