New: Water and Culture Institute and Water Culture Blog

I just learned (thanks to Leslie Kryder) 0f a new water institute, the Water and Culture Institute, and its associated blog, Water Culture. The Institute is based in Santa Fe, NM.

From the WWW site blurb:

The Water and Culture Institute promotes the sustainable management of our rivers, lakes, springs, and groundwater through the application of indigenous wisdom and cultural traditions that respect the rights of nature.  Our premise is that the sustainability of water ecosystems requires an ethic that recognizes our sacred responsibility to the Earth. As we face the spectre of climate change, we are reminded that our collective behavior has very real impacts on the health of the planet.  Our water ecosystems face ever inceasing stress even as their ecological resilience becomes all the more important for sustaining us through the instability of climatic swings.  Now more than ever we need to heed the teachings of Indigenous wisdom, and Western spiritual and ethical philosophies, and put Nature's needs ahead of our own short term wants. Ultimately, there is no conflict between what is good for the Earth and what is good for people.  

Our work includes research, training, activism, and mediation to achieve water management practices that support the health of our planet.  We engage in project consulting, policy dialogues, report writing, organi-zational capacity-building, and policy advocacy.

With our home base in Santa Fe, New Mexico, we are involved on a long-term basis with the tribes and cultures of the Rio Grande Basin and the Colorado Plateau.  Other project locations include a regional program in Southeast Asia on the multiple values of agricultural water, and a global program of indigenous dialogues on water policy and climate change. 

The Institute is the offspring of David Groenfeldt: 

An anthropologist, David received his PhD in 1984 from the University of Arizona, based on field research on irrigation development in India. Most of his career has focused on international water issues, including five years with the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka and 15 years in Washington, DC working with consulting firms, and the World Bank, on water and natural resources policies in developing countries. Since 2002, David has focused on environmental and cultural aspects of water policies. He helped establish the Indigenous Water Initiative to coordinate inputs from Indigenous Peoples in the World Water Fora in Kyoto (2003) and Mexico City (2006).  He was director of the Santa Fe Watershed Association, in Santa Fe, New Mexico (USA) from 2006 to 2009.  He launched the Water and Culture Institute in 2009 to promote the integration of Indigenous and traditional cultural values into water policies and management.

The Institute will present a decidedly different water perspective than the 'typical' water site/blog, (including WaterWired) and that is certainly welcomed. Just look at these categories:

Indigenous Water, Water and Agriculture, Water Governance, Climate Adaptation, and Values and Ethics.

Groenfeldt's blog will no doubt explore corresponding cultural and and related water issues. He has an interesting post about the water conservation dilemma in Santa Fe: conserve water, only to see it sold to developers instead of trying to maintain the Santa Fe River. Another post discusses artists, and he includes my friend and former University of New Mexico colleague Basia Irland in the group. Basia is an exceptional artist, poet, writer, and water activist.

I am looking forward to seeing the Institute and its blog develop. We can use such voices as David's in the water world.

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1958)