"Water no get enemy." When Fela Kuti sang it in 1975, he was repeating an old Yoruba truth: water is life's indispensable gift. No one in their right mind fights it. Yet every day, we do. Dumping refuse in gutters, paving over wetlands, pouring waste into streams, then acting surprised when floods enter our homes. From dying rivers in Ondo to man-made flooding in Lagos, this is the story of how we became water's friendly foes, and how the same hands that pollute can protect.

Connor Redmile shares how a Māori-led programme trained 27 Māngai Wai Māori across 16 communities to monitor their own supplies — finding and fixing six water-quality concerns that might otherwise have gone unseen. Safe drinking water, he argues, begins long before the tap: with communities trusted to care for the water that sustains them.