Whose Water Is It, Anyway? by Maude Barlow

Handing control of water services to private companies removes public oversight of a crucial source of life and of what should unquestionably be a public service. Water privatization has been proven in many studies and in real experience to be a terrible mistake. What are some of the threats that water privatization poses to communities?

We spoke to Barlow about the different forms that water privatization can take, the solutions offered by Blue Communities and our biggest water threat. Blue Communities commit to defending water as a human right, protecting water resources for the public trust and banning bottled water from municipal facilities and events. In Whose Water Is It, Anyway? she writes not just about the hazards of water privatization but about proactive efforts that communities are taking to protect water resources, including the Blue Communities Project, which started in Canada in 2009 and has spread to cities, universities, unions and faith-based organizations around the world. She’s currently the honorary chair of the Council of Canadians, chair of the board of Food and Water Watch and a councilor with the Hamburg-based World Future Council. She’s also received accolades for her efforts including the Right Livelihood Award and the Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship Award.

That year Barlow helped found the Council of Canadians, a nonprofit focused on democracy, trade and environmental issues, and jumped headlong into a global battle to protect public control of water resources - a fight in which she’s been a leading voice ever since.Īmong her accomplishments, Barlow was instrumental in the United Nations’ decision to declare access to clean water a human right in 2010. But I was about to learn that the world was straining its water resources even then and that a number of private corporations and interests were moving in to take control of and profit from growing water scarcity.” “I asked myself, Who owns water and who is making decisions about this precious resource? I had always assumed that water belongs to us all. That set off alarm bells for Canadian activist Maude Barlow, as she explains in her new book Whose Water Is It, Anyway? Taking Water Protection into Public Hands: Among the goods it would cover: “Water, including … mineral waters … ice and snow.”

Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and President Ronald Reagan were negotiating a free trade deal - a precursor to NAFTA. It was 1985 and privatization, deregulation and free trade were in the air.

Whose Water Is It, Anyway? by Maude Barlow