Archive for category: News

by Catalina Rey-Hernández & Laura Giraldo-Martínez 

 

On the 22nd of September, 2023, a citizen science event (De Berkel Home River Bioblitz) was hosted in the re-meandered area of De Berkel River next to the village of Almen, Netherlands. 

De Berkel Home River Bioblitz was realized as part of Catalina Rey-Hernández’s PhD project (Wageningen University of Research) and as part of the wider project “The Home River Bioblitz” (https://www.homeriverbioblitz.org/). 

A Home River Bioblitz is a global citizen science initiative documenting animals, plants, and fungi living in and around rivers. It is a collaboration among citizens, scientists, naturalists, river enthusiasts, and volunteers of all ages to conduct a field study of biodiversity over a short period of time to show the importance of free-flowing rivers as hosts of much of the world’s biodiversity. 

During this Bioblitz students from Wageningen University, Hogeschool van Hall Larenstein, ecologists from the Rijn en IJssel waterschap, historians, and other researchers, connected and explored the biodiversity of the Berkel River through the identification of species, participatory mapping, and creating ‘portraits of the river’. 

  

Biodiversity identification 

At the start of the day, we documented the biodiversity in and around the river through a digital tool called “iNaturalist”. 

iNaturalist an online social network of people sharing biodiversity information to help each other to learn about nature. This app helped us to identify plants and animals in the river to generate data for science and conservation. At the same time, by sharing our observations through this app, we were able to connect with the species of the river and to understand and sustain biodiversity through the practice of observing wild organisms and sharing information about them. 

Through a couple of hours we were able to identify 74 different species with 145 collective observations. 

 

Participatory mapping 

After collecting these observations we represented our findings through a participatory mapping activity where we spatially located the identified species and at the same time we reflected on other elements such as infrastructures, contamination, land use, human activities, agriculture, etc. And through that exercise we were able to re-construct connections and interactions between these different elements, understanding that the river is not only the water and its ecosystem but also its history and connection with other actors that are constantly interacting with it.    

This map also allowed us to share knowledge among us, co-creating a visual representation of De Berkel to understand the different river-territorial insights that each participant had about the river. The main objective was to co-create an eco-political map based on alternative visualization of spaces usually not represented by official state agencies. To do so, we gather around an initial canvas where we discuss, explain, and draw ecopolitical relations, landscape interventions, and territorial transformations. 

Cyanotypes workshop with water from the Berkel River 

To conclude the day we did a special activity carried out by researcher Laura Giraldo based on a methodology created by the Colombian photographer Fernando Cruz in the Bogotá River Project developed by the entre—ríos network. With this method, we created portraits of the river using the same water samples. With that, we revealed images made in situ without a camera using the water of the Berkel.​ This workshop is a variation on the traditional way of making cyanotypes or blueprints. 

What is a cyanotype or “blueprint”? 

The cyanotyping (or blueprinting) process consists of reacting ultraviolet light to a chemical mixture. This mixture consists of ferric ammoniacal citrate and potassium ferricyanide diluted in water. The sun-printing process is produced by the incidence of the light against the negative. And the light that reaches the cyanotype through the translucent areas is what causes the photosensitive reaction showing those Prussian blue tones. 

Finally, we closed with some discussions and reflections about the activities of the day​. 

Voices of the Piatúa – a campaign to protect a free-flowing river in the Ecuadorian Amazon

By Carlota Houart, September 2023

The Piatúa River is born in the Llanganates Mountains of Ecuador and runs through the Amazon rainforest. It is thought to be millions of years old and home to a vast diversity of animal and plant species, some of which have not yet been scientifically identified[1]. It is also one of the last free-flowing rivers of the Ecuadorian Amazon to have so far escaped negative human interference (e.g., from mining, pollution, or deforestation)[2]. The Piatúa’s riverbanks have been inhabited by more than twenty Kichwa communities for multiple generations, and there are ancient signs of human presence in the area found in petroglyphs carved on rocks along the course of the river. The river’s stones are, indeed, one of its most striking features: the Piatúa is known in Kichwa as Mayu waka rumi, “the river of sacred stones”, and it is believed by the local Kichwa communities to be a sacred, living being with healing powers, inherent wisdom, and its own guardian spirits[3].

Yet, since 2014 the Piatúa has been threatened by a project from Ecuadorian energy company GENEFRAN S.A. (now called Elit Energy) to build a hydroelectric dam in the river. This project, which was originally approved by the Ministry of the Environment, Water and Ecological Transition of Ecuador, was quickly opposed by members of the Kichwa communities of Santa Clara (who have intimate cultural, historical, and spiritual relationships with the river); activists and environmental organizations; and other river lovers (such as practitioners of water sports like kayaking and rafting). Members of the communities denounced the project as having been pushed forward without their free, prior, and informed consent[4]; and complaints were raised against the environmental impact assessment conducted by the company, which was found to be very inaccurate by different scientific experts[5] and – according to local activists – actually based on data from a different river altogether[6]. The hydro dam would have significant impacts on the river, leading to the loss of an estimated 90% of its water volume and creating flood risks in adjacent rivers; seriously threatening its precious biodiversity; and putting at risk the livelihoods of the local Kichwa communities, as well as their spiritual and cultural ties with the Piatúa[7]. Furthermore, although the project is apparently part of Ecuador’s “green transition” plans, local activists claim that it is actually linked to existing plans to build a new oil extraction zone in the region (Block 28) and a new mining site in a nearby community, thereby constituting a source of financing for these extractive activities[8].

In response to the threat to the Piatúa, an activist group called Piatúa Resiste was formed in 2018, mobilized by young activists from Santa Clara and composed of Indigenous and non-Indigenous allies. Operations for the dam construction began in 2018, but they were instantly faced with peaceful resistance by the activists and members of the communities, and the case was taken to the courts. Making use of Ecuador’s constitutional chapter on Rights of Nature, the lawyers in support of the communities and of the river argued that both the rights of the Kichwa people and of the Piatúa itself were being violated.

The court case was permeated by political tensions and struggle, including the arrest of the judge originally responsible for denying an action of protection in favour of the communities and of the river, who was found to have taken bribes in order to push the hydro dam project forward. In connection to this event, the Provincial Court of Pastaza temporarily suspended the project, instructing the energy company to redo its environmental impact assessment and to obtain the free, prior, and informed consent of the Kichwa communities of Santa Clara. Nevertheless, political elections in early 2023 saw the mayor of the municipality who originally paved the way for the hydro dam re-elected, causing renewed concern among the activists and opposers of the dam that the project might still be pushed forward.

Their latest strategy, in a combined effort between Piatúa Resiste and PONAKICSC (the official organization of the Pueblo Originario de la Nacionalidad Kichwa del Cantón de Santa Clara) has been to organize a campaign to self-declare the Piatúa as Cultural Heritage of Ecuador. The river defenders are now preparing a camp that will take place along the banks of the Piatúa, involving several of the local communities, from October to December 2023. Riverhood Project’s PhD researcher Carlota Houart, who is studying the topic of multispecies justice in the Piatúa (and in the river Maas, in the Netherlands) will be joining the camp as part of her fieldwork.

The self-declaration by PONAKICSC of the Piatúa as Cultural Heritage of Ecuador is seen as one of the strongest possible strategies to ensure protection of the river and effectively halt the hydro dam project.

For more information on the Piatúa river case, you are invited to watch the short documentary “Piatúa Resiste”, by Indigenous Amazonian filmmaking group TAWNA: https://tawna.org/peliculas/piatua-resiste/.

[1] https://time.com/6224546/fight-to-save-ecuador-piatua-river/

[2] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/bravery-young-people-who-stood-26921535

[3] https://www.earthadvocacy-youth.org/_files/ugd/61bf08_86c87fde2e754fdc933e5ff7c5e2036e.pdf

[4] https://time.com/6224546/fight-to-save-ecuador-piatua-river/

[5] https://es.mongabay.com/2019/07/hidroelectrica-rio-piatua-amazonia-ecuador-kichwa/

[6] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/bravery-young-people-who-stood-26921535

[7] https://time.com/6224546/fight-to-save-ecuador-piatua-river/

[8] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/bravery-young-people-who-stood-26921535

Finally, the researchers of the Riverhood and River Commons projects and the Travelling Rivers initiative participated in the Twelfth National Water Forum, co-organized with Ecuadorian partner CAMAREN. More than 1000 policy-makers, grassroots leaders and researchers met, to discuss current challenges and possible alternatives for water governance, law and management in Ecuador. During the Forum and through a creative and surprising ‘flashmob’, another massive river counter-map was created: 50 meter long, representing individual but also shared rivers, river perspectives, threats and struggles, alternative river futures, counter-hegemonic visions.

From April to June this year, fisher and peasant communities, social movements and activists-artists María Benítez and Vanessa Roa, and researchers from the Riverhood and River Commons projects, engaged in local counter-mapping workshops in four rivers: the Magdalena (case study of PhD researcher Juliana Sandoval), La Miel (Ana Maria Arbelaez), Bogotá (Laura Giraldo), Sumapaz (Sebastían Reyes) and the Guargalla y Alao rivers (Masters researchers Sebastián Silva, Susana Zavala, Meike Klarenbeek). The aim of these collective counter geographies and the Travelling Rivers initiative (coord. Bibiana Duarte, Rutgerd Boelens) was to illustrate and mobilize the knowledges, imaginaries and conflicts around these rivers that are generally hidden, but that are perceived and experienced every day by the communities that inhabit and depend on the mentioned rivers. Through bringing the mapping workshops and the maps themselves from one context to the other, the different experiences and struggles were woven together; connecting stories, concerns, debates and movements. Making rivers travel and promoting transnational solidarity.

To watch the teaser of these actions, click here.

Hi, I am Meike! Normally, I am studying as a MSc student of Wageningen University in Wageningen, but currently, I live and work in Ecuador to execute fieldwork for my thesis investigation. A very special opportunity, as it provides me a chance to learn more about this beautiful country and her people, but also about its enormous injustices in terms of water distribution, and the way in which this affects nearly every aspect of people’s life. For this reason, I would like to take you along in one of the meetings I had with indigenous and rural communities from throughout the Nagsiche river basin (my study site). A meeting that, for me, served as an eye-opener in terms of understanding the everyday impacts of power imbalances in the Ecuadorian waterscape.

When we arrive to the meeting, in which we intend to discuss the change in rainfall patterns that community members believe to result from the use of chemicals sprayed out over the area by provincial airplanes, it immediately becomes clear that many people have gathered for this discussion. While normally, cars only pass through the river basin sporadically, currently, the street in front of the municipal building is packed with pick-up trucks that seem to have come from all directions. Around all these cars is a crowd that is filled with farmers, presidents of irrigation systems, and indigenous leaders. Once we moved inside, the people barely fit into the meeting room. Soon, all the chairs in the large room are filled, and when the benches on the side are occupied as well, still many people have not found a seat. As the meeting initiates a perfect 45 minutes late, first some other topics have to be discussed. However, when we reach the topic of the “bombarding of the clouds”, I can hear from the noise that comes from the crowd that this is what they have all gathered for. No surprise, if you perceive this from their belief that the agribusinesses in the area charter provincial airplanes to prevent the rain from falling in large parts of the river basin, while so many small farmers in the area suffer from severe water shortages and large inequities in their access to water.

To calm down the tensions surrounding this topic, the provincial government initiated an investigation into the matter, of which the results are presented today. These results leave little to discuss: no known technique exists to stop rain from falling, no materials are found that would suggest that the agribusinesses in the area do have access to such a technique, and no permits have been granted by the airport to execute flights with any other objective than training pilots. Directly after the technician from the provincial water authority reaches the last words of this summation, one thing becomes very clear to me: this meeting is not about bombarding the clouds. Nor is it about technical (im)possibilities. This meeting is about so much more. This meeting, at least for those present here today, is about injustice, about hunger, about poverty. This meeting is about pent-up frustrations of not being seen, heard or helped. And, as we also know in the Netherlands: there is no scientific proof that is strong enough to deny any of these feelings.

As such, three hours of emotional speeches by indigenous leaders, small-scale family farmers, community leaders, and irrigation presidents follow. “While the broccoli-producing companies continue to grow, we suffer evermore. There is no water to support or production. There is not even money to send our kids to school.” “Our small producers die from starvation, while the broccoli companies continue business as usual.” As there are over 300 small agricultural producers in the room, and only one representative of the agribusinesses, the sentiments quickly turn into feelings of anger and despair. Within seconds, the discussion suddenly seems to turn into a small revolution. “The authorities promised to be here today, but where are they now? We are left on our own once again!” “There remains only one option for us: vamos a tomar las brocoleras! Let’s take over the broccoli companies!”

Hello there! This is Franciska Sprong writing here. I am a master student from the program Aquaculture and Marine Resource Management at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Currently I am in Mongu, Zambia, to conduct fieldwork for my master thesis. This thesis is attached to Agness Musutu’s PhD, which is part of the River Commons project. I am investigating the fishermen’s perception of the spatio-temporal distribution of fish in the Barotse Floodplain.

Beginning of April I arrived in Zambia, just after the rainy season. The Barotse Floodplain was still covered in water, although the grass had overgrown most of the water. By now, the water is receding quickly, which leads to changes in habitats (Figure 1).

Today I am going to conduct a participatory mapping and hopefully, if time permits, some interviews as well. We will drive to Senanga, 100km south of Mongu where I am staying. My colleagues from WWF will fetch me, and then we go. They should have been here an hour ago, but that’s how things run here… flexibility is an asset. Oh, there is a car coming, yes, I think there they are. “Hello, good morning, musuhile cwani?” And off we go for a two-hour drive to this focus group of WWF.

We are received at a primary school just north of Senanga, and the people of the focus group were already waiting for us. I introduce myself in Silozi, and explained what we were going to do today. Fortunately, we also have a translator with us, because much more than introductions and greetings, I don’t know this Bantu language. It is amazing how people appreciate and enjoy when you as a white European, try to speak some words in their language. It is really a good start for a conversation, a mapping exercise, or an interview.

I ask them to draw a map of the area, with the river, the floodplain, and so on, during muunda (flood, February to April), and another map during mbumbi (low water, August to October). Subsequently, they can put the fish species they know in Silozi, in the right place in the map. The map helps me to understand their perception of the movement of the fish in the plain, and it gives a clear overall picture of everything going on during the different seasons. It is very nice to see them engaging in discussions about which species belong where, and which ones are the first to move out of the river into the plain when the water level starts rising. Afterwards, I thank them for their cooperation, we take a small break with drinks and snacks, and then I ask the fishers in this focus group (consisting of fishers and fish traders) whether I can interview them. That is fine with them, good! Four more interviews to go, on this very productive day.

After those interviews, it was time to go home, and on the way back, we stopped to buy and try some cassava from a lady selling it on the roadside. Wow, I feel so blessed that I have the opportunity to be in this country and culture as part of my study program. It enriched me so much and I have learned a lot on cross-cultural, academic, and personal levels.

 

 

 

 

 

PhD researcher Laura Giraldo-Martínez, who is investigating the materialization of diverse socio-ecological memories in river infrastructures in the headwaters of the Bogotá River through an action research approach, has been engaged in a fruitful collaboration with the entre-ríos collective. During the past months, Laura and the collective have carried out a series of river walks along the Bogotá River, and, more recently, have realized an event.

Inspired by the efforts of various care actions, last April 26, the researcher and the collective met at Tequendama Falls to exchange restorations and reparation experiences. This event marked a significant point in a long-term project which aims to co-create a digital platform using film, podcasts, and publications to tell the stories of inspirational community leaders living and working on the Bogotá River. Click here to know more about what happened that day (in Spanish).

The recent UN Water Conference sparked an international momentum for debating water governance. Though not physically present, different researchers of the Riverhood and River Commons projects engaged in preparatory activities and discussions in order to place water justice high on the agenda. Early this year, during the biannual congress of the Spanish New Water Culture Foundation, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation Dr. Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, coordinated with researchers Prof. Rutgerd Boelens, Dr. Bibiana Duarte and Dr. Jerry van den Berge to prepare for the UN Water Conference in New York. His objective was to position water as a human right while integrating this with a new perspective on rivers as socio-ecological entities – a key conceptualization of our projects (more information here). Besides, Riverhood and River Commons contributed to and co-signed the “Declaration of Commitments”(by the organizing members of the UN of Rivers, Deltas and Estuaries) and the “Transformative Water Pact” (initiated by environmental justice organization Both ENDS and water knowledge institute IHE-Delft). We hope that these important initiatives contribute to raising attention for water justice and the need to drastically rethink river relations and practices!

 

The Bogotá river isn’t dead. Despite decades of being declared a liquid corpse, communities from its highland sources to the dramatic Tequendama Falls are taking action to care for this polluted body of water.

For centuries, the river has been the life source and energy for inhabitants of Bogota’s flat savannah. The Indigenous Muiscas worked with water to create navigation channels and raised bed agriculture. Modern irrigation systems siphon the flow to farmers for their crops. And the nation’s first hydropower plant tapped the river to generate electricity that lit up Colombia’s growing capital city at the start of modernity.

Everyone is connected to the river. But media images that focus only on lethal contamination and water treatment infrastructure risk disconnecting Bogotá’s inhabitants from their river, turning it into a lost cause. We want to shift the narrative and tell different stories about this river, focusing on the people that care for it.

In a collaboration between the entre—ríos collective and the River Commons project of Wageningen University, we followed the Bogotá River from its source in the Guacheneque highlands to the cloud forest of the Tequendama Falls region in Cundinamarca.

By walking the river and listening closely to communities over the course of a week, we connected with grassroots water management and wetland restoration groups, environmental education, and art projects. In the confluences of different practices of care, this polluted river comes back to life.

We encountered a river network woven through water and land, in the biodiversity that grows in this amphibious ecosystem, and in the community relationships that make possible its restoration, rehabilitation, and conservation.

by Lisa Blackmore, entre—ríos, University of Essex; Laura Giraldo-Martínez, PhD researcher River Commons project Wageningen University; Diego Piñeros García, visual artist; Juliana Steiner, curator.

 

 

 

Country and location of the photo story: Bogotá River, Cundinamarca Department, Colombia.

The group of master students meets at Casa Migrante in Amsterdam, a non-profit organization that supports Spanish-speaking immigrants who live in and around Amsterdam. They already all seem so comfortable as it is not their first time here. The students have become acquainted with some aspects of the South American countries that they will go to for their Master’s thesis or internship. In the encounter space for intercultural exchange between Latin-American immigrants, the students have a last meeting to conclude before they will depart. They are the first group of master students that participates in the River Commons Master Student Exchange Program. After several preparatory meetings during one semester, they are now ready to depart to their different study sites in South America. All with their own focus of study on the main topic of rivers, river co-governance, and water justice movements.

As part of their preparatory activities they not only held discussions about development, positionality, and environmental justice, but they also had a first introduction to Casa Migrante and Parroquia San Nicolas as a dynamic interchange between cultures and knowledge. Collaborating organizations shared real-life examples through presentations and lively discussions on topics such as intercultural communication, community engagement, and critical self-reflection. More than once the question arose: “what will be your role, position, and also, your contribution?” and following “how will this be part of your research”?.

Soon, the students will arrive at their study sites, in Ecuador and Colombia, where they will all conduct their field research. Some focus on more social sciences aspects, others on natural sciences. Still, all of them include cross-cultural exchange, connection, and reflection. For at least 3 months, they will engage with local communities, NGOs, and other stakeholders to jointly study innovative river-commoning approaches and methodologies. From a participatory action research approach, students will support and collaborate in riverine grassroots initiatives aimed to protect and restore rivers.

In a couple of months from now, upon their return, the students will communicate their learned lessons and intercultural insights to audiences in their home community, for example through experience-discussion meetings on social equality, sustainable water governance, and environmental justice. This intercultural connection is important to all partners: The INREF-collaborating WUR chair groups and study programs, CEDLA/UvA, Week Nederlandse Missionaris, Casa Migrante, Parroquia San Nicolás Amsterdam, and different NGOs around the world. They jointly stress the programs’ focus on issues of North-South solidarities, common good, ethics, human and nature’s rights, social inequalities and discrimination, and the diversity of cultural values, cosmovisions, and spiritual dimensions.

In 2023, the Masters’ exchange program will focus on consolidating the exchange programs’ setup and methodology taking into account the lessons learned from the first cohort. Specifically, the following activities will take place:

1. Implementation and consolidation of the program with partner institutes, based on the lessons learned from 2022.
2. Supervision of students who are now in the field.
3. Establishment of new exchange opportunities with other NGOs and local actors
4. Identification and arrangement of the counter-exchange-visit of 8 Colombian students to the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, the students who have arrived in Colombia and Ecuador recently, engage with their host organization partners and exchange with youngsters back home: inspiring stories about intercultural.

In this interview for NWO, the Dutch Research Council, Rutgerd Boelens talks about how the Riverhood and River Commons projects address social and environmental challenges, specifically focusing on water management, and their interconnection with issues of knowledge and power.

“‘Around the globe, water management is riddled with colonial concepts that are dominating other views,’ explains Boelens. ‘One of the most important ideas is that “Society can be engineered”. It is an implicit idea behind lots of scientific research and behind many development interventions that non-Western societies are somehow ‘less civilized’ and that progress can only be achieved there by modernizing systems and breaking with the past.’

Boelens explains that it is typical for these western mission-like projects to use terms such as ‘best practices’ and ‘good governance’. ‘As if there are universal solutions that you can simply copy from one part of the world and paste them onto another part of the world,’ he says. In water management, there are many cases where private and marketable water rights are introduced based on the idea that this is modernization. This means that water can be owned individually and bought and sold.”

See the full article here: “Knowledge that does not undermine anyone”

On 27 October, Carlota Houart, PhD researcher at the Riverhood project, participated in the Deep Commons Conference 2022 as part of the panel “Towards multispecies justice”, to present her research proposal, Listening to the Voices of the River: Towards Multispecies Justice in Water Governance Processes. The Deep Commons Conference theme this year was “Cultivating Ecologies of Solidarity and Care beyond Capitalism, Patriarchy, Racism and the State”, and more information about the program and the variety of panel, workshop, and roundtable contributions from researchers, activists, artists and others around the globe can be found here: https://www.deepcommons.net/conference-2022.

Carlota’s presentation focused on the emergent concept and research program of multispecies justice, and how it can be applied to the study of the interests and practices of social movements and local communities mobilizing to defend and restore river ecosystems. By reflecting on recent experiences with preliminary fieldwork in the context of the Dutch river Maas, Carlota also pointed to a few ethical questions surrounding research on human/non-human relations that might be central for any activist researcher working on topics of justice (especially those that entangle and intersect human and other-than-human lives).

In this interview published in the WUR magazine, Rutgerd Boelens reflects on the key issues and ideas addressed by the Riverhood project. This project, developed in partnership with a large number of researchers, activists, local communities, has been awarded a five-year grant from the European Research Council (ERC).

Boelens explains that he came across the ancient and nearly forgotten English term “riverhood” in an encyclopedia: “It turns out to be a nineteenth-century concept that means ‘the state of being a river’. That is what I want to investigate because I don’t see a river as just a lot of flowing water.”

Check out the full interview here.