Rivers for Life! The Rasi Salai Declaration

Endorsed at the Second International Meeting of Dam Affected People
and their Allies,
Rasi Salai, Thailand, 28 November - 4 December 2003

THE INSPIRATION OF RASI SALAI

We, more than 300 people from 62 countries throughout the world,
peoples affected by dams, fighters against destructive dams, and
activists for sustainable and equitable water and energy management,
have met in Rasi Salai. We have met on land that is being restored to
life after being flooded by a dam. The gates of the dam are now open,
the river flows, the crops have ripened, the fish are starting to
return, community life is becoming vibrant once more. The
dam-affected people of Thailand offer to us and to all peoples an
example of determination and struggle to preserve lives, rivers,
territories, culture, and identities.

Water for life, not for death! The call made at the First
International Meeting of People Affected by Dams, held in Curitiba,
Brazil, 1997, has been realised in Rasi Salai, Thailand.

OUR ACHIEVEMENTS

Since Curitiba, we have made significant progress in our struggles.
In the valleys, mobilisation and direct action of affected peoples
has challenged the dam industry, governments, and financial
institutions. The international movement against destructive dams has
shown its ability to challenge the industry in the technical,
political and moral spheres. We have stopped and decommissioned some
dams. In some areas we have achieved recognition of the right to just
reparation.

Affected and threatened peoples and allies have exercised decisive
participation in decision-making processes, and in determining our
own futures.

We are successfully implementing socially and environmentally just
and effective community-based water management. We support the rapid
advances in new renewable energy technologies and methods of
demand-side management.

This extraordinary growth in our struggle is also made possible by
ever stronger ties between indigenous peoples, grassroots movements
and NGOs, and between Southern and Northern civil society. We have
also joined in solidarity with the global struggle against
neoliberalism and for a just and equitable world.

The World Commission on Dams process is a key achievement of the last
six years. The WCD report is strongly critical of large dams. While
their report does not question the fundamental flaws of the
neo-liberal development model, the WCD's recommendations constitute a
framework for democratic, transparent and accountable decision-making
processes.

OUR CHALLENGES

In the past, we were told that large dams bring development. Now the
dam lobby claims that large dams are essential to "alleviate" poverty
and close the gap between South and North. The last 50 years has
shown this to be a fraud. The global large dam era has been marked by
a sharply growing and unacceptable inequality between South and
North, and between rich and poor.

We denounce the fallacy that hydropower and large dams are essential
to slow global warming and adapt to its impacts.

Indigenous peoples have been disproportionately harmed by the
targeting of their territories, lands, and resources. The use of
violence, including by the military, to implement these projects
violates their human rights and threatens their survival.

Privatisation continues to spread, despite more than a decade of
spectacular failures worldwide. We strongly oppose privatisation
which subordinates life-giving water and rivers to corporate
interests and the logic of the market.

The proposed interlinking of rivers, inter-basin transfers and
transnational infrastructure initiatives based on water megaprojects
show the incapacity of dam promoters to learn from the impacts and
failures of these grandiose schemes.

The transfer of energy-intensive industries such as aluminium from
North to South, from the central to peripheral countries, imposes on
the latter high economic costs, the growth of external debt, and the
huge impacts of megadams.

OUR DEMANDS

Our shared experiences and our five days of rich exchanges have led
us to agree:

We affirm the principles and demands of the Curitiba Declaration of 1997;

* We oppose the construction of all socially and environmentally
destructive dams. We oppose the construction of any dam which has not
been approved by the affected peoples after an informed and
participatory decision-making process, and that does not meet
community-prioritized needs;

* We demand full respect for indigenous peoples' knowledge, customary
resource management and territories and their collective rights to
self-determination and free, prior and informed consent in water and
energy planning and decision-making;

* Gender equity must be upheld in all water and energy policies,
programmes and projects;

* There must be a halt to the use of all forms of violence,
intimidation and military intervention against peoples affected and
threatened by dams and organisations opposing dams;

* Reparations must be made through negotiations to the millions who
have suffered because of dams, including through the provision of
funds, adequate land, housing and social infrastructure. Dam funders
and developers and those who profit from dams should bear the cost of
reparations;

* Actions, including decommissioning, must be taken to restore
ecosystems and livelihoods damaged by dams and to safeguard riverine
ecological diversity;

* We reject privatisation of the power and water sectors. We demand
democratic, accountable and effective public control and appropriate
regulation of electricity and water utilities;

* Governments, funding institutions, export credit agencies and
corporations must comply with the recommendations of the WCD, in
particular those on public acceptance and informed consent,
reparations and existing dams, ecosystems and needs and options
assessments. These recommendations should be incorporated into
national policies and laws and regional initiatives;

* Governments must ensure investments in research and application of
just and sustainable energy technologies and water management.
Governments must implement policies which discourage waste and over
consumption and guarantee equitable distribution of wealth;

* The construction of interbasin transfer schemes, river
inter-linking and other water megaprojects must halt;

* The international carbon market must be eliminated;

* Waterways for navigation should follow the principle "adapt the
boat to the river, not the river to the boat."

We commit ourselves to:

* Intensifying our struggles and campaigns against destructive dams
and for reparations and river and watershed restoration;

* Working to implement worldwide sustainable and appropriate methods
of water and energy management such as rainwater harvesting and
community-managed renewable energy schemes;

* Continuous renewal and vitalization of diverse water knowledge and
traditions through practical learning especially for our children and
youth;

* Intensifying exchanges between activists and movements working on
dams, water and energy, including through reciprocal visits of
affected peoples from different countries;

* Strengthening our movements by joining with others struggling
against the neo-liberal development model and for global social and
ecological justice;

* Celebrate each year the International Day of Action Against Dams
and for Rivers, Water and Life (March 14).

We call upon the dam-affected peoples' movements and their allies and
other social movements and NGOs to coordinate common actions on March
14, 2004, which protest the World Bank, in solidarity with the
protests against the World Bank and IMF on their 60th anniversary.

Our struggle against destructive dams and the current model of water
and energy management is also a struggle against a social order
dominated by the imperative to maximize profits, and is a struggle
based on equity and solidarity.

Another model of energy and water management is possible!

WATER FOR LIFE, NOT FOR DEATH!