Indigenous Cultural Uses of Water Policy Forum Convenes at the UA

Two University of Arizona units—the Udall Center’s Native Nations Institute and Climate Assessment for the Southwest, which is housed at the Institute of the Environment—convened a policy forum on Indigenous cultural uses of water April 11- 13, 2017. Twenty-five tribal leaders and staff, Indigenous graduate students, and university faculty exchanged ideas for one and a half days to identify processes that Indigenous communities have used to strategically advance their water priorities via governance, policy, and programmatic actions. Conversations focused on similarities and dissimilarities between Indigenous and mainstream values and belief about water and on identifying mainstream and nation-specific ways that Indigenous communities document water use. Attendees committed to advancing the dialogue on Indigenous cultural values for water, which include understandings such as these: water is life; water has memory; water is history; water has being.