https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4607-7970
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Abstract
In contested environments, the importance of water transcends its status as a mere resource to comprise the ecosystem and the watershed. Farmers and ronderos in Santa Cruz, Cajamarca, who face the brunt of deleterious environmental impacts from mining in their territories emphasize the relevance of ecosystems and watersheds for water provision. The interdependency of water and ecosystems is demonstrated through their local water rights. As water sources are threatened, the scope of local water rights is reconceptualized to guarantee water as both resource and nature. In analysing the transformation of water rights in the midst of socioenvironmental conflicts, the article shows how the residents of Santa Cruz take an unconventional approach assembling local understandings of water and global environmental discourses to protect the entirety of the environment where water flows.
Acknowledgements
I am deeply grateful to the late Franz and Keebet von Benda-Beckmann for encouraging me to start thinking about this topic. My gratitude goes to Bert Turner for his generous suggestions to improve the paper, and to Juliana Hayden for her appreciated editorial work. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful contributions. Special thanks go to Armando Guevara-Gil for his valuable comments throughout the writing process.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 I am aware of the complexities involved in the term “ecosystem” (De Lucia Citation2015). Here, I will refer to ecosystem as the environment where biotic and abiotic elements interact.
2 Here, I generally refer to rights as claims. Interestingly, the case shows the transformation of local rights as entitlements to water allocation into rights as aspirations to water both as resource and as nature.
3 In 2008, the Constituent Assembly in Ecuador recognized Pacha Mama or nature as a subject of rights in articles 10, 33, 71 y 72.
4 Sumaq Kawsay is the quechua principle of good or better living and is recognized in articles 275° to 278° of the Ecuadorian constitution.
5 One of the branches of the World Bank is a stockholder in Yanacocha projects.
6 The IFC ombudsman from the World Bank.
7 Water sources in this area feed the main spring water of sub-basins flowing to six main canals of 43 km, with 151 l/s, 555 hectares of irrigated land. This calculation does not include indirect users; that is, 3789 users in the sub-basin of the Chonta river and others in the Mashcón and Llaucano river basins; neither those of the lower basin (Urteaga-Crovetto and Vega-Centeno Citation2012). In the following watersheds in Cajamarca peasants observed the diminishing, disappearing, modifying, changing the direction of the flows: Sendamal, Cajamarquino, and Llaucano in the districts of Sorochuco, Encañada, Hualgayoc, and Huasmín. In Chailhuagon, El Perol, Azul, Cortada, Lucmacocha, Alforjacocha, Mishacocha, Los Patos, Corazón, and Estacionaria, mining impacts affected the superficial and ground water (Ministry of Environment Peru Citation2011).
8 Only the president of the Nightwatch peasant patrols of Santa Cruz was denounced for several crimes and faced 16 trials against him (CONACAMI, Citation2010).
9 Based on fieldwork in Cajamarca, Li (Citation2009) raises a sound critique to Environmental Impact Assessments as a controlling mechanism that unilaterally sets the limits of resistance.
10 Lambayeque is a coastal Department where the Chancay-Lambayeque watershed is located. Water users’ organizations of Lambayeque are very strong and politically significant regarding water policies.
11 Upon request of the Provincial Prosecution Office of Santa Cruz, water analysis made by the Laboratory of Toxicology and Chemical of the national Institute of Legal Medicine concluded that in the La Carcel zone, levels of lead reached 12 PPB (0.012 mg/L); and cadmium reached the 0.52 PPB (0.00052 mg/L); and in the river El Cedro levels of lead reached 10.9 PPB (0.0109 mg/L), and cadmium reached 0,59 PPB (0.00059 mg/L) (Urteaga-Crovetto and Vega-Centeno Citation2012). According to the World Health Organization (WHO) (1984) lead should not exceed of 0,05 mg/L in water, although in 1993 the WHO established 0.01 mg/L as the international standard. In 2011, the WHO established that cadmium should not exceed 0.003 mg/L for drinking water (Obasi and Akudinobi Citation2020).
12 See, CONACAMI (Citation2010).
13 The SUTEP is the teachers’ union from public schools.
14 DIGESA is a national institution in charge of water quality and dependent from the Ministry of Health.
15 OSINERGMIN is the office in charge of regulating and supervising the activities of hydrocarbon and energy companies and users.
16 Agriculture is rain-fed when it basically depends on the rain.
17 This limited view has had further consequences as to exploring water uses in pastoralism or in the tropical forest.
18 A similar phenomenon occurred with a Mapuche indigenous community in the Neltume watershed, whose water rights were at risk. See Cardoso and Pacheco-Pizarro (Citation2022).