photographer
About one quarter of Arizona is made up of Native American reservations, and the largest is the Navajo Nation. The Navajos has struggled for water on these arid, unforgiving lands for decades, and has entered into numerous water settlement negotiations with the state. Annual rainfall here averages 7 to 16 inches, supporting only sparse farming and livestock and more than a third of the 200.000 residents have no running water for themselves.
A report from the The U.N.’s World Water Development for 2016 found that three of four jobs globally are either heavily or moderately dependent on water and that lack of access to water and sanitation could limit economic growth and job creation in the coming decades. For the Navajo, as for many Western tribes, lack of water has left them languishing in poverty.
The demand for more water in arid areas like Arizona, where the water supply is irrigated, is a source of constant conflict, and climate change promises worse to come. Despite the demonstration, «First in Time, first in Right» did not win through that day, leaving feature generations dependent on water that will not be there in times of drought.
Up until 1948, the native people of Arizona were not allowed to vote and therefore excluded when the water was being allocated. To this day there is still an undeniable power imbalance in the negotiations. On one side, a tribe that almost faced extinction with a high percentage of poverty and unemployment rate, and on the other, states made wealthy by water, giant utilities and developers.
The Navajo reservation’s population of 200,000 is cast wide, and small wooden buildings are scattered across the plateau. Many have to drive for miles to haul drinking water from watering points. Some have round water tanks topped by windmills or wells that are contaminated from decades of uranium, coal, and other mining in the region. Still, people draw from them to water livestock and sometimes for drinking.
