With special attention to hill torrent management in southern Punjab, Pakistan, this précis recounts how the centralized irrigation schemes that Pakistan inherited from colonialism disturbed a hitherto balanced human and physical geography to ultimately leave the country’s poor more vulnerable to critical trends, seasonalities, and shocks. The précis draws a short parallel with the colonial experience of southern AfricaAfrica, where the production of cash crops for export also ruptured ecosystems, not forgetting the cultures and livelihoodsLivelihoods of indigenous populations. The consequences that colonial rule had on indigenous production systems are being felt to this day in the former colonies and across the globe.