Stockholm Water Prize to Rajendra Singh

Rajendra Singh: Clean flowing rivers must be a human right

The “waterman of India” will walk across five continents to raise awareness for his campaign to have the human rights to river water and access to nature recognised by the UN.

“Nature cannot fulfil greed,” Rajendra Singh said on Monday at World Water Week, where he will accept the Stockholm Water Prize on Wednesday. Singh argued that communities facing water crises should resist the money and technological solutions offered by corporations. Instead, he told the Guardian, they must find ways to help themselves.

The landscape has been transformed; five long-dead rivers have begun to flow, wells are full and fields are fertile
“The companies always bother about the profit, they are not bothered about our common future,” he said. “They use the name of social corporate responsibility – but this is not sufficient for life. This is not sufficient for a better common future. They are using very good jargon. But they are only meeting, eating and cheating.”

Thirty-five years ago, Singh revived an ancient dam technology in his hot, dry home state of Rajasthan in north-west India. Working with local people he has returned water to more than 1,200 villages. The landscape and climate have been transformed; seven long-dead rivers have begun to flow, wells are full and once-parched fields are now fertile.

Singh said he would now embark on a five-year odyssey across five continents. In the tradition of his hero, Mahatma Gandhi, Singh has long advocated the technique of walking through landscapes.

“Walking connects you to the heart of the earth and the heart of the human,” he said. Each of his World Water Peace Walks will visit grassroots solutions to water challenges.

In 2017, Singh will visit the office of the United Nations high commissioner for human rights in Geneva to push for the recognition of the right to river water and access to nature. The recently recognised human right to water and sanitation is dependent on a clean environment and flowing river, Singh said.

“On paper, you have declared water is a human right. But water as a human right is only possible after river rights and nature rights. Without the clean flow of the river you can’t ensure the human right,” he said.

Source: The Guardian

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• Fundraising
• Landscape Water Conservation
• Water conditioning