Climate change is not just about C02, but it is also about H20.The ancient language of water as understood and stewarded by local communities, already contains many of the local solutions of working with nature, that can be scaled up into global solutions. Done by local people for millennia, today these methods are backed by modern science. Rivers are flowing again and raging floods have become calm meanders.
The Language of Water (and so the language of life) is a practical book of ‘how to’ resolve droughts, floods and climate change, told through heart-warming stories of revival, restoration and rejuvenation done by communities who speak the language of water in their landscapes. The work and impressions of the communities presented in these chapters are a flavour of what is possible when the regeneration of the planet is in the hands of those who live and care for its water. The authors give us stories of communities holding water in their landscapes, of visionaries who took action at scale to stop droughts and floods and the science that underpins these local solutions to environmental challenges. By the end, we are able to assess again how the bigger problem of the global climate imbalance can be addressed by speaking the language of water locally.
When working with communities in holding water, there are so many exceptional stories, each one unique. Their transformational tales point towards a collective direction. In the story of the communities who read the desert landscape and know where to find water, the 3000 year old system in China that is still stopping flooding today, the community children who decided to bring the water back in their creeks and the beautiful women in blue saris in middle India who upturned a 4000 year old caste system to bringing water into their yard instead of walking miles every day to fetch it on their heads.. and the beavers who teach us how to do that…and many more stories that spur us to action. This is the first book that approaches landscape rejuvenation from the local community and PEOPLE’s perspective and how THEY speak the language of water successfully and deal with climate change locally, at their level.
This book can be read as a travelogue, a how to book, a community story book- enabling us to take action to make a healthy planet and life for our generation and the coming ones after us. In putting water centre stage, this book encourages a debate to focus on realistic solutions in which we can all participate.
(The Language of Water/2025 Synergetic Press – Available Online and through all bookstores locally)
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