The right to fresh, clean water belongs to every being on this planet. It is part of our collective commons. Why then do millions of the world's people find themselves without adequate supplies of clean water for drinking and irrigation, and why are more and more people are forced to pay exorbitant prices for this precious commodity? These and more, are the questions that renowned physicist and environmental activist Vandana Shiva explores in her latest book, Water Wars.

In a wide-ranging examination of the world's most precious resource, Water Wars celebrates the spiritual role that water has played for cultures throughout history, especially in India where Shiva lives. At the same time Shiva warns us of the impending danger of privatization of water rights, citing one example in Bolivia, where after the public water supply was sold to a private interest, average water bills soared to one fifth of peoples income. After extensive protests the water supply was once again made public.

Shiva also takes us deep into an understanding of the water cycle, its effects on global climate, its sustainable use for agriculture, and the extent to which it affects every being on the planet.

Many violent political conflicts, considered to be ethnic or religious wars, Shiva points out, have actually revolved, at least in part, around access to water. Focusing on issues such as damming, aquaculture, deforestation, non-sustainable farming, and the international water trade, Shiva gets to the heart of how this growing water crisis has emerged, but she doesn't stop there.

Water Wars is ultimately a call for water democracy as a road to peace. Water, Vandana Shiva acknowledges, is nature's gift, is essential to life, and connects all life. Water for sustenance must be free for all people. It must be used sustainably, in both an ecological sense and a social sense, she implores. Intrinsically different from other resources, and knowing no political boundaries, water is a truly a commons that no one has the right to destroy or profit from. "The water cycle connects us all," states Shiva, "and from the water we can learn the path of peace and the way of freedom."

Link to Amazon.com to buy this book here.

You may also wish to look at Vandana Shivas's other books available at Amazon.com:
Stolen Harvest: the Hijacking of the Global Food Supply
Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge
Tomorrow's Biodiversity, (Prospects for Tomorrow)
Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology

Scott Vlaun is the Editor of the Seeds of Change eNewsletter. If you have comments about the eNewsletter please send them to editor@seedsofchange.com.