Wai Lia Bere

BACKGROUND Keen produced this documentary as part of ARC Discovery Project, Reconnecting with Water: Lessons from a diverse economy, 2010-13 (DP1095131) which investigates the ways in which water use and management is understood and practised by local peoples in Timor Leste, and the ways in which policy development can learn from these understandings and practices. It uses ethnographic techniques (including videography) to study the degree to which diverse local water management institutions co- exist in utilising the underground water resources that supply the post-conflict city of Baucau. A password protected online digital archive was developed over the three years to incorporate video and audio recordings of relevant water uses and cultural practices, along with geospatial imagery and other map media embedded with GPS recordings of spring locations, water infrastructure and the socio-cultural formations and narratives of water relevant to management at the watershed scale. CONTRIBUTION Wai Lia Bere was the first audiovisual resource in the digital archive for the use of relevant communities, governments, and civil society groups. The video records the ritual ecology of water usage in the district. Wai Lia Bere is a regional spring thats underground water resources are reputedly shared between several regional communities who consequently share complicated ritual relationships. The imagery captures the water rituals relating to this spring. This includes an interview with the senior ritual custodian of the water. It was edited and authored to DVD for a public screening in the village of Darasula. Copies of the DVD where to the rest of the region's communities and it was added to the online archive. SIGNIFICANCE The research incorpaoted in the video is of larger significance as it will contribute to a better understanding of the ways in which alternate practices and claims to water can lead to more integrated and sustainable water management practices.