LA FEMME ET L'EAU

Carola de Boulloche

International Council of Women - Representative accredited to the UN, Geneva
Liaison Officer of Environment for the Sub-Committee on the Status of Women, U.N. Geneva
7, route de Pressy - 1253 Vandoeuvres (Geneva) - Switzerland
tél. 0041-22-7501438 - fax 0041-22-7502481

Le Conseil International des Femmes, fondé en 1888, est une association de femmes de toutes les nationalités, races, croyances ou traditions culturelles, unies dans le but d'améliorer le sort des femmes du monde entier. Un élément important est la participation de la moitié de l'humanité aux prises de décision. Une grande partie de celles-ci ont trait à l'environnement.

Le lien de causalité qui régit depuis toujours la condition féminine de l'environnement est un fait reconnu dans le monde entier. Plus particulièrement dans le tiers monde, mais aussi dans les pays industrialisés, c'est aux femmes que reviennent principalement les tâches de production, conservation et distribution des denrées alimentaires. C'est pourquoi le Conseil International des femmes, depuis sa fondation en 1888, s'est penché à maintes reprises sur la nécessité de conserver un environnement sain permettant un développement humain harmonieux.

En 1889 déjà, le Conseil international recommandait à ses affilées de mener des enquêtes sur les conditions de logement, recommandant tout particulièrement de veiller à l'approvisionnement en eau propre.

Après être intervenue en faveur de la préservation de la faune et la flore(dès 1909) l'Association a pris position contre la pollution des mers (1925) et s'est émue des problèmes de déforestation et désertification dû à l'épuisement des ressources en eau.

En matière de santé elle a toujours demandé que les habitants des agglomérations urbaines puissent disposer de sources d'eau potable épurées permettant de prévenir de dangereuses épidémies.

En 1973, le CIF a crée un Comité Ad hoc, afin de suivre tout ce qui concerne l'environnement humain, Comité qui est rapidement devenu permanent et travaille en liaison étroite avec les autres Comités tels celui de la Santé, l'Habitat, le Développement rural sans omettre le point très important de la participation des femmes aux prises de décision.

En 1997, à l'occasion de la dernière Assemblée triennale, il a été réaffirmé que la sécurité concernant l'environnement et plus spécialement les questions relatives à l'approvisionnement en eau de qualité font partie des devoirs et des obligations des gouvernements au même titre que le maintien de la paix ou de la sécurité intérieure.

Les Comités d'étude ont dû, en conséquence, se pencher sur les problèmes soulevés par la pollution des eaux, mais aussi sur la sensibilisation des utilisateurs par le biais de l'éducation et des media afin d'intensifier l'établissement de programmes scolaires appropriés dans les états où le CIF bénéficie d'un Conseil National Affilié.

Concepts on the Sustainability of Traditional Water Management Systems

in arid-and semi-arid zones

Short summary of a case-study done by Corinne Wacker, social anthropologist and methodological adviser on traditional water management for the Fourth Global Forum of Water supply in Manila November 1997.

The case study consists of the investigation of the system of traditional technology and water management, the interrelations between decision making processes at the local and regional level, as well as between the different sectors (agriculture, demography, health) in maintaining and adapting a sustainable water management to social change in an ecologically fragile environment in two irrigated villages in Ladakh. The study also highlights the role of Ladakh women in water supply through a gender sensitive approach and provides information on external support projects and their impact on traditional water management in the area.

Situated above 3500 meters altitude in an arid area (20 mm rain/year) in the Indian Himalayas, the Buddhist culture Ladakh relies on a sophisticated system of irrigated agriculture and semi-pastoralism based on the use of the short season of melted snow water descending from the Himalayas mountains to oasis villages surrounded by a stone and sand desert.In these villages highly sophisticated systems of collection, distribution and sustainable use of the scarce water resources are combined with rules and regulations in the different sectors of the local economy and culture. These rules are marriage rules, land rights rules related to crop patterns and adaptations of the agricultural production cycle to the scarcity of water. That procedure brought irrigation channels to the village.

The water system of Tagmachik Village.

Irrigation The village stream is used and managed as source of drinking water and for irrigation and energy use .It is also a spiritual landmark, beautiful and perfectly clean .Stones, gravel, roots and "know how" are the technology for Hydraulic Energy and.

The irrigation canals, overflow systems, terraces and flood control walls have been constructed and repaired with local materials by the villagers hundreds of years ago.

Water rights.

The villages manage their water rights with little interference from higher political and administrative authorities. At the beginning of the new year, the villagers distribute the water rights and duties with the ballotting system. In case of water theft, the culprit has to pay beer for the village festivities.

The management of Irrigation is Women's responsibility.

Within the families, men, women and children collect drinking water, the rules of keeping the stream clean and a hygienic water use at home are thus known by all. Furthermore a designated youth group of men is in charge of maintaining the environmental cleanness of the stream in case someone misbehaves. Irrigating the field is however a women's affair. The families send a respected elder woman to the village ballotting, where the watering teams are defined for the year.

Women water the fields and maintain the secondary canals. The maintenance work is done by all men and women from the village before the planting season.

Conclusion

The traditional water management of this village is a system of rights and rules related to water use, operation and process of repairing. That maintenance is embedded in the social, structure, social age and gender related division of labour, at household and village level, in an ecological context, in which the oasis villages, separated from each other by mountain, maintain a high degree of village autonomy. Modernity and tourism have opened up some of the semi-closed village systems...The challenge of development is to invent and to implement technological improvement which maintain the man-made ecosystem of Ladakh, generated since thousand of years by the villagers in their harsh environment.

Vandoeuvres, Geneva 4/2 1998