Leaders from the Colorado River Indian Tribes recently met with other Indigenous people from around the world to discuss strategies for protecting water. A Meeting of Sacred Waters convened tribal leaders in New Mexico to advance legal personhood for rivers, a strategy that can give water some of the same legal protections a person might receive in court.
Amelia Flores, chairwoman of the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT), said the summit allowed Indigenous leaders from the U.S., Canada and New Zealand to learn from one another.
“All tribal nations are unique in their waters that they have,” she said. “We share a commonality, and that is to protect our rivers, our streams and advocate and do our due diligence as stewards of what our creator has given us, to look over and to protect for future generations.”
CRIT is one of 30 federally-recognized tribes in the Colorado River basin, but one of the few whose land includes a stretch of the river itself. CRIT lands run along Arizona’s border with California, which is formed by the river.
Flores said her tribe’s personhood designation for its namesake river was partially inspired by a series of trips to New Zealand, where she learned from the indigenous Māori people.
Flores said she was impressed by young people at the conference, and hopes to inspire more young members of her own community to get involved in caring for water.
“It's the youth,” she said, "It's the younger adults that are grasping and speaking up for water on their territories or on their homelands and protecting their river waters and streams, and it's a good thing.”
CRIT has been involved in conversations about policies to share the Colorado River’s water going forward and recently hosted a top federal water official for a tour of local habitats and farmlands.
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