International water specialist Ele Jan Saaf will use a Loughs Agency symposium in Derry this month to argue that rivers should have legal rights and be represented in negotiations over how water resources are managed.
The call will be made at the Smart Waters Beyond Borders: Collaboration, Water Quality and Citizens symposium at Derry’s Guildhall on 23 and 24 September.
Saaf, an international consultant in water resources management and transboundary water issues, believes recognising rivers as holders of legal rights could fundamentally change how governments approach water management.
“Rivers are dying all across the world. The environment is dying,” he said. “We can't keep on talking about rivers and water resources as if they are external to us.”
Giving Rivers a Voice
Saaf points to precedents including New Zealand, where the Whanganui River was recognised as a legal person in 2017, and Bangladesh, whose High Court subsequently recognised the country’s rivers as living entities with legal rights.
“The rights of rivers is a movement whereby rivers are seen as an independent owner of certain rights,” he said. “The river, if it could speak, has the right to claim the right to clean water, consistent flow, the right to have fish."
“We can't just sit at the table and talk about the resource as if it belongs to us because it doesn't belong to us.”
Saaf said attempts to introduce the concept into water negotiations have not always been well received. “The last time I did this, I was laughed out of the room. People were saying, ‘You're a romantic, it's never going to work’. But that's nonsense.”
Drought and Flooding Pressures
Saaf argues that recent drought conditions and exceptionally low river levels across parts of Europe underline the need for a different approach.
“If you look at the climate change models, they're pretty clear. This is all foreseen,” he said. He said his work in Eastern Europe had demonstrated how water-management systems designed primarily to remove excess water can become unsuitable when prolonged drought replaces flooding as the main concern.
Areas between Hungary and Romania historically characterised by wetlands were drained, and rivers were straightened to carry water away more quickly.
“They are now suffering from complete drought due to climate change,” Saaf said. “You have these huge water infrastructures to prevent flooding standing in the middle of dry fields because there's no more flooding.”
He said changing conditions meant countries increasingly faced questions not about disposing of excess water, but about how to share limited supplies.
Cooperation Across Borders
Cross-border cooperation is central to the Loughs Agency symposium. Saaf previously represented the International Union for Conservation of Nature in work alongside UNESCO concerning water resources shared by Kenya and Ethiopia.
The work focused on Ethiopia’s hydropower dams and irrigation projects in the Omo region, which supplies most of the water entering Kenya’s Lake Turkana.
Saaf said negotiations resulted in measures including slower reservoir filling and environmental water releases intended to maintain seasonal flows.
Ethiopia also offered Kenya lower-cost electricity as part of the wider negotiations. “That is where the shared benefits come into place,” he said.
He described the outcome as an example of how an upstream country and its downstream neighbour could cooperate rather than treating a shared river solely as a national resource.
‘Water Is Not Valued’
Saaf also argues that societies continue to undervalue water despite its fundamental economic and environmental importance. He recalled stopping at a roadside stall in Jordan where three melons grown in an extremely dry region were being sold for €3.
“It illustrates the fact that water is not valued,” he said.
Cape Town's severe water shortage in 2018, when authorities warned that municipal supplies could approach a point where taps would have to be turned off, demonstrated what could happen when water resources become critically depleted, he added.
“Imagine opening your tap and nothing coming out?” Saaf said. “All countries understand the fact that if you run out of water, you run out of everything.”
After more than three decades working on water issues internationally, Saaf says conventional approaches can no longer continue.
“It's on our generation to make younger generations value rivers and water before it's too late,” he said. “Business as usual is not an option.”
Ele Jan Saaf will speak at the Smart Waters Beyond Borders: Collaboration, Water Quality and Citizens symposium at Derry’s Guildhall on Wednesday, 23 September.
