In Bogota, Colombia, where I am researching a unique Andean ecosystem, I've encountered the phrase 'Agua es vida' everywhere. From a city employee explaining why water rationing is necessary; from our nanny, who tells me that she would rather have days without electricity than without running water; from a man speaking about the pollution that mining precious metals for cellphone chips is causing on the Vaupes River. Water is life. The phrase has also been used as a rallying cry. Those organizing in opposition to pipelines in South Dakota, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Rhode Island carry the dictum on their lips. I am tempted to dismiss it as cliche, an environmental platitude, yet there is something enchanting about these words, a kind of spell they cast, which gently tugs me toward some blunt, yet hard to grasp, truth. When Angela Auambari, a Muisca woman I was recently interviewing, said the phrase again, I asked her what she meant by it. 'You can put water in tubes to send it...
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