Water is life – Agua es vida. Today, you’ll hear the story of the Water Defenders who organized to protect their water from being poisoned by Big Mining. This is a David vs Goliath story of a few ordinary people from a poor area of El Salvador who stood up to protect their rivers from the mining corporation’s poisoning. The odds were so stacked against them, most people thought it impossible. Some were assassinated for their efforts. And yet they persisted.  You may be surprised by some of the methods they used to gather people to their cause.

Corporate pressures are difficult—sometimes dangerous—to resist. In The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed, Robin Broad and John Cavanagh tell the story of El Salvador’s decade-long fight to oust a mining giant.

As clean water becomes increasingly scarce & mega corporations grow into transnational Goliaths with few limits to their powers, this story of the Water Defenders is an important template for our times.  In communities across the country and around the world, people are making a stand for life’s most basic need: water.

As you listen, you’ll also learn about the secretive tribunal at the World Bank, created for the sole benefit of giant corporations, that allows them to sue countries for billions of dollars – allowing them to effectively blackmail nations into allowing them to extract valuable resources from their countries.

Despite the fact that the odds against them were impossibly high, these poor farmers in northern El Salvador won their struggle. Takeaways from this story include the important keys to the Water Defender’s success; keys that activists around the world can employ to increase their chances of success.
Find the book here:  The Water Defenders      Music by Chic Street Man