ABSTRACT
The story of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe in Nevada, US, illustrates the difficulty of enforcing legal rights to water by indigenous peoples who compete with non-Indian water users and must use the legal system of the dominant society. The struggle of these people has resulted in success, but only after decades of legal and political manoeuvring and nearly a century of being deprived of water. It shows that being armed with legal rights is not enough. A sustained battle with the aid of lawyers and experts has been necessary to give meaning to the tribe's water rights. In the time that it has taken to vindicate the rights of the tribe, the once-thriving fishery on which the tribe depended for sustenance and culture has been driven to the brink of extinction for lack of water.
