Indigenous water rights in the Andes: struggles over resources and legitimacy

Abstract

In the Andean countries, water rights are a source of intense conflicts. National and international policies and legislation commonly challenge local and Indigenous water rights, while corporations encroach on their habitats and claim their sources. Legislation promoting extractive industries at the expense of Indigenous access to land and water prevails over locallyrooted and formally-recognized Indigenous rights. While peasants and Indigenous people deploy legal and political resources to defend their water, elites and governments increasingly tend to marginalize and even criminalize rightful Indigenous claims. Although they pay lip service to decentralized water governance, law and policy models currently applied in the region have yet to address adequately issues of power, fair redistribution and effective recognition of local and Indigenous normative frameworks. Formally recognizing plural rights systems by incorporating them into national frameworks is not enough and usually entails negative impacts at the local level. Alternatives need to be developed.