Water is the essence of life. But, now, because water resources are finite and increasingly polluted, a public resource for the benefit of all has become Blue Gold for corporate profit. This is unacceptable!
To ensure safe and affordable water for all now and in the future, we must work together to oppose any proposals to shift operation or ownership of public systems to private corporations and counter corporate marketing strategies, such as for bottled water, that promote water as just another commercial good rather than a resource – the most essential of the commons - to be held in the public trust.
 
Over the past three years, AfD’s Defending Water for Life Campaign has been involved in the New England area and California, working with our members and allies to preserve and expand local democratic control of water resources and water services. The campaign has worked in coalition with other groups and together celebrated some victories when corporate profiteers have been defeated.
 
But transnational corporations like Nestle, Coca Cola, Pepsi are moving aggressively to make us all dependent on bottled water while other corporations like RWE and Suez want to control our municipal services.  The 4^th World Water Forum, being held in Mexico City this year from March 16-22, is sponsored by these very corporations and their financial backers, including the IMF and the World Bank. Activists from around the world and especially from across the Americas will be there holding alternative forums and demonstrations proclaiming that water is a human right. We must act now to ensure that the rights of people and nature are protected not the rights of corporations. 
 
Now is the time for us to mobilize here in the U.S. in solidarity with our brothers and sisters around the world. We must make it clear to the privatizers at the World Water Forum that we don’t want transnational corporations controlling our water.  
 
Click here for the full text of the Spring Forward flier with ideas of events you can hold in your community. For assistance and materials, please contact Ruth Caplan, Coordinator of the Defending Water for Life campaign, 202 244-0561, rcaplan@igc.org or Nancy Price, Western Coordinator, 530 758-0726 nancytprice@juno.com

Click here for flier "Working to Expose the Bottled Water Industry and Keep Water Out of the Bottle.

Click here for Draft Letter to Editor for World Water Day, March 22.

Click here for flier on the movie "Thirst."

Click here for flier on the movie "In the Light of Reverence."


A number of groups have released statements on water in preparation for the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico City, March 16-22.  Here are just a few of the most important ones that we would like to bring to your attention.

1. World Council of Churches Affirms "Water for Life". Click here for press statement and information on the World Council of Churches
2. Water: Essential for Justice and Peace.  An Interfaith Statement to the 4^th World Water Forum., March 2006
3. California Water Justice Delegation Statement of Solidarity