Synopses & Reviews
For many years La Jicarita, an online journal of environmental
politics, covered the management of water that is so critical to the
well being of both the human and natural world in northern New Mexico.
But the future of that water, managed as a right of the commons, is also
inextricably linked to the policies and prejudices of those at the
state and federal level who are engaged in its
commodification — determining its “highest and best” use, a euphemism for
movement to money. If market forces continue to control who’s going to
get the water there won’t be much hope for mutually beneficial ways of
life, justice, or beauty. !No Se Vende! Water as a Right of the Commons
compiles those years of reporting as it guides the reader through the
history and struggles of those trying to keep that right alive.
Review
"¡No Se Vende! Water as a
Right of the Commons is an up-close and personal investigative research
document of Kay Matthews' life as an acequia parciante and commissioner,
small farmer, and statewide activist in the heated, and very complex,
struggle to protect water as the major component of public welfare for
people and the environment in New Mexico. The other side of that
struggle is an all-out attempt, by proponents of economic development,
to commodify water into a market-driven product destined to promote the
resource depletion and human expansion that obviously threatens not only
New Mexico, but also our planet. Matthews provides an overview of
many battles to abet or defeat water transfers from one acequia, or
watershed, to another; conflicts between the State Engineer and regional
water plans; also the huge Abeyta and Aamodt adjudication settlements
north of Santa Fe and the Lower Rio Grande in the south. With remarkable
patience, Matthews follows the intricacies of the political maneuvering
pitting Indian water rights against the centuries-long water customs of
"outside" irrigators. She explains how developers attempt to divide and
conquer indigenous water users so as to destroy what's left of their
mutually beneficial usage. It is said that all wars of the
Twenty-First Century will be fought over water. Matthews gives us a
brilliant overview of a complicated microcosm — in New Mexico — that
stands for how those wars are developing worldwide. It's a crie de coeur
that we must listen to and emulate." John Nichols, author of The
Milagro Beanfield War, American Blood, and The Last Beautiful Days of Autumn
About the Author
Kay Matthews is the editor
of La Jicarita, an online journal of environmental politics based in the
Hispano and Native American communities of northern New Mexico. Kay
grew up in Colorado, attended Antioch College, the University of New
Mexico, and has lived in New Mexico for 40 years. She lives on a 10 acre
farm where she grows fruit, vegetables, and pasture hay.