Children play in a mountain stream near a remote village in Isabela, Philippines. This water may be clean and plentiful, but the bigger picture is far more dire: 1 in 10 Filipinos lack access to safe water, and the entire Philippines faces a water crisis due mainly to climate change which intensifies weather patterns like El Nino; a booming human population; and the unchecked deforestation in the entire Southeast Asian region. This place is part of the Sierra Madre, the longest mountain range in the Philippines and the Eastern backbone of Luzon island. A lesser known function is that these mountains are a natural barrier against typhoons originating in the deep, warm waters of the Western Pacific. Illegal logging, agricultural deforestation, and unregulated mining not only displaces indigenous people such as these children from their ancestral domains, it also drastically depletes the country's water tables, worsening flooding and drought in the more populated lowlands and coastal cities as far as Manila. In an archipelago more water than land, mountain, coastline, and ocean are intimately interconnected: integrated ridge-to-reef policies are crucial. Water reminds us that everything, everyone, and everywhere is connected.