Watershed Worlds

We first experience Watershed through the rich prose of the author’s life, then travel throughout planetary watershed ecologies, and then through indigenous eyes. The fractures and fissures of the urbanized and capitalist systems are treated as key causes of collapse. Next are eight indigenous models to preserve and weave a sustainable future, including Japan’s wonderful mountaintop to marine ecology system, then the Hawaiian Ahupua’a, followed by the Maya Forest Garden and Ancient Tikal, to the Aztec Chinampas, the three-thousand-year-old practice of the Qanat and Karez, addressing desert revitalization, then to New Mexico Acequias, and then the Marsh Arabs of Mesopotamia, and finally to renew the worlds’ mangrove swamps with the Orang Seletar. The future is urged through support of a global network of indigenous activist and sovereignty movements, bound together in a common planetary Watershed Manifesto. Watershed addresses each planetary crisis with action now. This book is not a return to the past but integrating proven practices into a modern future.
By Matt Oppenheim, PhD