The Sacred Rights of Water: Flowing with Life

Honoring and Protecting the Sacred Rights of Water

As protectors of the Earth's sacred waters, your support and involvement are crucial. We invite you to join us in this vital work. Whether it's through educating others, participating in local initiatives, or supporting global movements, every action counts in safeguarding our water sources. Stand with the Urban Native Collective and Indigenous communities worldwide in upholding the sanctity of water. Dive into our resources, engage with our campaigns, and become a part of a movement that honors and preserves the life-giving waters for generations to come.

As Native people, our understanding of Water comes from our first ceremony of being held in the womb Waters of our mother and released into this world. This life that we each have comes from these sacred Waters, and these Waters run through us, flowing, for the remainder of our lifetimes. The Earth is our mother too, and her Waters that birthed each of us gave life to all we see—both animate and inanimate—from carving the rocks that look like our grandfathers, to the underground Water, to the Water that flows from river to ocean. Native people from Turtle Island all have this understanding of the importance of Water as life. Likewise, Indigenous people from around the world share these beliefs about the sacredness of Water.

As the Urban Native Collective we understand and recognize the sacred rights of Water and the rights of Mother Earth are the same as the rights of a human person. The right to flourish, to be free from environmental harm, and the right to protection from contamination and adulteration.

We stand in solidarity with the Maori and the “Te Awa Tupua Whanganui River Claims Settlement Bill,” which provides personhood status to the Whanganui River, one of the largest rivers on the North Island of New Zealand. We stand in solidarity with the Indigenous people of Bolivia and their 2012 “Law of the Rights of Mother Earth.” We stand in solidarity with the Indigenous people of Ecuador and their 2008 legal recognition of the rights of “Nature, or Pacha Mama,” with “respect for its existence,” which includes the rights of Water.

In 2016 the Urban Native Collective responded in solidarity to the Standing Rock Movement, Mni Wiconi, (meaning, Water is Life) coordinating support from the Cincinnati area. Since then we have responded to Native organizers' call to action from Washington DC to Flint, Michigan to protect the rights of Water. Today we stand in solidarity with the Stop Line 3 movement to stop the Enbridge pipeline from destroying the Water.