World Water Watch 3

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The aim of this magazine is not only to inform you about what has affected the freshwaterenvironment in the past but also to establisha fund that will contribute to its care in thefuture. In consultation with our sponsors the WWF Freshwater Campaign and the RamsarConvention on Wetlands, World Water Watchaims to make a donation each year to a project that will help tosolve some of the problems raised in thequestions that follow. Details of each chosenproject will be published in the magazine.

Water is not only a natural resource: it is alsoan economic and social entity. How can abalance between these last two factors beachieved ? How should water be used toeradicate poverty ? What are the rights of indi-viduals to have access to water ? How should we value, charge for, and allocate wateramong all its users - including ecosystems ?

The World Charter on Water for Nature saysthat resources "shall be managed to achieveand maintain optimal sustainable productivi-ty, but not in such a way as to endanger theintegrity of those other ecosystems with

which they co-exist". Is this principle to beapplied differently in different countries andregions at varying stages of development ? Aresome regions overconsuming at the expenseof others ? Should managing change in ourenvironment continue to take precedenceover changing human behaviour ? Balancing supply and demand means more risk in somecases than others. Should we, for example,use and deplete fossil water or introducegenetically modified species of plants in aplace where water is still being wasted ?

This issue leads naturally to the next - sover-eignty over water. Should water belong to thenation within whose frontiers the rain falls ?Should upstream users be able to use whate-ver water they want without concern for tho-se downstream ? There are no rules to say how water should be shared. Perhaps an evolutio-nary concept of water sovereignty is needed.

Whatever is most needed to safeguard thefreshwater environment, everyone is invitedto contribute to the WORLD FRESHWATERFUND.

KLAUS PAHLICH

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THE MAGAZINE OF THEFRESHWATER ENVIRONMENT

Volum e 1 Num ber 3

Septem ber 2000

Sole proprietors: Geoffrey Weston and Klaus Pahlich

Publisher: Arquus-Publishing Company Klaus PahlichKefedergrundgasse 5/H2, A-1210 Vienna/AustriaISDN +43 1 256 65 69Fax +43 1 256 88 15

Editor-in-Chief: Geoffrey WestonFax +44 1787 37 32 36e -mail danub e98@aol .com

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4 issues a year Austria (including postage and taxes): ATS 300,- All other countries: US$ 27.00 £ sterling 16.00

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World Water Watch is a magazine concerned primarily withthe environmental aspects of freshwater management andprotection, but seen from a wide viewpoint - independent of government, industry or any other organizations.

IMPRESSUM

WorldWaterWatch-

The Magazine of theFreshwater Environment

Jahrgang 1 / Nummer 3September 2000

Medieninhaber und Herausgeber: Klaus Pahlich

Verlag : Arquus-Verlag Klaus Pahlich

Chefredaktion: Geoffrey Weston

Grafik und Layout: Arquus-Verlag Klaus Pahlich Verlagsanschrift:Kefedergrundgasse 5/H2, A-1210 Wien/ÖsterreichISDN +43 1 256 65 69Fax +43 1 256 88 15E-Mail [email protected] http://www.worldwaterwatch.com

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Grundlegende Blattlinie: World Water Watch ist ein unab-hängiges Magazin in ausschließlich englischer Sprache überdie Umweltaspekte von Schutz und Management des Trink- wassers der Welt. Unter dem Überbegriff Umweltschutz solles die Bereiche Ökologie, Strategien der Versorgung mitTrinkwasser, Gesetz, Politik, Industrie, Ökonomie und sozia-le Faktoren abdecken.

WORLDWATERWATCH

This issue of World Water Watchreports on a number of protest

movements, including those at theSecond World Water Forum in The

Hague. They raise a number of ques-tions about their justification andabout the effectiveness of their aimsand strategies. How much do they help both the environment andhumanity?

Environmental protests in many parts of the world result in crudesuppression by the authorities, some-times accompanied by violence andeven death. In many cases, the pro-testers are courageous fighters for

their rights and are seen by non-democratic authorities as trouble-makers who are simply trying to dis-lodge their Government’s iron grip onpower.

For the despots - and probably formany protesters too - the environ-ment may be just a pretext to achievefreedom of expression. In such cases,the ultimate benefit to the environ-ment may be uncertain. As Mikhail

Gorbachev admitted in TheHague, the first free demonstra-tions in the old Soviet Union wereagainst pollution.

One of the longest battles has beenthe battle by local residents againstdams on the Narmada River, in India.The protesters have been persistent,large in number, and competently ledon an international scale - all crucialfactors for success. Most important of all, many thousands of people would

be adversely affected and their case isarguably just. As a result, a success-ion of foreign companies, govern-ments and even the World Bank havepulled out, but the battle goes on.

In Colombia, 167 members of theEmbera-Katío indigenous group wal-ked 700km to occupy the gardens of the Environment Ministry, becausethe Government ignored their consti-tutional rights to be consulted about

plans to flood their land. Their appe-als drew international attention too,and the Government was forced intoa humiliating climbdown, but the

high price they paid was a number of protesters' deaths.

Turkey's controversial Ilisu dam hasbeen the target of many internationalappeals and attacks on grounds thatare not purely about freshwater. Noend or resolution of that con-flict are in sight.

Meanw-h i l e ,t h e

Second World Water Forum was

the first global con-ference of its kind at

which non-governmentalorganizations were invited

to meet the water Establish-ment on more or less equal

terms. They made the most of it when allowed, and protest became

part of the mood of the moment.Management of water resources is

no longer to be dictatedfrom above but, in the new jargon, is"everybody's business". Because of this change in thinking, protest too isnow everybody's business, and itsinternational character, untouchableby individual governments, may holdthe key to its future success.

Is environmental protest worth while? It depends ultimately on thepeople and issues involved, but onrecent evidence, the verdict seemslikely to be a qualified "yes". Either way, the Establishment will find itimpossible to turn back the clock,and the Emberas and other protestersmay not have died in vain.

THE EDITOR

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THE WORLD WATER FUND 2

OPINION 3

WHEN THE WORLD CAME TO THE HAGUE. Impress-sions of the Second World Water Forum - its highlights,debates and conclusions, by GEOFFREY WESTON 6

A WORLD VISIONARY IN WATER CONSERVATION.Stockholm Water Prize winner Professor KADER ASMALof South Africa, whose far-reaching reforms have drawn worldwide attention, talked to JULIA BRIGHT exclusively for World Water Watch in Pretoria. 10

STOCKHOLM'S CONFERENCE OF CONTRADICTIONS,by a Special Correspondent 10

A REPORT FROM THE WORLD WIDE FUND FORNATURE LIVING WATERS CAMPAIGN 14

WHO OWNS THE RAIN ? FIONA CURTIN, Water Pro-gramme Manager of Green Cross International, draws

attention to the need for greater global attention to thematter of water sovereignty. 16

WHERE WATER AND RICE SPELL HOLY PARADISE.KLAUS PAHLICH explains how irrigation systems areadapted for growing rice, vegetables - and even for rel-gious reasons - on the Indonesian island of Bali. 18

A REPORT FROM THE RAMSAR CONVENTION ON WETLANDS 24

THE GREAT LAKE THAT NEARLY VANISHED. Withstrong support from WWF, the nations that share Lake

Chad have reached a conservation agreement that givesit new hope. EMMANUEL OBOT reports from Nigeria.LAKE CHAD: THE N'DJAMENA DECLARATION 26

BOOK REVIEWS 28

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME 29

MORE DAMNED DAMS ? Reports on protests in Colom-bia, Thailand, India and Turkey. 30

PACIFIC ISLANDS FACE TOXIC WASTE. AWARDS FOR PACIFIC JOURNALISM 31

TECHNOLOGY IN TANDEM WITH NATURE. A solarsolution from Switzerland, by KEITH HAYWARD 32

NORTH POLE LOSES ITS ICE 33

PUTIN IGNORES ECO PROTESTSLETTERS TO THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 34

CONTENTSWORLDWATERWATCH

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THE EDITOR AND PUBLISHER OF WORLD WATER WATCH ACKNOWLEDGE WITH THANKS THE SPON-SORSHIP OF THE RAMSAR CONVENTION AND THE WORLD WIDE FUND FOR NATURE LIVING WATERSCAMPAIGN.



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WORLD WATER WATCHNAMED IN EUROPEAN

ENVIRONMENT AWARDS

GEOFFREY WESTON, Editor-in-Chief of World Water Watch, was named this month

among the five finalists for the 2000 Reuters-IUCN Award for Europe, which aims to promote excellencein environmental journalism. The jury said that itstask in choosing a winner from the five finalists wasnot easy, the other four finalists being Marijana Ivano-va of the daily Denes, in Macedonia, two British jour-nalists on national newspapers - Charles Clover of theTelegraph Magazine and Justin Huggler of The Inde-

pendent - and the eventual winner Johanna Romberg of the German magazine Geo. The award is made onthe basis of a single article by each journalist. Thecommended article written by Geoffrey Weston borethe headline "Can the water environment be shieldedfrom war ?" and was published in the first issue of World Water Watch last January. It argued for theGeneva Convention to be updated to protect the natu-ral environment in war time and was commended by the jury for its originality.

The award is made annually by the Reuters Founda-tion (an offshoot of the world-famous news agency) incooperation with IUCN (the World ConservationUnion). The final jury comprised Patricia Reaney (aReuters journalist), Elizabeth Hopkins (RegionalDirector of IUCN-Ero) and Daniele Fanciullacci (anexpert in environment and development and mana-ging director of A.R.S.Progetti). In its citation on thefour runners-up for the award, the jury said: "The arti-cles reveal the maturity of environmental journalismin terms of ability to combine sound scientific infor-mation with emotions and to escape from worn-outenvironmental sensationalism."



So finally it all happened, and whatan amazingly creative, intense,

moving and enthusiastic razzmatazz

the Dutch put on - the pounding music, the glamorous singers anddancers, the audio-visual displays,the richly varied cultu-ral sidelights. It wasmore like the opening of the Olympic Gamesthan a water conferen-ce. But the Second World Water Forum lastMarch was no ordinary conference. With nearly

6,000 delegates (farmore than expected)from roughly two thirdsof the world's nations, it was the biggest meeting of minds on the subjectof freshwater in history,but from all the millionsof words and thousandsof statistics spoken ordistributed at the forum, only a few impressions can be gathered here.

In such an open, liberal country asThe Netherlands, something unor-thodox had to happen, and so it did -during the opening speech. A manand a woman protesting against theItoiz dam in Spain stripped naked infront of the speaker - President of the World Water Council Mahmoud Abu-Zeid - drowning his welcoming wordsbut ensuring beyond all doubt thatthe whole event would be noticedright across the world. This was one

of the main reasons for the conferen-ce - arousing global awareness - for water is after all at the pivotal point of global life. Even some of the moreboring speakers caught the spirit of the occasion and made themselvessound less boring.

Was it a success ? There are many ways of answering that question, andnone of them definitive. The mostimportant thing is that the World

Water Forum happened at all andthat it took place on such an interna-tional scale. The Dutch arranged

many sessions simultaneously so thatas many different groups and inter-ests as possible could be represented

and that there would be an informalcross-fertilization of ideas. It was joi-ned-up integration on a scale thatperhaps we have never seen before.The chances of unfixing fixed ideasabout water have never been greater.Moreover, the volume of information- and misinformation - was pheno-menal.

Many more questions were askedthan were answered. The world's water crisis (global mismanagement -not shortage) is now (in case anyonehad any doubts) indisputably out in

the open. But how much of it is due togreed or ignorance ? How much morecould be done through preventivemeasures to alleviate the misery andcost of natural disasters, which onespeaker said cost $98 billion a year -twice the world's aid budget ?

There were those who were reluctantto admit it is all such an intensely political subject, and inevitably a lotof people were made to feel uncom-

fortable about things that other peo-ple said. Most of the uncomfortablethings were said by environmenta-

lists or protesters of one persuasionor another. Most of those made to feeluncomfortable were political or busi-

ness leaders - thosein positions of power(real or imagined).This was a big sha-king-up process, in which many of thecomplacent wentaway feeling less cer-tain of their posi-

tions.

A wind of change was blowing, and ithad a healthy demo-cratic smell to it.Encouraged by theDutch, everyone wasallowed a voice inthe debate - a lauda-

ble policy but one that opened a Pan-dora's box for the water Establish-ment. It was all about empowermentand sharing, transparency andaccountability, more local control incommunities and encouraging allsections of society to interact.

One important emphasis fell on women, because of their integral link with water and work in many Third World countries. Surely the poorestand possibly most desperate delega-tion at the forum was the Self-Employed Women's Assocation

representing 200,000 women in theIndian State of Gujarat. Something, isseriously wrong with attitudes to women, however, if the solitary jour-nalist (out of 600 at the forum) toattend their press conference wasfrom World Water Watch.

Change meant that governments were called on to root out corruptionand fulfil their inescapable role - toact as guardians of water for all forms

WORLD WATER FORUMWORLDWATERWATCH

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WHEN THE WORLD CAME TO THE HAGUEBy GEOFFREY WESTON

All photos: Klaus Pahlich



WORLD WATER FORUM

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WORLDWATERWATCH



of life, and to promote education,research and investment. It meanttoo ensuring that the public sector was made better before abandoning water through privatization. Much of the debate turned on the ethics of water as a right, not a commodity,and so much of the fire was turned onthe powerful business lobby, whichsquirmed under the fierce fusillade.

One Indian cynic claimed that far toomany delegates had come to theforum just to stroke each other'sbacks and claimed that the forum was appealing to investors, ratherthan good citzenship. The humbling of the high and mighty was a salu-brious step forward. One frustrationfelt by many outside the business

sector was that development aid wasnot increasing and that the clearly mistrusted private sector was theonly visible source of new finance -needed at the implausible rate of $100 billion more a year. And yet, it was repeatedly said, water compa-nies are motivated by profit notpublic service.

The World Commission on Waterestimated that "Money is available

but to attract investors a predictable,transparent regulatory framework and reasonable returns on invest-ments must be provided. The estab-lishment of a global risk managementfund will further help to protectpotential investors."

Mikhail Gorbachev, now president of Green Cross, gave a fascinating sketch of the environmental devasta-tion caused through the bad plann-ning, the secrecy and the obsession with the arms race in the old SovietUnion. He recalled his childhoodmemories of terrible dust storms inthe Caucasus, where he helped hisfather during the harvests. When herose through the ranks, he wasshocked by the information that only

gradually became available to him by dint of his seniority - 14m hectareslost through dams and hydroelectricschemes and terrible damage to fis-heries all just in the Volga basin. "Asleader", he said, "I therefore orderedthat the environment should havepriority. The first free demonstrations were against pollution, and so I clo-sed more than 1,000 factories." It waseasy to see how glasnost was born.

The poor, it was argued, lackedopportunity not knowledge. QueenNoor of Jordan called for more peopleto be brought into the planning pro-cess at source, pointing out that thereis a role for the poor and the inarticu-late because they have many relevantskills.

Maritta von Bieberstein Koch-Weser,Director General of the World Con-servation Union, argued that muchmore should be done to protect sour-ces. Poor mountain people should behelped to stop water sources fromdeteriorating and paid to plantupstream areas to safeguard them.The poor, she said, were driven to dothings that they would perhaps rathernot do.

The clash between those who wanted water made a human right, those who wanted it to be a commodity tobe sold and those environmentalists who wanted water management tobe integrated into a global pattern of environmental care was totally pre-dictable. Equally predictable was thefact that the businessmen running an$8 billion industry won the day, eventhough they probably had a much


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tougher public fight than they expec-ted and can now expect the battle togo on and become increasingly toughfor them. The calls for charging muchmore for water, so that users valueand conserve it more, was music tothe ears of the big water companies waiting for more privatizations to fallon to their plates.

There is perhaps a moment in every major conference when someonesets the debate alight and the impactof the speaker of the moment is whatis remembered most when all thedelegates have gone home. It is amoment, perhaps dreaded by theorganizers (who may hope at the endto win acclaim by papering over thecracks of discord), when a flash of

eloquence lays bare unequivocably the uncomfortable truths behind theshallow rhetoric of others.

In The Hague, it was impossible topick that moment from across theboard because, out of nearly 100 sess-sions, many groups met simultane-ously. Even so, the most vivid episo-de that I witnessed came with thedevastating attack on the water com-panies by the formidably frank Mau-

de Barlow, chairperson of the Councilof Canadians, which left some chief executives of international corpora-tions speechless or red-faced withembarassment.

The following statement gives the fla-vour of some of her arguments: "It is

clear that transnational water corpo-rations are waging an offensive onmany fronts to take over the agendaof international sustainable develop-ment programs for their own profitand that political leaders, the WorldBank and the United Nations areopenly colluding. Their way is pavedby the utter failure of governmentseverywhere to protect their waterheritage. The private sector arguesthat it is time to give the private sec-

tor the chance to manage this pre-cious resource and even some envi-ronmentalists, having given up ongovernments altogether, agree. Infact, governments are losing theirright to protect their water heritageby default."

The Council of Canadians is one of anumber of organizations groupedunder the Blue Planet - an internatio-nal alliance that fights to protect

freshwater from trade and privatiza-tion. The alliance spoke bitterly of "the corporate stranglehold on theforum's agenda and outcome".

The non-government organizationsand trade unions complained that"action and implementation drags

along at a painfully slow pace con-demning millions to continue withnon-existent or unsatisfactory waterservices", rejecting the World Water Vision (the conference’s main docu-ment under consideration-see Book Reviews). "What the NGOs look fornow is real commitment and deter-mination to change matters."

The World Water Vision emerged, it was claimed, from hundreds of mee-tings attended by 15,000 participants,

but it was roundly condemned by theInternational Rivers Network as"chronically shortsighted" and "arestatement of tired orthodoxies".IRN claimed that critical viewpointshad either been ignored or relegatedto supporting documents and thatthe conclusion that privatization and

WORLDWATERWATCHWORLD WATER FORUM

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continued on p age 12



he first African to win the Stock-holm Water Prize, Professor

Kader Asmal was honoured for his"unprecedented efforts in the deve-lopment of vision, legislation andpractice in the field of water manage-ment in South Africa." He immedia-tely dedicated the award "to the mill-lions of South African women and young girls who walk kilometres to

fetch water". Professor Asmal, who will be 66 in October and is a formerhuman rights lawyer (he taught atTrinity College, Dublin, for more than20 years) told World Water Watch inhis Pretoria office that he is already earmarking some of the prize money.

He plans to write a book on the mass-sive 150-plus section Bill which helaid before Parliament in 1997 and which the following year becameSouth Africa's National Water Act - anhistoric Act hailed as "the most com-prehensive and visionary in the world" and which immediately raisedthe profile of a ministry that in theprevious Government had been scar-cely rated. Key provisions were the

"water reserve" concept - putting human needs and basic ecologicalfunctioning before the interests of commercial uses - and "water-userights", which ruled that major waterusers must pay for their consump-tion. A third provision was theacknowledgement that South Africa

has a duty to ensure that neighbou-ring states have an equitable share of water from a shared river.

A veteran member of the ANC and atireless campaigner for human rights,Kader Asmal was appointed Ministerof Water Affairs and Forestry whenNelson Mandela gained power in1994. At that time, more than 16mSouth Africans did not have reason-

WORLDWATERWATCH

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For many, one of the frustrations and disappoint-ments of the World Water Forum in The Hague lastMarch was the failure to recognize formally thehuman right to clean, fresh water. No such problemarose five months later in Sweden, where - at the 10thStockholm Water Symposium - the right to water wasdeclared, even by some of its previously most verboseopponents, as if the issue had never been deemedproblematic. A breakthrough? Perhaps, but let us

hope that it will be enshrined in official documentsand recommendations, and not only expressed attimes when the governmental and private sectors arelargely absent - as at the mainly expert-attendedStockholm symposium. Let us also hope that thiscasual acknowledgement of the right will not transla-te into equally nonchalant regard for its implicationsand enforcement.

This sign of concern for the human face of waterneeds was not really followed through during the restof the week. At the opening session the Stockholm

Water Prize winner Kader Asmal announced emphati-cally that "for the poorest and weakest, water's fordrinking, not fighting over". Even so, rejection of the"water war" rhetoric, rather than active investigationinto how to resolve real water conflicts went on todominate even the seminar on water security. Theproblems that pose a threat to water security for mill-lions are the unwillingness to cooperate and commu-nicate between basin states and actual (even physi-

cal) conflicts between local users and communitiesunder water-stressed conditions.

Another shortcoming was the failure to identify thetrue nature of the private sector. While it was agreedthat the private sector must be involved, what remai-ned unclear was what it consisted of. At The Hague,and in the plenary sessions at Stockholm, it was the big multinationals that constituted the private sectorunder fire. But, in the smaller workshops, many agreedthat it was not enough to invite Suez Lyonnaise desEaux and DuPont to join the debate; it was the smaller

STOCKHOLM'S CONFERENCE OF CONTRADICTIONSBy A Special Correspondent

Professor KADER ASMAL, South Africa's Education Minister, is renownedthe world over for his initatives in water management in his previous job asMinister for Water Affairs and Forestry and for his belief that access to wateris the right of every human being. In a ceremony during last month's 10th

Stockholm Water Symposium, King Carl XVI Gustaf presented Professor Asmal with the prestigious $150,000 Stockholm Water Prize - the equivalentof the Nobel Prize in the field of water conservation. He talked to JULIA BRIGHT exclusively for World Water Watch in Pretoria.

STOCKHOLM WATER PRIZEA A A WW W OOO R R RL L LD D D VV V I I I SSS I I I OOON N N A A AR R RYY Y I I I N N N WW W A A ATT T E E ER R R CC C OOON N N SSSE E ER R RVV V A A ATT T I I I OOON N N

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able access to safe drinking water,and 20m lacked access to safe sanita-tion. Professor Asmal responded tothese challenges impressively, gathe-ring round him a team of experts andspearheading a fundamental over-haul of water management policy

and practice.

Since his Community Water Supply and Sanitation Programme (over half the 300,000 plus employees are women), 7m more people have beengiven access to water, and the resour-ce is no longer being used as it was inthe apartheid era as a tool to fuel raci-al divisions. His message that "All forsome for now" had changed to"Some, for all, forever" became a slo-gan in the initiatives he launched.

One, which he is particularly proudof, is the Working for Water Pro-gramme, part of the National WaterConservation Campaign that USSecretary of Interior Bruce Babbitthailed as "unprecedented anywherein terms of its approach and effecti-veness". It created 40,000 jobs. Theprogramme involves hundreds of

projects to help to clear invasive alienplants that rob South Africa of up to 7per cent of its mean annual runoff."Today", Professor Asmal said, "it isthe centrepiece in combatting fires inthe Western Cape because alien vege-tation is very inflammable."

Although promoted to Minister of Education, he still retains a passiona-te interest in the conservation andusage of water. Not only is he chair-man of the World Commission on

Dams and currently working on amajor report scheduled for release inNovember, but he has implemented aschools programme to educate chil-dren about the importance of waterconservation. "In South Africa wecannot do anything without passion -

an exhilaration and conviction that you are using the utmost limits of your energy. The day I do anything ina routine way is the day I have to giveit up. Routine is death", he smiled.

Professor Asmal's direct commit-ment to water and the needs of "thepoorest of the poor" started with hisfirst ministry but, as he said, he wasinvolved in economic and socialrights in his former life as a humanrights lawyer and later lecturing and writing. His manner is mild and cour-teous, but there is no doubt as to hisconviction and determination. Whathas astonished everyone is the positi-ve response from previous water "sta-keholders". "But the beginning wasvery controversial", he explained"because the commercial forestry people objected and so did the big Afrikaaner farmers, who were concer-

WORLDWATERWATCHSTOCKHOLM WATER PRIZE

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enterprises that distribute water to the world's poorest

and so they had to be added to the firing line.

In developing countries, big companies account only for the water supplied to the better-off echelons of themajor cities, while the poor and rural communities,and those in small and medium-size towns are servedby more local private contractors. This is a group that

was strikingly absent and ignored in international dis-cussions; contributing to the fact that, as Asit K. Bis-

was stressed, it is in these smaller cities that peopleare most at risk.

The water pricing question was raised, but not resol-

ved. Ismail Serageldin called, again, for full-cost pri-cing with subsidies for the poor, while South Africa's

Water Minister Ronnie Kasrils explained that many governments lack the resources to implement wide-reaching subsidy programmes, especially for remoterural inhabitants; and Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians made an emotional appeal on behalf of those who slip through the net when water is privat-ized. Mr. Kasrils was perhaps the most convincing inhis rejection of all universal prescriptions in favour of designing pricing structures to suit particular circum-stances.

The positive side of Stockholm was quieter, but noless significant. This was the total commitment of theconference-weary participants to real progress and

was reflected in the well-attended Global Water Part-nership meetings. A new chair was elected, MargaretCatley-Carlson, and the aim of the GWP network more clearly defined - to facilitate implementation of integrated water resources management projects.This is a tall order, but it was apparent in Stockholmthat there are active initiatives already under way, lin-king people in different regions.

The symposium highlighted four needs - to end the

confusion between the value of water and its price; toabandon the habit of talking about including womenand other marginalized stakeholders and, instead, tostart listening to them; to probe the question of sover-eignty over water more deeply; and, most important,organized follow-up.

It was a conference of contradictions; hardly surpri-sing considering that, as Lester Brown of WorldWatchInstitute pointed out, as a species we rejoice when

water is found on other planets, but continue reck-lessly to squander the water we have here on Earth.



ned that the access they had wouldbe taken away. Slowly they recogni-zed that the 40-year allocation of existing rights is more than a genera-tion. At the end of the day the massi-ve part of public opinion was behindthe Act, and by engaging in debate

you can ride over issues and ten-sions."

There is still a long way to go. "Wemust move to a situation where wateris accessible to all of our people. Inthe Third World 50 per cent of thepopulation does not have access toclean sanitation and between 20 and25 per cent don't have access to water. By 2025 it is estimated that 3billion people may live in water-scar-ce countries. One third will live in

Africa. Those are enormous problemsto overcome and it's why the conser-vation campaign is so enormously important now."

Are there lessons that other countriescan learn from the South African

experience? "I think that giving waterprimacy in terms of health and socialeconomic development, taking intoaccount our neighbours' needs andthat we can settle all our disputespeacefully are good lessons", he said,adding: "Showing that we can recon-

cile effectively what seem to be irre-concilable elements is why I wasmade chairman of the World Comm-mission on Dams". So what is his atti-tude to dams and the controversy surrounding their construction?"Dams are still part of developmentbut we must stop this idea of eitherall dams or no dams. That approachis wrong. Dams may be a viable choi-ce but they are neither blanket solu-tions nor unmitigated disasters." Hepointed out, for example, that the

Mozambique Government has sugge-sted, in the wake of this year's deva-stating floods, that more dams may be required for flood control. "On theother hand we must learn muchmore about effective land use."

The forthcoming report from thecommission "will", he said," be a toolkit to guide decision-making in thefuture, to ensure that all options andimpacts are considered for maximumbenefit and the minimum costs insocial terms". Professor Asmal is opti-

mistic about the future of water con-servation "to the extent that there is amuch higher and most welcomeconsciousness of the issues involved.It is interesting that in Pakistan andIndia, where there are enormous ten-sions, there is no difficulty regarding the use of the River Indus. And Turkey and Syria are co-operating over watereven though politically they may beat odds."It is good to know that Kader Asmal isdoing his own bit for water conserva-tion - at his family home (he is marr-ried to a British woman, Louise) hehas installed electric fittings tochannel dirty bath water for the gar-den's needs. "No sprinklers" helaughs.


12

private funding were inevitable waspredetermined.

As the source of water, ecosystemsreceived remarkably slender atten-tion outside one major sessionhosted by the World ConservationUnion. IUCN's own Vision for Waterand Nature was a new approach to water resources management basedon an ecosystem approach, drawing attention to the fact that in the lastcentury we lost 50 per cent of all our wetlands, while 25 per cent of threa-tened fauna are fish and amphibians.

Richard Holland, director of WWF's

Living Waters Campaign, describedthe forum's framework for action as"flawed" and "built on a basic misun-derstanding of the role of nature inmeeting human needs". He called for

it to be reviewed. WWF said the fra-mework failed to integrate properly environmental conservation for a water-secure future. Biksham Gujja,Head of the Freshwater Programmeat WWF International attacked theforum's call for more dams: "Moredams are not the answer to the worl-d's water problems. This latest con-clusion contradicts actual discuss-sions on dams and blatantly ignoreslessons learned from past mistakes.”

The theme of the forum was "From

Vision to Action”, and to underlinethe action, Dutch Minister for Deve-lopment Cooperation Eveline Herf-kens stressed in her welcome to thevisiting government ministers that

"What we desperately need is politi-cal will". The final ministerial state-ment demonstrated all too clearly theunravelling of that elusive political will with the refusal of the ministersto accept water as a right, which cau-sed great anger among many delega-tes. The final statement was fiercely attacked for the number of escapeclauses and reservations and its com-plete lack of urgency.

The Second World Water Forum was a remarkable event by any

cont in ued from pa ge 9



standards, but not too much shebe read into the claims of success.Despite her enthusiasm in hersumming up, Mrs Herfkens's claim

that "We have started to deliverthe goods" had an ambiguous ring to it. Good-quality goods orrubbishy goods? The visiting

minister who said that the forumhad "brought us closer to the reali-ties of life" probably hit the nail onthe head.

WORLDWATERWATCHWORLD WATER FORUM

For all those 5,700 participants who attended theSecond World Water Forum and the countless others who meant to or should have done but did not, thefinal report of the forum, produced by the World Water Counci and published this month, is absolute-ly essential reading. Since no single person couldhave attended nearly 100 sessions, many coinciding,this is the definitive overall view of the event.

Most important, it makes no attempt to gloss over thedifferences of opinion and the attacks on those inpositions of power, whether in the private or publicsectors. By far the most important section is the

summary report compiled by the chairman and therapporteur of the forum, the Prince of Orange andFrank R. Rijsberman respectively. In their view this was intended to be "the birthplace of a water move-ment". With hindsight, they are probably right, or atleast most of us genuinely concerned with the watercrisis (however cynical)believe it could be, but likeany new born baby it will need to be cared for all the way to adulthood.

The key issues raised by the delegates, according tothe findings of these two authors, were privatization,

charging the full-cost price for water services, the

right to access to water services and the right to parti-cipate in water management. The authors went out of their way to recognize the overwhelmingly democra-tic view adopted by the forum, thereby modifying some of the negative impressions that many groupsfelt were being imposed on them.

While water is no longer seen as the overall responsi-bility of governments and water specialists, "It shouldbe absolutely clear that nobody proposed that thegovernment monopoly should be replaced by a priva-te monopoly. Nor that water resources should be pri-vatized."

"Crucial for many, many participants in the forum",the two authors went on, "is the need to recognizeexplicitly access to drinking water and sanitation as abasic human right" and recalled the appeal to theministerial conference to recognize this right eventhough it failed to do so.

Participation, they spelt out clearly, "implies sharing power", while most of the private sector would be"local, community actions and small to medium sca-le national companies' involvement - not internatio-nal capital." Meanwhile NGO protests were seen as a

step forward.

13

THE LAST WORD ?



Where does cotton come from ? How

is it harvested? How m uch wa ter is

used to produce cotton? Cotton

keeps us cool in warm

weather but the waywe produce cotton is

harming the environ-

ment. And so far there

is little evidence that

genetically modified

(transgenic) cotton is

more environmental-

ly-friendly.

• More than 70 percent of the world'sfreshwater withdra-

wals is for agriculture

• Just 2.4 per cent of the world's arable landis planted with cotton yet cotton accounts for 24 per centof the world's insecticide marketand 11 per cent of the sale of globalpesticides.

• 73 per cent of global cotton har-vest comes from areas under irriga-tion

Following are highlights of tworeports which can be read fully athttp://panda.org/livingwaters/cot-ton

The Impact of Cotton on Fresh-

wat er Resources and Ecosystem s

Agriculture represents a major thre-at to the conservation of freshwaterhabitats and biodiversity. Conside-ring that agriculture accounts forabout 69 per cent of global freshwa-

ter withdrawals and that rice, wheatand cotton hold together 58 percent of the worldwide irrigated area,it is obvious that these three cropsare major consumers of freshwater.

Together with flax and wool, cottonis one of the three natural fibres thathave been in use by humankind for5,000 years. Up until the 18th centu-ry, the share of these fibres used intextiles was 78 per cent wool, 18 per

cent flax and only 4 per cent cotton.Due to technical innovations,however, this has now changed, and

today cotton takes up 48 per cent of textile production, while 45 per centis taken up by synthetics and therest accounted for by other fibres.

COTTON AND FRESHWATERECOSYSTEMS

Cotton production uses agriculturalchemicals heavily and thereforeoffers a significant risk of pollutionof freshwater ecosystems withnutrients, salts and pesticides.

The application of pesticides incotton production is disproportio-nal compared to the area undercotton cultivation. Besides, mostinsecticides used for cotton produc-tion are hazardous. Cotton produc-tion affects rivers, lakes and wet-

lands by different mechanism. Run-off from fields and drainage watercontaminate rivers, lakes and wet-lands with pesticides and fertilisersand salts respectively. These pollu-tants can directly affect the biodi-versity of freshwater ecosystemsdue to their toxicity or indirectly by accumulation. The improper hand-ling of pesticides (e.g. washing of equipment in rivers or leakage) hasthe same impact on surface waters

and leads also to a direct contami-nation of ground water systems.

Water withdrawal for

extensive irrigationcan lead to falling water tables and to adepletion of freshwa-ter resources. On theother hand, extensiveirrigation in dry clima-tes results in directsalinisation of soil. Atthe same time the water tables along theirrigation channels

can increase, leading to waterlogging of soils and destructionof ecosystems.

Dam construction for irrigation andland reclamation for cotton fieldsdestroy the original vegetation andthe freshwater habitats. Besides,damming up rivers and streamsdoes affect the flow regime of surfa-ce waters and can destroy down-stream freshwater ecosystems.

Transgenic Cotton : Are there Bene-

fits for Conserva tion ?

Transgenic cotton acreage

Transgenic cotton has been cultiva-ted worldwide for 4 years. In 1999transgenic cotton was planted inonly two (i.e. U.S. and China) of thesix top cotton-producing countries, with the U.S. as the leader. U.S.cotton farmers grew transgeniccotton on almost 57 per cent of thetotal cotton acreage, whereas inChina transgenic cotton was culti-vated only on 3 per cent. Comparedto transgenic corn and soybean, theabsolute global acreage of transge-nic cotton is far less and the adop-tion rate is relatively low.

Transgenic traits

Herbicide-tolerant cotton grownalmost entirely in the U.S. was the

WORLDWATERWATCH

14

COTTON WEARS OUT THE ENVIRONMENTSPONSORED BY THE WWF LIVING WATERS CAMPAIGN

Photo: Christine Baerlocher,WWF



WORLDWATERWATCH

most important transgenic trait, with an approximate share of 55 percent of transgenic cotton in 1999and very high adoption rates. Bt-cotton acreage has slightly decrea-sed worldwide in favour of stackedvarieties (i.e. herbicide-tolerant and

insect-resistant). High adoptionrates for herbicide-tolerant traitsand substitution of insect-resistantcrops by stacked varieties arecommon trends for all transgeniccrops.

Change in pesticide use

Current statistical data for the U.S.provided by the National Agricultu-ral Statistics Service (NASS) revealno correlation between transgenic

cotton adoption rate and change inthe overall amount of insecticidesor herbicides.

• From 1996 to 1998 the acreage of Bt-cotton steadily increased rea-ching 17 per cent of the total cottonacreage in the U.S. in 1998, whileinsecticide use per acre remainedmore or less at the same level.However, according to the claims by

agro-biotechnology firms, a decrea-se in insecticide use should havebeen expected. Data that will bepublished next year will give moreinformation on this issue.

• From 1997 to 1998 no substantial

reduction in herbicide use for cott-ton farming occurred. Data on spe-cific herbicides show a substitutionby glyphosate and bromoxynil, thecorresponding herbicides to theherbicide-tolerant traits for otherherbicides. Whether current herbi-cides are replaced by less harmfulchemicals cannot be answered inthis study.

Insects that are resistant to the Bt-toxin due to the widespread use of transgenic crops with the same Bt-toxin have not yet been reported inthe field. But from previous expe-rience in development of insectici-de resistance in the U.S., one canassume that resistance against theBt-toxin is highly probable in thenear future. In the past, overuse of insecticides has led even to insecti-cide resistance to a broad spectrum

of different insecticides at the sametime. Furthermore, the incorpora-ted Bt-toxin which is produced inthe plant over the whole growing season is not sound with currentintegrated pest management (IPM)ideas in which pesticides are app-

lied only on an economical thres-hold level.

Looking Ahead

Four years of cultivation of transge-nic cotton is a short period for aproper environmental impactassessment, assuming that adapta-tion of new agricultural practices totransgenic cotton requires several years. Therefore, current trendsshould be interpreted with caution.Still, the most reliable data for thepast two years provides little evi-dence that transgenic cotton may contribute to more sustainable andenvironmental-friendly cotton far-ming. In future, better statisticaldata will in future help to assess the"environmental performance" of transgenic cotton varieties.© WWF International

15

MAJOR IMPACTS OF COTTON ON FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS AND FRESHWATER BIODIVERSITY.

Mechanism Pollutant/Change Impact Cases

Run off from fields Fertiliser, Pesticides, Eutrophication and pollutionSediments Wildlife contamination

Drainage Saline drainage water Salinisation of freshwater China, Egypt, UzbekistanPesticide or fertiliser Pollution of freshwatercontaminated drainage water

Application of pesticides Insecticides, fungicides, Wildlife contamination,herbicides and defoliants Contamination of adjacent wet-Spray drift (e.g. aerial lands, surface and ground waterapplication) Contamination of surface

Leakage of equipment and ground water

Water withdrawal for Use of ground water Change of water table or deplation New South Wales, Australiairrigation of ground water

Use of surface water Degratation of wetlands and lakes Aral Sea, Yellow River Valley

Extensive irrigation Waterlogging Raising water tables and Australia, Indus River Valley,salinisation of soil surface Uzbekistan, Pakistan

Dam construction for Regulated water flow Habitat destruction, change of irrigation water table and change of

water flow

Land reclamation Change of vegetation Habitat destruction



Lurking behind all the major politi-cal issues related to water is the elu-sive question of sovereignty. Whet-her one is asking the eternalquestion "Who owns the rain?",attempting the mammoth task of reaching agreement over the use of

the Nile or considering the trans-boundary impacts of big dams,sovereignty is the core issue. But,FIONA CURTIN argues, the fluidnature of water is more conducive tosharing than dividing.

Unfortunately, sovereignty is a word that is not only widely

misunderstood but is also often avoi-ded, as it is loaded with both negativeconnotations of nationalism andpositive ones of independence. It isan age-old notion, and nation states,particularly relatively new or smallones, are justifiably protective of it.To have sovereignty over something implies having absolute rights over itto the exclusion of others.

It is a terrible mistake for internatio-nal watercourses to have been sub- jected to this same "ours" and"theirs" philosophy, as it is contradic-tory and irreconcilable with their very

nature. To place international water-courses under the umbrella of abso-lute state sovereignty is to ignore thereality of the water cycle. Thequestion of whether a country has"sovereignty" over water flowing through it as part of an international watercourse has been debated for along time with little agreement.

This formulation of the problemencourages the protectionist and

nationalist attitudes towards waterthat are the source of most disputes,rather than emphasizing the fact thatthe renewable and fluid nature of water is more conducive to sharing than dividing.

So, what is the solution? Most coun-tries balk at the words "restrictedsovereignty". Owing to such senti-ments, the 1997 UN Convention onthe Law of Non-Navigational Uses of

International Watercourses insteadasks that "watercourse states shallcooperate on the basis of sovereignequality, territorial integrity, mutualbenefit and good faith" (Article 8).This compromise did little to placatethe fears of the upstream peoples,

was seen as a sell-out by some down-stream, and in any event, has notencouraged the implementation of the convention, which to date hasonly been ratified by 10 states.

Focusing on protection of riparianinterests is clearly not the way toreach a consensus, particularly notone that includes the world's great water powers such as India, Turkey,China and the United States. Suchnegotiations place the cooperativemanagement of international basinsat odds with national sovereignty,implying the need to make sacrifices

in the highly guarded realm of sover-eignty if any progress is to be made.This is a very static interpretation of the problem and, as has been wit-nessed repeatedly, is an ineffectiveapproach as it implies that countries

have to look beyond their own con-sumptive needs and think of others indrawing up their water plans.

Paradoxically, one of the incentivesoffered should be enhancement of national sovereignty. This is the per-spective that has been largely missedby previous analysis and politicaldebate. Better management of inter-national watercourses can strengthennational sovereignty by ensuring

more reliable access to higher quality water, thus averting the civil strifethat can be caused by water problemsand making for healthier, more secu-re nation states.

To date, most discussions of waterand sovereignty have focused on "thebig" - big governments in big statesbuilding big dams, which alter theflow of watercourses in a big way.These discussions deflect attention

away from the only true holders of sovereignty over water. For sovereign-ty is not a static political concept, butone that must be adapted to suit new realities. "State sovereignty, in itsmost basic sense, is being redefined -not least by the forces of globalization

and international cooperation. Statesare now widely understood to beinstruments at the service of theirpeoples, and not vice versa" (Kofi Annan, Two Concepts of Sovereignty,The Economist, September 9, 1999).

If we return to the ideas that, on theone hand, sovereignty implies exclu-sivity and, on the other, water is by nature a shared natural resource, itseems that the two are mutually incompatible. However, the contrastbetween the two ideas also highlightsthe fact that the only true claims tosovereignty over water spring from

fulfilling the basic needs of individu-als and the environment, both now and in the future. For these are theonly requirements that can demandprecedence over all others.

Thus, national sovereignty can beclaimed by riparian states, upstreamand downstream, only up to the pointrequired to fulfil these basic needs,and policy makers have the corres-ponding responsibility to use thisreserve of water in the way most sui-ted to meeting this objective. Where agovernment fails to make these fun-damental needs its first priority, itcannot be seen to represent truly thesovereign interest of the nation in

water terms. Beyond this sovereignreserve, water should be used andprotected in an integrated manner soas to maximize the mutual benefits itcan offer to all the people and ecosys-tems of the basin.

Beyond this reserve, countries areobliged not to jeopardize, in terms of quality or quantity, others' ability tomeet basic entitlements. The water-course should be viewed as being of

WORLDWATERWATCH

16

WHO OWNS THE RAIN?



WORLDWATERWATCH

17

common ownership, and as a sharedresource it is in everyone's interestfor the resource to be managed well.This concept should extend to "tra-ding" in the resources provided by the watercourse, including energy,flood-control and food, throughout

the basin.

It follows that the last thing thatshould be encouraged is "restrictedsovereignty". The sovereign require-ments of all people are sacred, andnations and stakeholders must coo-perate in order to ensure their fulfil-ment. The hard part is agreeing on what this entails. Basins that embra-ce different countries and peoples atdifferent stages of economic andindustrial development, and withdifferent value systems and cultures,have a hard time agreeing on any uniform definition of "basic needs"for either the individual or the envi-ronment. Even within the same sta-te, the water supply that fills thebasic needs of one person providesonly for what another would call atotally intolerable standard of living.However, it can be universally accep-ted that the availability of enough water, of an acceptable quality, to

meet the requirements of a healthy lifestyle, in terms of drinking, sanita-tion and food production, is an abso-lute minimum, and a human right.

In environmental terms, enough water must be available for the pre-servation and replenishment of natural ecosystems. Where onecountry in a basin uses water far inexcess of these needs, and anotherhas inadequate or unreliable water

resources as a result, there cannot besaid to be basin cooperation, even if agreements exist on paper.

Many agreements do exist and arefrequently cited as evidence that water is the key to regional coopera-tion not conflict. But a closer look reveals mostly flawed, single-purpo-se or one-sided terms. Whether theeffectiveness of basin agreements is

damaged by conventions that do notinclude all the relevant countries,such as those governing the Mekong and the Danube, or because they aredrawn up with the sole intention of exploiting a river for hydropower,such as those for the Parana-Plata,

or because there is neither the willnor the resources to implement orenforce the terms, it would be hardto find an example of truly integra-ted and equitable management onany of the world's 261 international watercourses.

Perhaps this is because most treatiesand conventions are signed by stateparties and in relation to purely stateinterests, such as big hydropower

projects, without involving the peo-ple, and without considering the truelimits of their nation's sovereignty.Prime examples of decisions takenin complete violation of or lack of concern for the sovereign rights of affected citizens are the diversion of the feeding rivers of the Aral Sea andthe agreements made by authoritia-rian governments in Brazil, Para-guay and Argentina over the con-struction of the massive Itaipu and Yacyreta dams.

More and more water is being takenout of the hands of small communi-ties, siphoned-off to bigger causes,and later reallocated at higher pri-ces. The human and environmentalconsequences of short-sightedmanagement and lack of considera-tion for transboundary effects cann-not be underestimated. Small won-der that people are seeking alterna-tive ways to return water to the con-

trol of its rightful owners.

The author is Water Programme

Manager of Green Cross Internatio-

nal, wh ich works to prevent conflicts

in environmentally-stressed regions

and to promote harmonious rela-

tions between humankind and the

natural environment through the

shap ing of a new value system.



WORLDWATERWATCH

18

WHERE WATER AND RIC

The BThe Balinese w alinese w orship the mounorship the moun --

tains and believ tains and believ e the sea to be thee the sea to be the

domain of evil spirdomain of evil spir its.its. Any tr Any tr ip upip up

the countless rthe countless r oads into the hillsoads into the hills

will r will rev ev eal why the locals believ eal why the locals believ ee

this parthis par t of the It of the Indonesian islandndonesian island

to be sacrto be sacred.ed. The beauty of theThe beauty of the

mountains,mountains, sculpted rsculpted r ice paddiesice paddies

and drand dr amatic v amatic v alleys aralleys ar e thee themain rmain reason why many see theeason why many see the

island as the most beautiful placeisland as the most beautiful place

on earon ear th.th. BB ali - as KLali - as KL A A US PUS P AH AH --

LICH,LICH, publisher of publisher of W W or or ld ld W W ater ater

W W atch atch ,, discodiscov v erer ed - is one gianted - is one giant

sculptursculpture.e. All photos: Klaus Pahlich



WORLDWATERWATCH

19

SPELL HOLY PARADISE



For centuries rice has shaped Bali,its land and its people. On the slo-

pes of the volcanoes the farmers,burnt away the jungle, pulled out theremaining tree roots and built up thesoil into terraces. They diverted the water with aqueducts across deep

valleys, dug new river beds andtrapped the water in the pools of theirterraces. Today the whole island lookslike a piece of landscape art.

Rice is of paramount importance tothe Balinese, and the planting andharvesting of this grain of life isaccompanied by an amazing numberof ceremonies and offerings. Balinesefarmers are still firmly rooted in theancient religious traditions surroun-ding each successful crop whichbegin before the first seed is plantedand continue up to and beyond theharvest. It is not just farmers, but the whole community that is involved inthe rice-growing process. Most rurallife in Bali revolves around this pre-cious staple - from preplanting cere-monies and planting to guarding against birds and pests and harves-ting.

The rice farmer's day begins shortly

after dawn when the men set out forthe fields, accompanied by flocks of ducks that are brought to feed all day in the flooded paddies. The undula-ting rice terraces are the most striking feature of the landscape. Each indivi-dual plot of rice, the sawah, is irriga-ted and contained by dykes of black earth, one flowing into the next like arhythmic pattern on green silk. Every farmer owning one or more sawahs iscompelled to join a subak , an agricul-

tural society that controls the distri-bution of irrigation water to its mem-bers.

Like other Balinese associations, thespirit of the subak is communal. Allmembers abide by the same rules with each allotted work in relation tothe amount of water he receives. Sub-aks help the small agriculturalists by assuring them of water, guarding irri-gation channels against efforts by

outsiders to divert the water for theirown use, repairing any damages inthe dykes and organizing banquets ata propitious time, such as the com-pletion of a harvest. At least once amonth, a general meeting is held in

the small temple of the subak , a Hin-du shrine in the middle of the ricefields dedicated to the agriculturaldeities.

Subak associations are important for

WORLDWATERWATCH BALI

20



the prosperity of the Balinese people.The mountainous terrain makes irri-gation extremely difficult. Only through this full cooperation among neighbouring farmers have the Bali-nese become renowned as the mostefficient rice-growers in the Indone-

sian archipelago. People as far away as India and Japan come to learnfrom the Balinese irrigation system.

Before the fields are planted, offe-rings are made to gain the goodwill of the Hindu deities, who provide thecrop with water and favourable con-ditions for a successful harvest. A litt-le shrine, constructed of bamboo, cannormally be found near every sawahas an altar for the offerings that areplaced there at specific times during

the growing season.

Rice planting and religion go hand inhand and everywhere, even justaround the next corner, you will meetdevout people. Agama Hindu, Bali'sdominant religion, underpins thepeaceful life of a people who havesettled below the blue mountainpeaks and above the sea’s horizon.The divine spirits (the deities andancestors) are honoured through

worship and devotion. The evil spirits(demons, witches and ghosts) areplacated through purification andexorcism. Both must be provided forsince happiness and contentmentcome only to those who take bothforces into consideration. Evenduring Galungan, the island-widefestival when all the temples ring with merriment, women do not for-get to lay down offerings of rice,sweet cakes and flowers as tokens topacify the evil spirits.

At the beginning of the last millenn-nium Oryza sativa (the scientificname for rice) was brought to thearchipelago by Indian merchants.Previously the Balinese people may just have lived off the liquid of sugar-cane - or so it has been recorded. Butthen the god Vishnu showed mercy on the hapless people. The god of Hades sneaked up to the earth und

raped Mother Earth, laying the seed. After that he threatened the god of Heaven, Indra, with war if he wouldnot show the people how to cultivaterice. From this time on, Bali was aland of rice. But, now, just 1,000 yearsafter the first rice corns were planted,

the bond between agriculture andreligion is being untied, the mytholo-gical Mother Earth again raped, butthis time it is being done by politici-ans and the chemical industry.

Every single subak nominates a klian,the title for the chairman of a subak , whose task is to coordinate the requi-rements of the subak members andthe necessities of the gods. The holy scriptures decide on which days thefarmers have to thank the gods, on which days the subak chairman hasto go to the Pura Ulun (Ulun temple)at the Bratan Lake to fetch the holy water with the priest and on whichdays the seeds should be sown. Butthe gods give the people a selection of days to choose from, and so thedirector is able to coordinate the floo-ding time with other subaks. If all1,200 subaks flooded their terraces atthe same time, the water would runout.

Some years ago, the Government inDenpasar, Bali's capital, decided on aunified planting time. The effect wasto halve the harvest. After that deba-cle, the bureaucrats left it to the thegods to decide.

Up to the 1970s, the Balinese peoplehad four words for rice: padi bali wasthe name for the growing rice, jijihthe name for harvested rice, beras theground rice and nasi the fried or ste-amed rice. In the late 1970s, most of the farmers had to learn new namesfor rice - IR 36 (tiga nam), IR 61 or PB5 were the new hybrids and the biolo-gists' response to Asia's populationexplosion. The population of Indone-sia rose to more than 200m andbrought the archipelago of Indonesiato fourth place in the world after Chi-na, India and USA.

WORLDWATERWATCHWHERE WATER AND RICE SPELL HOLY PARADISE

21

From top: Pura Ulun , t h e

t emple whence the ho ly

w ater i s fe tched b y the sub-ak ch a i rm a n ; fro m r iv er s

l ike th is the water i s d iv i -

d e d a m o n g t h e subaks( t h ird p i ct u re); a b oa rd

indica t ing the wat er shares

in a subak .



The old rice allowed one or two har-vestings a year, the miracle-rice IR 36(tiga nam) brought three harvests a year, and the farmers were told thatthe Indonesian people would nevergo hungry again. And it was true:after this “green revolution” Bali's rice

production enabled the growers toexport rice into the rest of Indonesia.

But the Balinese population is explo-ding as well: 4m people on this smallisland means much more than 1,000

inhabitants per sq km. The volcanicsoil is clearly fertile, there is plenty of water and there are three rice har-vests a year. Moreover, other productslike fruit, vegetables, tobacco, coffee,peanuts and cloves are planted. Yet,despite all this abundance, the far-

mers fear they will not be able to feedthe fast-growing population in thefuture.

Life has changed for the Balinese. It was never a problem getting rid of the

waste. People threw their organic waste into the waterways, trusting onthe next high flood during the rainy season to sweep it into the sea.Modern life brought litter that cannotrot. So you can easily find on thebeach plastic bottles and other, more

unspeakable things. Even touristsbrought a lot of problems to theisland, not only by using too much water. Many Balinese found jobs inhotels, as taxidrivers and as guides, while art, previously produced forreligious reasons, became just a sale-able commodity. In 1995 about 1mtourists came to Bali, and the island’stourist authority had the ambitiousaim of achieving 1.5m visitors a yearin subsequent years. But in the lastfive years, the whole island has been

hit by the problems of violence inother parts of Indonesia. Sixty percent of tourists failed to return. Notall of the Balinese people could goback to their occupation of farming because of the changes in rice pro-duction and now suffer poverty.

Religion too made life less easy forthe Balinese people. Thanksgiving after the harvest is now three times a year, which means that the ceremo-

nies must be celebrated three times with three lots of offerings and asking for forgiveness of the gods each time.But the gods have not been satisfied.The new rice does not grow as high asthe old padi bali, and the rice cornsdo not remain on the stalk. For thisreason the rice must be thresheddirectly on the field. This is too much work for the Balinese, and so itine-rant Javanese workers are hired to dothis job.

For the old rice it was enough to foll-low the rules of the holy scripturesand send out the ducks to clear theterraces of snails and other noxiousanimals or plants, and the ducks'droppings were enough to fertilizethe fields. The new rice needs expen-sive medicine - blue bags againstgrasshoppers, white bags against water beetles, nitrogenous fertilizer,trisodium phosphate and potash. But

WORLDWATERWATCH BALI

22

HOW WATER BECOMES HOLY

Water is not only of overwhelming importance for the Balinese but it isholy too. Their religion is often called Agama Tirtha - “the holy water reli-gion” - and so it is bound up with worship of rice. No momentous cere-mony would be complete without the services of a pendanda or highpriest. As spiritual leader of the community and carrier of the Agama Hin-du theology, the high priest (or priestess) serves as a medium for the peo-ple during ceremonies. Through an intricate ritual of hymns and mantras,bell ringing and hand gestures, the priest temporarily achieves unity withGod. By absorbing divine power into himself, he is able to prepare thepurifying holy water essential to worship. This ritual may take severalhours. Meanwhile the temple will overflow with devotees, arriving in pro-cessions, parading among the shrines with offerings and crowding aroundthe courtyard which has been transformed into a stage.

Only in the tingling sensation that filters from the constant soft ringing of a bell, does one become aware of the priest’s presence as he silently recitesthe powerful mantras. The spirit of God is embodied in the water preparedby the high priest. When the ritual has been completed, the priest passesthe holy water to the pemangku, the temple priest, who sprinkles it uponthe people as a blessing and purification.



none of this helps the new rice totaste as good as the old rice. Thehybrids consist mainly of starch. Theold rice could be stored for up to 10 years, but the new rice cannot be sto-red long, because it goes mouldy aftera few months.

For the farmers to continue their old way of life according to their religiousrules, they must be paid a higherprice for the old padi bali. They know very well why the taste of the ricedisappeared. Today rice is harvestedby machines or by big sickles. For theold rice they had a small knife, and with a quick movement they severedthe stalks.”The old rice never saw theknife. We never frightened it!”

WORLDWATERWATCHWHERE WATER AND RICE SPELL HOLY PARADISE

23

Left from t op: after the rice harvest the fields are often used for

other crops (here peanuts); in t he m ounta ins there are coffee

planta tions;m any fruits like jackfruit,snakefruit, bana nas a nd

eggfruit a re grown a nd sold along the streets. Right from top:

from big rivers the water is led into the irrigation systems.

Below: farm ers working in the ricefields.



The Ramsar Convention on Wet-lands is actively pursuing avenues

of potential collaboration with theUnited Nations Framework Con-vention on Climate Change and

will be represented at theUNFCCC’s 6th Conference of theParties at The Hague, 13-24November 2000. As part of Ramsa-r’s efforts to contribute to theemerging global agenda on theeffects of climate change, thesecretariat commissioned GerBergkamp and Brett Orlando of IUCN to study the relationships

between the world’s wetlands andthe anticipated effects of changesin the world’s climate. Their report,presented to the UNFCCC’s lastCOP, outlined many of these rela-tionships and went on to suggest

ways in which the two conventionscould work fruitfully together toaddress many of the issues thatthey have in common. The follo-

wing is an extract from Bergkamp’sand Orlando’s report which deals

with the anticipated effects of cli-mate change upon the world’s wet-lands.

Climate change impacts on wet-lands

There has been little attentiongiven so far by policymakers to therelationship between climate chan-ge and the conservation and wiseuse of wetlands. However, the pro-

jected changes in climate are likely to affect wetlands significantly, in

their spatial extent, distributionand function.

Current climate change scenariospredict an increase of 2 deg C glo-bally and a sea-level rise of appro-ximately 1.5 metres within thecoming half a century. Increasing temperatures, changes in precipita-tion, and sea-level rise are the mainaspects of climate change that willaffect wetland distribution andfunction.

Wetlands are broadly defined as avariety of shallow water bodies andhigh groundwater environmentsthat are characterized by perma-nent or temporary inundation, soils

with hydric properties, and plantsand animals that have adapted tolife in saturated conditions. Wet-

lands include, for example, flood-plains and areas along rivers andlakes that are seasonally inundated,upland areas that are covered withpeatlands, tundra areas in upperRussia, Canada and Alaska, andcoastal areas affected by the daily sea level fluctuations. Wetlandscover nearly 10% of the earth’s sur-face of which 2% are lakes, 30%bogs, 26% fens, 20% swamps and15% floodplains. Mangroves further

cover some 24 million hectares(ha), and coral reefs are estimatedto cover 60 m ha.

Wetlands are characterized by a lar-ge number of ecological niches andharbour a significant percentage of the world’s biological diversity. Wet-lands are highly dependent on

water levels, and so changes in cli-matic conditions that affect wateravailability will highly influence thenature and function of specific wet-

lands, including the type of plantand animal species within them.

Effects of sea level rise

The IPCC estimates that sea levels will rise between 1. 5 and 9 metresin the coming decades due to ther-

mal expansion of ocean water andmelting of glaciers and ice caps.Even with a stabilization of green-house gas emissions, a rise in sealevel will not peak until 2025. Alrea-dy since pre-industrial times, sealevels have risen globally between1. 2 and 5 metres.

Sea-level rise would double the glo-bal population at risk from stormsurges (from around 45m up to90m). Increased coastal flooding,

loss of habitats, an increase in thesalinity of estuaries and freshwateracquifers, and changed tidal rangesin rivers and bays, transport of sedi-ments and nutrients and patternsof contamination in coastal areasare amongst the main effects of coastal erosion. Accelerated rates insea-level rise will likely result inshifts in species compositions, areduction in wetland productivity and function.

WORLDWATERWATCH

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WETLANDS AND CLIMATE CHANGE: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

S P O N S O R E D B Y T H E R A M S A R C O N V E N T I O N O N W E T L A N D S

Peatlands play an im portant role in carbon sequestration, an im portant

mechanism in the UNFCCC’s discussions. Photo:W. J. Cooper/Ramsar



Coastal wetland flora and faunagenerally respond to small, perma-nent changes in water levels. Howe-ver, the degree to which they areable to adapt to these changes willdepend to a great extent on theability for species to"migrate"

to alternative areas. Increasedsea levels will likely force wet-land systems to migrateinland. However, this migra-tion path could be obstructedby inland land uses or by theability of these systems andtheir components to migratein time sufficient to survive.For example, many coastaland estuarine wetlands will beunable to migrate inland due

to the presence of dikes,levees or specific human landuses close to the coastal area.

Higher sea levels and increasedstorm surges could also adversely affect freshwater supplies availablefrom coastal wetlands due to salt-

water intrusion. Salt water in deltasystems would advance inlandaffecting the water quality availablefor agricultural, domestic andindustrial use. In many delta and

coastal areas the reduction of sedi-mentation due to sea level rise, damconstruction and ground subsiden-ce are already a threat to the liveli-hoods of many coastal communi-ties.

Coral bleaching

Coral reefs are the most biologicall-ly diverse marine ecosystems, butare very sensitive to temperaturechanges. Short-term increases in

water temperatures in the order of only 1 to 2 deg C can cause "blea-ching" of coral reefs. Sustainedincreases of 3 to 4 deg C above ave-rage temperatures can cause signi-ficant coral mortality. Restorationof these coral communities canrequire several centuries. A rising sea level and increasing storm sur-ges could also harm coral reefs.Many available studies indicatethat even slow-growing corals can

keep pace with the "central estima-te" of sea-level rise (approximately 0.5 cm per year). These studies donot take account of other pressureson coral populations, such as pollu-tion or enhanced sedimentation.

However, recent research suggeststhat increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmospherenegatively affect coral reef growth.Coral reefs are further affected by runoff and sediments from land-based activities that could possibly increase under a changing climate.Generally speaking, climate change

will affect those coral reef systems

that are already under stress due toa range of pressures such as over-fishing, pollution, destruction anddisease.

Hydrological effects

Wetlands will be affected in diffe-rent ways by shifts in the hydrologi-cal cycle. These include changes inprecipitation, evaporation, transpi-ration, runoff and groundwater

recharge and flow. These changes will affect both surface and groundwater systems and impact wetlandrequirements, domestic watersupply, irrigation, hydropowergeneration, industrial use, naviga-tion and water-based tourism.

Climate change is projected tointensify the global hydrologicalcycle and to have major impacts onregional and temporal water distri-

bution and availability. One of theareas most vulnerable is where pre-cipitation is currently mainly in theform of winter snowfall and wherestream-flow comes largely fromspring and summer snowmelt. In

these areas, a temperature

increase is likely to induce anincreased winter runoff and areduced spring and summerflow. For some of these areas,this would mean an increasedrisk from late winter flooding and the likelihood of reducedavailability of irrigation waterduring periods of highdemand. The changes inrunoff would, however, notonly depend on changes in

precipitation, but also on thephysical and biological condi-tions within the catchment.

The quantity and quality of watersupplies is already a serious pro-blem today in many regions, inclu-ding in some low-lying coastal are-as and small islands making theseregions particularly vulnerable to areduction of local water resources.The recharge of aquifers throughseasonal inundations of floodplain

wetland areas represents an impor-tant process for the maintenance of these water resources, upon whichmany of the societies in these aridand semi-arid regions depend.

Changes in flow regimes and waterlevels impact largely on the statusof inland wetlands. Arid and semi-arid areas are especially vulnerableto changes in precipitation as adecline in precipitation can drama-

tically affect wetland areas. The sur-face of Lake Chad, for example, hasdeclined dramatically since the1960s due to decreased rainfall anddischarge from the Chari river.

The full text of the IUCN report isavailable on the Ramsar Web site,http://ramsar.org/key_unfccc_bkg d.htm and from the Ramsar Bureauin Gland, Switzerland (e-mail [email protected])

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Coral bleaching associated with global warming and

the effects of rising sea levels threaten many of Ramsar’s most important coral sites. Photo:Ramsar Bureau



Central Africa's Lake Chad -once one of the world's biggestlakes - has shrunk drastically,

threatening wild life and man.In the mid-eighties, it nearly disappeared altogether, butrecent action by the countriesthat share it give it hope of anew lease of life. EMMANUEL ASUQUO OBOT explains theproblems.

The air is hot and dry. The rains arestill far away. A cloud of dust

forms a light haze through which you

could just make out the outline of what was a large transport boat. Thisderelict "museum" is a constantreminder that Malamfatori was oncea lakeshore city with a thriving trans-port and fisheries economy. Today,the dusty town of Malamfatori is agood two and a half hours' drive fromthe edge of Lake Chad.

In northeastern Nigeria,the Hadejiaand Jama'are rivers combine to formthe Komadugu - Yobe River. Draining fossil sand dunes in the northeast,the Komadugu - Yobe River and theChari River, which drain northwes-tern Cameroon and the southwesternChad borders, feed their water into alarge freshwater lake on the southernedge of the Sahara desert.

Once the sixth largest lake in the world, Lake Chad is now only a rem-nant of the ancient mega-lake that

covered about 350,000 sq km. In the1960s, persistent drought reducedthe lake's surface area to 25,000sqkm. At present, it measures only 2,000sq km.

Lake Chad overlaps the borders of four West African countries -Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Niger.The four countries hold 9 per cent, 42per cent, 21per cent and 28 per centof the lake basin respectively. It lies within the Sahelian vegetation zone, where rainfall at best is erratic. Its water is, therefore, an importantresource that shapes people's liveli-hoods and the human economy of this arid zone. The people practice

firki (a cropping system that usesresidual soil moisture as the lakerecedes), as well as fishing and raising livestock.

Birds and other wildlife species alsodepend on the lake for feeding andnesting. For migratory birds the lakeis a focal point for those that cross theSahara to winter in sub-Saharan andsouthern Africa.

The lake is flat-bedded and shallow (mean depth 5-8 metres). A smallchange in depth means a hugechange in the land area exposed and

surface water left. In the past theannual flooding and water recessioncycle was reasonably predictable and with the added benefit of millennia of local experience, firki developed as aproductive cropping system suited tolocal prevailing conditions, whilelivestock grazed waterlogged pasturecloser to the water's edge.

The failure of rains in 1992, sustaineddrought up to 1994, water diversionto irrigation projects from the RiverChari and large dams like the Tiga onthe Jama'are River and the Chalawaon the Hadeja River (which furtherreduce water inflow to the lake),triggered a catastrophic shrinking of the lake with the consequent loss of plant and animal habitat. Wild ani-mal numbers plummeted to suchlevels that a number of large mamm-mal species (giraffe, striped hyaena, western kob, bushbuck and sitatun-ga) are considered locally extinct.

Agricultural production became pre-carious.

Surface water for fishing has alsobeen reduced in size. The more adap-tive fishermen now practice a form of "enclosure fish culture" in whichcanals are dug to reach dry depress-sions in the lake bed. These depress-sions then fill with water. Fish moveinto this relatively deeper water. Then

WORLDWATERWATCH

26

THE GREAT LAKE THAT NEARLY VANISHED

Newly exposed shores (below left) are used by local people for growing crops so long as they retain their moisture,

wh ile surface wa ter for fishing has also been d rastically redu ced, but birds still rely on t he lake for feeding.



the canals are blocked off, the fish areallowed to grow and are later harves-ted, but fish diversity is reduced asthe fishermen's catch is dominatedby mudfish. The average size of fishshows that the population is being severely exploited.

Pasture has become very scarce. Catt-le herders now burn the sparse coar-se vegetation that is left in the hope of producing more palatable flush fortheir livestock. But no positive effectof burning as a tool for pastureimprovement can be demonstrated.The process rather seems to loosenthe dry soil and make it more suscep-tible to erosion.

The Nigerian Government, worriedabout low agricultural production inthe Lake Chad basin, took steps tointervene through the Southern ChadIrrigation Project (SCIP), in order tostabilize agricultural production. With a goal of irrigating 67,000 hecta-res, the system depended on lake water levels. As these levels fell in thelate 1980s, irrigation could not takeplace.

The irrigation channels, which were

not lined, now provide suitable shall-low water and marshy habitat foremergent hydrophytes (plants thatgrow in wet conditions). Plant biodi-versity is lost in this way, as the com-plex variety of plants adapted to thecomplex rhythm of rising - steady -falling water levels are disadvantagedin favour of emergent rhyzomatousplants that can survive long dry spell-ls. The SCIP channels are clogged with one of such plants, the bulrush

Typha australis.

The Typha stand is a preferrednesting ground of the avian pest Que-lea quelea . Quelea infestation is anadditional pressure on the already unstable livelihood systems of thelake basin. The regular loss of riceand other grain crops to large flocksof feeding quelea is a major concern.The Government has initiated a que-lea control effort through massive

aerial spraying of toxic chemical con-trol agents. While the effectiveness of this control method is an ongoing debate, the long-term effects of thesetoxic chemical sprays on other lifeforms has not been determined.

In 1990 the lake recovered part of its

conventional surface area (up to50sq km), but it was soon to recede. Why is Lake Chad unable to hold water? Extensive silt deposition onthe lake bottom due to runoff anderosion, brought about by many years of inappropriate agriculturalpractices and bush burning, havereduced the effective lake volume, while the growth of rhyzomatoushydrophytes encourages soil accre-tion and increases water loss

through increased evapotranspira-tion.

The survival of Lake Chad dependson multi-sectoral, integrated watermanagement based on good scienti-fic data and local knowledge. Thisdepends on the extent to which theriparian states - Cameroon, Chad,Nigeria and Niger - can be persuadedto work together, and with the localpeople, on water management, bio-diversity conservation and sustaina-ble rural development. The recentagreement, signed in N'djamena (seebox), gives new hope for the lake.

The author is a research fellow interes-ted in the macrophytic vegetation of large lakes.

WORLDWATERWATCH

27

LAKE CHAD:THE N'DJAMENA DECLARATION

On July 28, the heads of state of the five country members of the LakeChad Basin Commission (LCBC) meeting in N'djamena, Chad, reachedcrucial decisions about the future of Lake Chad. In a joint statement they

committed themselves to conserving Lake Chad and to seeking officialdesignation of 2.5m hectares through the Ramsar Convention as a wet-land of international importance. WWF, which gives the five LCBC mem-ber countries financial support, welcomed the move. "We hope to seegovernments moving forward with this commitment in the near future,and we will support them in achieving this important objective", saidRichard Holland, Director of the WWF Living Waters Campaign.

The LCBC presents an excellent institutional framework for implemen-ting integrated management of Lake Chad's resources. The commission was created in May 1964 by Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Niger and wasexpanded in 1994 to admit The Central African Republic, where a greaterpart of the Chari River basin lies, and again at the recent summit meeting

to include Sudan. It aims "to regulate and control the utilization of waterand other natural resources in the basin; to initiate, promote and coordi-nate natural resources development projects and research within thebasin area; to examine complaints; and to promote the settlement of dis-putes, thereby promoting regional cooperation."

The commission has initiated a project on the integrated management of the lake basin. Financed by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), thisproject aims "to set up a coordinated, integrated and sustainablemanagement of the international waters and natural resources of LakeChad."

Meanwhile, the WWF Living Waters Campaign is working with the gover-

ments of Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria, Niger and the Central African Repu-blic to carry out a survey of Lake Chad and other wetlands, as well as pro-moting their national conservation efforts and wise use of wetlands.



World Water Vision - Making Water

Everybody's Business, by WilliamJ.Cosgrove and Frank R.Rijsbermanfor the World Water Council (Earths-

can, £12.95, US$19.95)Clearly a great deal of research hasgone into this analysis of the world water crisis, presented at the Second World Water Forum last March. "Thecrisis is not about having too little water to satisfy our needs. It is a crisisof managing water so badly that bill-lions of people - and the environ-ment - suffer badly." That is theauthors' approach.

Had the authors reversed their priori-

ties and said that the environmentsuffers so badly that all forms of life -

including billions of people - alldependent on a healthy environ-ment, suffer badly, then they might

not have attracted such a torrent of attacks that the Vision attracted at theThe Hague forum and were fed to thismagazine from elsewhere. A healthy freshwater environment is not a kindof optional side salad to the humanmain course but an essential ingre-dient for survival.

That is not to say that the Vision doesnot contain a great deal of valuablematerial: it does, and it spells out cle-arly the growing needs. Especially

valuable - even though they are notnew concepts -are the emphasis on aholistic approach and the democraticneed to spread the control of water

management among all stakeholders.But perhaps the Vision should havespelt out the horrors of inaction moregraphically too.

The Vision of what the water environ-ment could be like in 2025 dependsapparently on the world understan-ding the dangers and adopting all thenecessary strategies presented by theexperts who compiled the materialfor this ambitious analysis.

Governments worldwide, in contrastto the familiar pattern of their pre-vious behaviour, will suddenly throw off their past lethargy towards envi-ronmental care and adopt and imple-ment the right decisions. At the sametime they will monitor carefully (asnever before) the management of water by a corrupt-free private sector, which, in turn, will happily drum upthe extra $100 billion needed every year. Meanwhile, Bangladeshi refu-gees fleeing from one of their perenn-

nial flood disasters and Ethiopianscollapsing from yet another famine will be relieved to hear that the freshwater they desperately need will beavailable at a price they can afford.

Is this a viable vision of the future or just a utopian fantasy ?

POURING COLD WATER ONFIXED IDEAS

The Blue Revolution - Land Use

and Integrated Water Resources Management , by Ian R.Calder(Kogan Page, £15.95)Professor Calder upsets establis-hed thinking in his deep-thinking study of changes taking place inthe development of new plans andstrategies for land/water interac-tion. “Much folklore and many myths remain about the role of land use and its relation to hydro-logy, which hinder rational deci-

sion making”, he writes. “This isparticularly true in relation toforestry, agroforestry and hydrolo-gy, where claims by enthusiasticagroforesters and foresters areoften not supportable.”

In this section he poses a number

of questions, followed by analyti-cal answers: do forests increaserainfall, increase runoff, regulateflows, reduce erosion and floods,sterilize water supplies and so on?He destroys the fixed idea thatmore forest means better waterresources and vice-versa.

New breakthroughs in waterresource management are outli-ned - from the UN Conference on

Human Resource Development upto vignettes of the Global WaterPartnership and the World WaterCouncil. There are long, chapterson water resource conflicts and onintegrated water resources man-agement and the philosophy behind it.

NOT ALL GLOOM - BUTMOSTLY

Global Environment Outlook 2000

(UNEP/Earthscan)

This comprehensive integratedassessment of the global environ-ment at the millennium acknowled-ges efforts being made "but recogni-zes that many of these are too few and too late", made worse by the low priority and meagre funding alloca-ted by government at all levels worldwide. Amid more positive news,UNEP's executive director Klaus Töp-

WORLDWATERWATCH

28

BOOK REVIEWS VISION OR FANTASY ?



WORLDWATERWATCH

29

fer admits that, frustratingly, "It isusually impossible to determine which policy contributes to whatchange in the state of the environ-ment, and furthermore there are few mechanisms, concepts, methodolo-gies or criteria for making these poli-

cy assessments."

The book, presented in non-techni-cal language, is the familiar story of time running out, new problems ari-sing and moving in the right direc-tion but far too slowly. It covers the world region by region, recommendspolicy actions and offers future per-spectives.

The section on freshwater examines

rising consumption levels and theeffects on health of pollution fromsewage, fertilizers, pesticides andindustrial waste. Overabstraction andthe need for good management arealso covered.

GEO 2000 will be an essential referen-ce work for research and environ-mental policy making on an interna-tional scale.

OFFBEAT FINGER ON THE WORLD'S PULSE

Vital Signs 2000 - The Environm ental

Trends that are shaping our future,

by Lester R. Brown, Michael Rennerand Brian Halweil (W.W.Norton, $13

USA $19 Canada)

This is the ninth volume in an annualseries by staff from the award-winn-ning WorldWatch Institute in Was-hington. It aims to document key trends that tend to be missed by themedia, economists and world lea-ders.

Did you know that by the beginning of the new millennium, eight coun-

tries (all in western Europe) had rai-sed taxes on environmentally harm-ful activities and used the money topay for cuts in income tax ? That far-mers are overpumping regionalgroundwater by at least 160 billion cumetres a year ? That 30-80m people inBangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal are drinking water con-taining arsenic at levels that are 5-100times WHO safety limits ?

These and other environmentaldetails are documented in sectionsthat cover food, energy, agriculturalresources, the atmosphere, the eco-nomy, transport, society and military trends, as well as special environ-mental features, tables and graphs.

The carefully selected data have beencollected from many authoritativesources and distilled into a continu-ously studied pattern of trends.

POLLUTION - PREVENTION AND CURE

The Water Crisis - Constructing Solu-

tions to Freshwater Pollution, by Julie Stauffer (Earthscan, £12.95)

This study (aimed at students) of theroots of freshwater pollution - urba-nization, industrialization and inten-sive farming - is based on case stu-dies of the Rhine and the Great Lakes.It contains a clear sequence of sec-tions on problems, prevention andsolutions, with a chapter on the spe-cial issues of groundwater.

GEOFFREY WESTON

•THE UNFCCC’S 6TH CONFERENCE OF THE PARTIES at The Hague, The Netherlands, 13-24 November 2000

• THE SECOND WORLD CONSERVATION CONGRESS (WCC2), Amman, Jordan, 4-11 October 2000

• IFW 2000 /WASSER BERLIN, International Trade Fair Water, Berlin, Germany, 23-27 October 2000

• SAUDI AGRICULTURE, Agriculture Water & Agri-Industry Show Incorporating Saudi WaterTech & Saudi ProPack,Riyadh, Saudi-Arabia, 8-12 October 2000

• THE BIG 5 SHOW , International Exhibition for Building, Water Technology & Environment,Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 15-19 October 2000

• VODOKANAL, Exhibition For Water Supply And Water Processing, Novokuznetsk,The Russian Federation, 14-17 November 2000

• TURRET RAI, WETSHOW , National exhibition covering all aspects of water and wastewater treatment,Harrogate, United Kingdom, 11-12 November 2000

THE S HA P E O F THINGS TO CO ME WAT E R F A I R S A N D C O NF E R E N C E S



WORLDWATERWATCH

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A fter persistent protests and inter-national pressure on the Colom-

bian authorities for suppression of human rights during protests againstthe $780m Urra dam (see World Water Watch, January 2000), the Govern-ment in Bogota has largely given in tothe protesters' demands after pre-

viously ignoring their constitutionalrights. Members of the Embera-Katíoindigenous community occupied thegarden of the Ministry of Environ-ment for three months until theminister agreed to talk with them andthe Government agreed to a massiveclimbdown in its authoritarian stan-ce. The Government even paid for thetransport to enable the protesters toreturn to their homes.

The Emberas are to be given com-pensation by Urra S.A. for their floo-ded lands to enable them to resettleelsewhere, and the company is torestock fisheries in the Upper SinuRiver basin reservoir, rivers and stre-ams until the fish population has sta-bilized. Both the company and theGovernment have agreed that any future negotiations concerning thedam that may affect the Embera-Katío people will (unlike in the past)comply with the law, and the localpeople will be duly consulted. Thepolice and the army will not be usedto suppress their legitimate rights.

An important aspect of the agree-ment is that the Emberas will begiven a role in decommissioning thedam, perhaps the first time that dam-affected peoples have secured such aclause. The Emberas failed, however,to win the 32,000hectares of land they demanded but were given 12,880

hectares, althoughtheir settlement onthis land mightprevent construc-tion of a seconddam, and theGovernment has

declined toauthorize sucha project. More-over, the pro-tection of

important wetlands has still not beensecured.

As World Water Watch went to press,however, news of four more Embera-Katío killings was announced. OnSeptember 19, heavily armed gun-men shot dead four leaders and

abducted but later released 20 moreEmberas, claiming that they wouldnot leave until they had forced theEmberas to abandon their traditionallands.

Local newspaper reports suggestedthat, because they lived in a strategiccorridor, the indigenous tribe hadbeen caught up in a war betweenguerrillas and paramilitaries paid tolook after the interests of big landow-ners. In their recent attack, the gun-men seized fishing supplies that for-med part of the agreement signed with the Government: the fish are themainstay of the Embera diet.

"The US Government is supporting the Colombian military with a $1.3billion aid package. As the paramili-taries are well known to be backed by the military, the US is in effect supp-porting these atrocities againstColombia’s indigenous population.

The US should halt this aid packageimmediately", Monti Aguirre, Latin American campaigner with the Cali-fornian-based International RiversNetwork said.

IRN was named in the April agree-ment as one of the agencies that would monitor its implimentation.

TROUBLE IN THAILAND

An article from Thailand published in

The Christian Science Monitor lastmonth drew attention to the fact thatthe World Bank has been the largestsource of funds for dam-building worldwide, displacing 10m people inthe course of carrying out its policy of alleviating poverty, causing severe

environmental damage and pushing borrowers into further debt. The Pak Mun dam, in northeast Thailand hasdevastated the fisheries on the MunRiver and destroyed the main liveli-hood of 25,000 villagers.

Encouraged by worldwide move-ments against dams, 3,000 protestershave occupied an area near the damfor the past 18 months, demanding that the dam gates be permanently opened and that the World Bank

assume the responsibility for itsactions and admit its mistakes. Thebank and the state-owned builder of the dam EGAT claim that the dam is asuccess and that the people are bett-ter off.

The World Commission on Dams,however, has criticized the project,saying that it has failed to generateanything like the planned amount of electricity and that a fish "ladder"built to meet local demands does not work, while 56 species of fish havedied out and local incomes have con-sequently fallen by $1.4m a year.

GERMANS WITHDRAW FROMNARMADA PROJECT

After well over three years of plannedinvolvement, the German electricity giant Siemens has withdrawn fromthe Maheshwar dam project on Indi-a's Narmada River, together with the

funding bank HypoVereinsbank. Theproject was sharply criticized this year by the German DevelopmentMinistry after receiving a criticalreport on the questions of rehabilita-tion and resettlement of local inhabi-tants. The Maheshwar hydroelectricproject would submerge the land,homes and livelihoods of more than40,000 people in 61 villages and floodthousands of acres of rich agricultu-ral soil and profitable sand quarries.

COLOMBIA CAPITULATES- OR DOES IT ?



WORLDWATERWATCH

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The Siemens decision is only thelatest of a series of withdrawals by Western companies from the Narma-da River projects. The United Statespower firm PacGen withdrew in 1998and two other German power utili-

ties, Bayernwerk and VEW Energie,pulled out in 1999 because of vehe-ment local opposition. Even so, the

New York-based Ogden Corporationstill apparently aims to take a 49 percent share in the Maheshwar dam,after giving assurances that it wouldrespect human rights and the envi-ronment. The World Bank and theJapanese Government decided to

withdraw from the most controversi-al Narmada project, the Sardar Saro-var dam, in the early 1990s.

BRITAIN'S "ETHICAL"FOREIGN POLICY DENTED

BY TURKISH DAM

A confidential report, commissionedby the British Government into Tur-key's controversial Ilisu dam projectand leaked to The Guardian newspa-

per, has revealed substantial unde-restimates of the misery it wouldbring to many thousands of people.

Up to 78,000 Kurds, three times thenumber originally thought, will bemade homeless and landless by theBritish-backed scheme.

Britain's Foreign Minister RobinCook proclaimed an "ethical" foreignpolicy when the Labour Party was

elected to power in 1997 but hasincreasingly been criticized for notliving up to this ideal. Some £200m of taxpayers' money has been used by the British Government to back thecontractors Balfour Beatty so that thedam can be built.

The report said that the dam wouldflood the most fertile irrigated landin the area, while the TurkishGovernment has been heavily critici-

zed for its allegedly poor record inresettling displaced people in suchcircumstances.

PACIFIC ISLANDSFACE TOXIC WASTECLEANUP

F

ifty contaminated stockpiles of chemical waste have been identi-

fied in 13 Pacific island states, an offi-cial report says. The waste includesoil in old power transformers, whichcan contain toxic polychlorinatedbiphenyls, pesticides and timber tre-atment waste. The report, by theSouth Pacific Regional EnvironmentProgramme (SPREP), presents a sur-vey prepared over the past two yearsin the Cook Islands, the FederatedStates of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, theMarshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau,

Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga,Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

The survey - carried out by threeSPREP consultants and funded by AusAID - stated that the stockpilesresulted from chemicals that were nolonger used or required, while othersstemmed from leftover supplies fromcrop development trials. Much of the waste can only be disposed of by means of high-tech methods that are

not available in the affected coun-tries. As a result, it will need to bepacked in special containers andshipped to other countries for dispo-sal. The cost will be $5m-$10m.

According to a SPREP waste manage-ment expert, Dr. Bruce Graham, "the

survey showed there was a need forsignificant improvements in themanagement of hazardous materialsin Pacific island countries". Morethought should be given to matching purchasing with actual requirements,and in the case of development projects some provision should be madefor unwanted materials to be retur-ned to the point of supply. SPREP isoffering assistance to the affectedcountries and will be approaching possible donors for assistance with

the clean-up operation, including AusAID.

AWARDS FOR PACI-FIC JOURNALISM

Four International Green Pen Awards were made on July 27 at

Nadi, in the Fiji Islands, the PacificIslands News Association (PINA)

reported. Two went to Pacific Islandseditors and two to other recipients who had helped to develop environ-mental journalism in the Asia-Pacificregion.

Mrs Anna Solomon, editor-in-chief of Papua New Guinea's Word Publishing newspaper group in Port Moresby,received her prize for the investigati-ve reporting she inspired, contribu-ting to changes in policies and lawsgoverning forestry and protection of the environment. Mr Yohei Sasakawa,president of the Sasakawa PacificIsland Nations Fund in Tokyo, washonoured for initiating and suppor-ting for many years a highly success-ful exchange programme for environ-mental journalists between Japan'sislands and the Pacific islands. A third

award went to Giff Johnson, editor of the Marshall Islands Journal Majurofor stripping away the secrecy surr-rounding the American atmosphericbomb tests in the Marshall Islandsand their impact on the local inhabi-tants. The fourth award went to a Fili-pino, Adlai Amor, for his lifelong dedication to development of envi-ronmental journalism and his key role in the Pacific Forum of Environ-mental Journalists.

Narmad a d am



Contaminated drin-king water causes widespread illness anddeath, but there is a

simple way to destroy the microbes often toblame. KEITH HAY- WARD, editor of Water21 - Magazine of

the Internat ional Water

Association, reports onhow this method is cat-ching on.

Like all good ideas,SODIS is a simple

solution to a big pro-blem. It derives itsname from the princi-ple on which it is based - solar disin-fection - and harnesses this principleto destroy microbes contaminating drinking water. The result is waterthat is safe to drink, achieved using aslittle as a plastic bottle and severalhours of sunlight.

Development of this technique isbeing driven by researchers at SAN-DEC, the Department of Water andSanitation in Developing Countriesat the Swiss Federal Institute for Envi-ronmental Science and Technology (EAWAG). Work started almost adecade ago, and the early years werespent proving that the approach would work, first in the laboratory and then in field tests in Colombia,Jordan and Thailand. This was followed by further work on social aspectssuch as acceptance and affordability,

in demonstration projects in sevencountries including China, Togo andColombia. Now at last the developersare confident SODIS has reached apoint where it can be taken up moregenerally.

SODIS makes use of the fact that sun-light causes water to heat up andcontains ultraviolet light. Water canbe treated in specially-developedsquare, flat plastic bags, made of a

clear top sheet and a black bottomsheet. Alternatively water can be tre-

ated in plastic drinks bottles with onehalf painted black, which is now generally the preferred option. In eit-her case the container is placed on ametal surface to maximise the hea-ting effect. These arrangements allow the water being treated to be exposed

to enough ultraviolet light and reachhigh enough temperatures - around50 degrees C - for microbes in the water to be destroyed. However, athigh ultraviolet radiation intensity asexperienced, for example, in the Andes, SODIS is efficient also at lowertemperatures. Furthermore, since the water is treated in a sealed containerthe chance of recontamination priorto consumption is kept to a mini-mum.

The key to using Sodisis to ensure that the water is exposed tosunlight long enough

for disinfection to becompleted. About fivehours of sunlight arerecommended underclear or partly cloudy skies. This needs to beincreased to two daysunder cloudy condi-tions. As an additionalcheck, EAWAG / SAN-DEC has developed aparaffin-filled tempe-

rature sensor intendedfor use primarily indemonstration pro-

jects. The small cylinder can be pla-ced in bottles and the paraffin meltsat 50 deg C, so the sensor can be usedto provide confidence that the pro-cess works under local conditions.

SODIS is not being promoted as asolution to all drinking water pro-blems. Not all contamination is by microbes: chemicals such as arsenic

can pollute water sources, and SODIS will not remove these. It is only suita-ble for producing relatively smallquantities of purified water, and the water to be treated needs to be relati-vely clear. Also, it is of course depen-dent on sufficient sunlight.

Having said this, SODIS has thepotential to be used widely, and theefforts of the developers have now turned to achieving this. These eff-

orts were given a boost earlier this year when SODIS won the $50,000first prize in a competition for new ideas for improving water supply andsanitation in developing countriesheld by the Dutch foundation SIMA- VI. SODIS is currently being evalua-ted in Indonesia, Nepal, Bolivia andNicaragua, with the promotion inIndonesia and Bolivia being at anational level. Firm plans for furtherevaluation of SODIS include a large

TECHNOLOGY IN TANDEM WITH NATUREWORLDWATERWATCH

32

Photo: Mart in Wegelin , EAWAG/SANDEC

A SOLAR SOLUTION FROM SWITZERLAND



WORLDWATERWATCHTECHNOLOGY IN TANDEM WITH NATURE

study in Bolivia which it is hoped willshow how public health improves asa result of using the technique.

"SODIS is ready for worldwide disse-mination", comments Martin Wege-lin, one of the developers. "However,

the process should only be promoted

in situations where there is a need toimprove the microbiological quality of the drinking water, where the cli-matic conditions are favourable anda supply of plastic bottles available,and where people show an interest inimproving water quality."He also sees

that SODIS has a wider role to play in

improving public health: "SODIS canalso be used as a tool to addressissues and to attract the interest of the target population in generalpublic health campaigns.’

For more information on SODIS, see:

www.sodis.ch

33

A ccording to a report by LesterR.Brown, chairman of the Was-

hington-based Worldwatch Institute,"if any explorers had been hiking tothe North Pole this summer, they would have had to swim the last few miles". To the surprise of many scien-

tists, an ice-breaker cruise ship disco-vered open water at the pole in mid- August, providing one of the mostgraphic proofs of the acceleration inglobal warming.

At the North Pole, the melting ice isby and large salty, but on nearby Greenland or around the South Pole,the ice remaining on land comprisesfreshwater. Greenland is gaining some ice on higher ground but losing far more along the southern andeastern coasts - some 51billion cumetres a year, according to the World- watch report, equivalent to the annu-al flow of the Nile.

The Antarctic - a continent roughly the size of the United States - has arelatively stable ice sheet about2.3km thick, but the ice shelves, thoseparts of the ice sheet that extend intothe sea, are fast disappearing. Bet- ween about 1950 and 1997, United

States and British scientists estimatethat the two sides of the Antarcticpeninsula lost some 7,000 sq km, butthen within scarcely another yearthey lost another 3,000sq km.

The snow and ice amassed on the world's major mountain ranges issimilarly shrinking - in the Alps andthe Andes, the Rocky Mountains andthe Himalayas. The ancient glaciersof the Alps have shrunk by 35-40 per

cent since 1850 and could disappear within 50 years at the current rate of depletion. The Quelccaya glacier inthe Peruvian Andes shrank 3metres a year between about 1970 and 1990,but since then has been shrinking 30metres a year. In the Himalayas, the

picture is even more alarming:India's Dokriani Bamak glacier, which retreated 16 metres between1992 and 1997, lost a further 20metres in 1998 alone.

Research has shown that a rise intemperature of only 1-2 deg C inmountainous regions can dramati-cally increase the proportion of preci-pitation falling as rain, cutting theshare falling as snow, resulting in lesssnowmelt to feed rivers in the dry season. Melting snow and ice in theHimalayas affects water supplies inmuch of Asia, since the Indus, Gan-ges, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow rivers all originate there, while a World Bank report indicated that a1metre rise in sea level alone woulddeprive Bangladesh of half of its rice-growing areas. A new breed of clima-te refugees would be created in Chi-na, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Meanwhile, at the end of last month,a Canadian police vessel, the Nadon,became the first recorded ship ever tosail through the celebrated North- west Passage in open water, insteadof finding pack ice. The discovery could prove an important commerci-al one, as the route would cut about5,000 miles off the journey betweenJapan and Europe.

The Nadon encountered 8,000 milesof open water , and on August 31 itslog stated "Surprisingly free of sea ice.The clear waters through which weare navigating are usually obstaclecourses for mariners".

Conservationists are, nevertheless, worried that commercial exploitationcould irreversibly damage the envi-ronment, especially if the route isadopted by oil tankers. Even the new ice-free conditions can be dangerous.

British and American scientistshave discovered that Arctic ice haslost half its thickness in the last 50 years because of changes in windpatterns that have melted the ice.The Nadon also reported an increa-se in the number of icebergsbreaking free of Greenland, which itattributed to global warming or "anew cyclical pattern of which weare not yet aware."

Unlike the South Pole, the

North Pole's ice is m ostly salty.

NORTH POLE LOSES ITS ICE



PUTIN IGNORESECO PROTESTS

Environmentalists are scepticalthat Russia's President Vladimir

Putin will reconsider his decision lastMay to abolish his country's State

Committee on Environmental Protec-tion and Federal Forest Service despi-te international protest and apparentpressure from the World Bank. Theenvironmental protection duties of the abolished agencies have beenallocated to the Ministry of NaturalResources, which ironically has areputation for aggressive exploitationof resources. The decision outragedRussians, 87 per cent of whom con-demned it in a recent poll.

Despite these moves, the World Bank shortly afterwards approved la $60mloans to Russia, followed by a $200mloan this month. In July more than 60Russian environmentalists sent a lett-ter of protest to World Bank presidentJames Wolfesohn, who claimedrecently that "We’re preapared tomake a loan, but only, only pay when[Russia has] reestablished environ-mental conditions [that] can be moni-tored and supervised.”

According to Doug Norlen, policy director at California's Pacific Envi-ronment and Resources Center, thebank "has an internal culture of approval that creates pressure for it tocave in to weak reforms in the interestof bureaucratic expediency."

In Russia's Kamchatka peninsula, which has by far the world's richestsalmon fisheries, a regional head of the state committee reversed hissupport for a UN programme to pro-tect salmon watersheds, coveted by the Ministry of Natural Resources fortheir gold and gas deposits - allegedly to keep his job. Meanwhile the Toron-to Globe and Mail reported last monththat Kamchatka's Kurilskoye Lake where 1.7m salmon spawn, attractsgangs of poachers who arrive by heli-copter to slaughter the salmon fortheir eggs. The eggs sell for $22 a kiloin Russian shops, whereas the basicfine for a poacher is less than $5.

INDIA'S WATERCONSUMPTION

From the Professor of Hydrogeology,

Memberof the Royal Academy of

Sciences and former President of theInternational Association of Hydro-

geologists, University of Madrid

First my congratulations on the firsttwo issues of World Water Watch, which I have read with great interest.

Nevertheless, I would like to pointout a mistake in Geoffrey Weston' sarticle "The World's Wake-up Call". Inthis article is written "In India agri-

culture ominously drinks 93 per centof all renewable water: humans, eco-logy and industry have to share theremaining 7 per cent between them.

The error consists of considering thatthe water used or applied in India isall renewable water. According toseveral Indian documents the totalaverage renewable water (surfaceand groundwater) is about 2,500 cukm per year; from this about 50 percent is considered usable. Humanuse for agriculture, urban and ruralsupply and industry is about 600 cukm per year. Therefore, the currenthuman use of renewable water(diversion from rivers and reservoirsand groundwater pumpage) is only about 25 per cent of total renewableresources.

M.RAMON LLAMAS

Catedra de HidrogeologiaDepartamento de GeodinamicaFacultad de CienciasUniversidad Complutense20040 MadridSpain

[The figures were supplied in a pressrelease from the World Commissionon Water for the 21st Century. -Geoffrey Weston]

DEPENDENCE ONIRRIGATION

From the Chief Technical Adviser:Support to Water Resources Manage-ment, Dak Lak, Vietnam

As a Danish-funded adviser leading alarge water management project in aremote duty station in the Vietname-se highlands, I receive news ratherlate. Consequently it was only recent-ly that the first issue of World Water Watch reached me.

Congratulations ! How different it isfrom other water magazines, whichalways seem to be no more thanextended efforts for a very limitedand highly specialized constituency

and rarely, if ever, approaches thesubject from the environmental cor-ner, but rather that of the institutio-nal engineer. Your magazine fills aclear niche, and the first edition atleast appears to do so in a broad-fronted, nicely vernacular fashion.

The interview with Ismail Serageldin was particularly encouraging. It is wonderful to see distinguished offici-als in high places corroborating on aglobal level the very issues that we aretrying to engender at both the grass-roots and national levels.

I do have a question, however. Statis-tics relating irrigation demand to theglobal water crisis are always usefulfor conferences and workshops. Atthe most recent meeting of the Inter-national Network on Conference onParticipatory Irrigation Management(Hyderabad, December 1999), Dr Fer-nado Gonzales, of the World Bank,stated that 65 per cent of the world'sfood supplies depend on irrigationand that this percentage could climbdrastically as population continues torise. This is inconsistent with Dr Sera-geldin's statement that only 40 percent of the extra food will require irri-gation.

It would be helpful if someone couldclarify this inconsistency.

PHILIP J.RIDDELL

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

WORLDWATERWATCH

34



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1.4 billion people lack access to safe, clean water. There might be a lifetime’s

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