We Are Water: Metaphor As a Tool for Environmental Policies Communication

On Sept. 16, 2025, an estimated 100,000 people flooded the streets of Cuenca, Ecuador’s third-most populous city, in one of the largest environmental mobilizations in the country’s recent history. Protesters marched under a simple slogan: “We are water.” The demonstration was aimed at stopping mining projects in Quimsacocha, a fragile, high-altitude ecosystem that supplies water to hundreds of thousands of people across southern Ecuador. But beneath the immediate conflict over mining lies a deeper struggle over how people understand their relationship with the natural world. For decades Ecuador has been at the center of a global experiment. In 2008 it became the first country in the world to recognize the Rights of Nature in its Constitution, transforming ideas rooted in Indigenous cosmologies into enforceable legal principles. Yet translating those ideas into political reality has proven far more difficult than writing them into law. To understand how environmental movements bridge radically different worldviews — from Indigenous understandings of territory to the language of constitutional law, science, and public policy — I spoke with David Fajardo Torres, an environmental activist, lawyer, and member of Yasunidos, a movement defending Ecuador’s ecosystems from extractive industries. Our conversation explored how narratives shape environmental conflicts, why metaphors such as “We are water” can mobilize entire communities, and what Ecuador’s experience reveals about the challenges of communicating across competing visions of nature, development, and progress. This interview was conducted during a research visit in Ecuador in November 2025, carried out as part of the research field work for a Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy and social communication. Environmental movements often struggle to turn complex ecological issues into stories that people can relate to. Yet in Cuenca the slogan “We are water” helped mobilize more than 100,000 people. What makes that metaphor so powerful? In Cuenca one of our most powerful narratives connects the city — not merely as an urban center, but as a territory shaped by a long and ancient history — to water. We are water people. That idea has become the central metaphor that unites communities and guides our resistance to mining projects. These projects threaten the páramos, the high-altitude Andean ecosystems that serve as natural water reservoirs. The páramos regulate water flows, sustain extraordinary biodiversity, and supply freshwater not only to Cuenca, but also to the Amazon basin and Ecuador’s Pacific coast. For us the phrase “We are water” is both symbolic and literal. Human beings are made largely of water, but the expression goes beyond biology. It reflects how we understand ourselves: as part of rivers, lakes, forests, and páramos rather than separate from them. It allows us to connect three dimensions of Cuenca at once — Cuenca as a city, Cuenca as a territory, and Cuenca as an ecosystem. This narrative has proven remarkably effective. During the mass mobilization in September, many people referred to the protest as Cuenca’s Fifth River, a reference to the city’s historic nickname, Santa Ana de los Cuatro Ríos — the City of Four Rivers. The metaphor captured something deeper than political opposition to mining. It expressed a biocultural identity in which water is not merely a resource but a defining part of who we are. Without its rivers, Cuenca would not exist. Cuenca’s identity is rooted in conflict between nature and industry? Cuenca was founded three times: first by the Cañari people, then by the Incas, and later by the Spanish colonizers. Despite these very different civilizations, all three settlements shared one essential foundation: water. The valley is crossed by four rivers and countless smaller waterways known as quebradas, which remain just as important to the region’s ecological health. Water has shaped every chapter of Cuenca’s history and every layer of its identity. This is not a new conflict. As early as the colonial period, local authorities faced a choice between gold and water. Extracting mineral wealth often threatened the water sources on which communities depended. Time and again, Cuenca chose water. That choice continues today. For more than three decades, local communities have defended water sources in areas such as Quimsacocha and Río Blanco against mining projects, gradually building support far beyond rural communities and into the city itself. In 2021 nearly 80% of voters in a local referendum supported a ban on mining in the páramos that supply water to the region. Four years later, tens of thousands of people returned to the streets to reaffirm that decision. For us this is not simply an environmental debate. Water remains the foundation of our identity, and defending it means defending the future of Cuenca itself. One of the recurring tensions in environmental politics is whether nature should be protected because it serves human needs (anthropocentric view), or because it possesses intrinsic value and rights of its own (biocentric). Is this a real conflict, or are we dealing with different ways of understanding the same relationship between humans and nature? That’s a very good question. In Ecuador we are increasingly realizing that it is impossible to fulfill human rights without also respecting the rights of nature. Most human rights ultimately depend on healthy ecosystems. If we destroy the ecosystems on which we depend, we undermine the very conditions that make a dignified life possible. For us, that is the central horizon: living with dignity. This idea is deeply connected to the philosophy of Sumak Kawsay. It is often translated as “good living,” but that translation is incomplete. A better interpretation would be vivir en plenitud — living in fullness or living in harmony. At its core, Sumak Kawsay is about flourishing alongside nature, not apart from it. From this perspective, there is no fundamental separation between humanity and nature. We are one species within a much larger web of life. Ecology, after all, is the sum of the relationships that sustain life on this planet. Every species, every ecosystem, plays a role within that network. The problem is that modern capitalist societies have encouraged us to see not only a distinction between humans and nature, but a hierarchy. Humans are placed at the top, while nature is reduced to an object that exists to serve our needs. You mentioned anthropocentrism and biocentrism. In Ecuador, however, we increasingly speak about ecocentrism. Ecocentrism shifts the focus away from individual actors — whether humans or nature — and toward the relationships that connect them. It is not about separating humanity from nature, but about understanding the complex web of relationships that makes life possible. Scientific concepts such as ecology increasingly emphasize relationships, ideas that seem to resonate with many Indigenous worldviews. Can scientific language serve as a bridge between Indigenous knowledge and the modern industrial world? It can, and I think it is one of the keys — but not the only one. In many cases Western science is only now beginning to understand ideas that Indigenous peoples have lived with for centuries: the importance of relationships, diversity, and interdependence. The difference is that modern science often seeks universal explanations, a single framework capable of describing the world as a whole. Indigenous worldviews tend to operate differently. They do not necessarily aspire to explain everything through one universal lens. Even among Indigenous peoples, there is enormous diversity. The Shuar and the Amazonian Kichwa, for example, have distinct ways of understanding the world. For the Shuar, the forest is not an external environment but a community to which they belong. The Amazon is so rich and biodiverse that it provides everything necessary for life. Because they see themselves as part of that living system, the goal is not endless accumulation or growth but maintaining the relationships that sustain life. Mining companies often argue that modern science allows them to extract resources responsibly. They present environmental studies and technical expertise as evidence that mining can coexist with ecological protection. How persuasive is that narrative? One of the biggest mistakes is to focus only on what can be measured. Statistics and technical reports are important, but they never tell the whole story. In Ecuador we work with a concept known as the dialogue of knowledges — a conversation between different ways of understanding the world. This idea is reflected in our Constitution, particularly in the articles recognizing the Rights of Nature. Take the concept of Pachamama. It is often translated as “Mother Earth,” but that translation is incomplete. Pacha refers not only to the Earth, but to the space-time in which life unfolds — the Earth, the stars, the sun, the moon, and the cycles that connect them. Mama means mother. In that sense, Pachamama is closer to a living cosmos than to a simple environmental concept. Nature, by contrast, is a concept that emphasizes relationships. Those relationships are not confined to the planet itself. Life on Earth depends on the sun, the moon, and countless natural cycles that can be observed scientifically — from the tides to seasonal rhythms. In Ecuador’s Constitution, Pachamama and nature are treated as equivalent concepts, allowing us to defend the Rights of Nature through both scientific and Indigenous knowledge. As a lawyer specializing in the Rights of Nature, I build cases using multiple forms of knowledge. We rely on science, Indigenous knowledge, and the knowledge of rural and peasant communities, all of which are essential for understanding and defending ecosystems. The problem is that many mining companies rely on a very narrow understanding of science. Their science is designed primarily to facilitate extraction and economic growth. It leaves little room for dialogue between different ways of knowing. I am not criticizing science itself. There is a science that seeks to understand nature, question its own assumptions, and engage with other forms of knowledge. That kind of science is indispensable. But there is also a science that serves capital, markets, and extractive industries. The challenge is to distinguish between the two. For us, the Rights of Nature are possible only through a genuine dialogue between scientific and Indigenous knowledge. Otherwise we risk reducing Pachamama to a slogan or falling into simplistic narratives about nature that fail to address the complexity of the living world. What do you mean by the narrow narrative of Pachamamismo? For us, Pachamamismo can become a shallow narrative when it reduces complex realities to slogans. Much of the contemporary discourse around Pachamama risks becoming symbolic rather than transformative. To challenge the narratives of mining companies and extractive industries, we need something deeper: a genuine dialogue between different forms of knowledge. And when I speak of science, I do not mean only biology or physics. I also mean anthropology, sociology, law, and other disciplines. Indigenous peoples, too, possess their own systems of knowledge, law, and social organization. What matters is the conversation between them. This is important because knowledge itself is never fixed. What a society considers rational, scientific, or legitimate changes over time. The challenge is not to replace one worldview with another, but to create a dialogue between them. At the heart of the conflict over mining and extractivism lies a struggle between two competing visions of development. One assumes that development follows a universal path, with nature treated primarily as a resource and humans placed above it. The other begins from a different premise: that humans are part of nature and that development should strengthen, rather than undermine, the ecological relationships on which life depends. For us the key question is not whether development should occur, but what role human societies should play within the ecosystems they inhabit. The answer will be different in every territory. The ecological realities of Cuenca are not the same as those of Poland, just as their histories and relationships with nature are different. In Cuenca our responsibility is to protect water sources, páramos, rivers, and lakes. That requires adapting our institutions and planning systems to ecological realities rather than forcing ecosystems to adapt to economic demands. Today, we have powerful tools that help us think this way. The Ecosystem Approach developed by the IUCN and the concept of planetary boundaries developed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre both remind us that human societies operate within ecological limits. Those limits are not obstacles to development; they are the conditions that make life possible.