Water flows through Indigenous life in ways outsiders rarely understand. It carries fish, supports travel, holds prayers. For millennia, Indigenous communities have kept these sources clean because survival depends on it. Access to these ancestral waters isn’t a development goal. It’s a human right.

Indigenous water management works because it sees connections others miss. Healthy watersheds produce healthy communities. Clean rivers mean abundant food. Protected springs sustain ceremonies that bind people to place. This knowledge grew from thousands of years of careful attention to how water moves through the world. We support Indigenous-led water initiatives that honor this expertise. Our partners know which technologies fit their landscapes, which restoration methods will last, which approaches their communities will embrace. They blend traditional practices with contemporary tools when it serves their purposes, not because donors expect innovation.

These projects do more than improve access to safe water. They strengthen communities’ ability to remain the guardians they’ve always been—protecting sources that sustain not just their own futures, but the health of entire watersheds.