Death of the world's rivers

[carbar]

The world's great rivers are drying up at an alarming rate, with devastating consequences for humanity, animals and the future of the planet.

The Independent on Sunday can today reveal that more than half the world's 500 mightiest rivers have been seriously depleted. Some have been reduced to a trickle in what the United Nations will this week warn is a "disaster in the making".

From the Nile to China's Yellow River, some of the world's great water systems are now under such pressure that they often fail to deposit their water in the ocean or are interrupted in the course to the sea, with grave consequences for the planet.

Adding to the disaster, all of the 20 longer rivers are being disrupted by big dams. One-fifth of all freshwater fish species either face extinction or are already extinct.

The Nile and Pakistan's Indus are greatly reduced by the time they reach the sea. Some, such as the Colorado and China's Yellow River, now rarely reach the ocean at all. Others, such as the Jordan and the Rio Grande on the US-Mexico border, are dry for much of their length.

http://news.independent.co.uk/enviro...icle350785.ece

[LaoziSailor]

Barbara,

You are making me feel very uneasy. Water is an issue at the forefront with me.

I am a member of The Council of Canadians and you can see World Water Day March 22, 2006 discussing

March 22 was designated World Water Day in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, to raise awareness about the importance of preserving global water resources. Since then, communities, organizations and activists around the world have come together every year on March 22 to highlight water struggles and the need for clean, accessible, public water for everyone.

[carbar]

Originally Posted by LaoziSailor

Barbara,

You are making me feel very uneasy. Water is an issue at the forefront with me.

It makes me really uneasy too.
I think that those of us who have what seems like endless supplies of water (in other words those in the 'developed' world, urban dwellers in particular) are very wasteful of water. The only time we really consider the quantities we use is when, in the summer, we are told there is a drought and we must cut back. It seems such a gross inconvenience. Yet over the other side of the world there is someone who only gets water once a week for a couple of hours.
Mr Finkel in another thread called us Europeans 'dirty', and implied we never washed! Hey maybe it is just as well we hold back once in a while on dousing ourselves in water! Seriously though, the world can't sustain us all if our natural resources dry up.

[carbar]

Big water companies quit poor countries

Millions of people could have to wait years for clean water as some of the world's largest companies pull out of developing countries because of growing doubts about privatisation projects, a major UN report reveals today.
Political and consumer unease about multimillion-pound schemes that were intended to end the cycle of drought and death that has afflicted many countries is forcing major multinationals to think again. "Due to the political and high-risk operations, many multinational water companies are decreasing their activities in developing countries," says the UN's second world water development report, published today in Mexico City.

"In many settings, privatisation is a heavily politicised issue that is creating social and political discontent and sometimes outright violence."
Many companies have met intense political resistance in the past five years after winning large contracts to supply cities but then having to raise prices significantly. Some have been forced out of countries, others have left voluntarily.

The report cites Thames Water leaving Shanghai, Saur leaving Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and Suez downsizing in Latin America and Africa, as well as major demonstrations against European and American water companies in Bolivia, Malaysia, South Africa and Indonesia.

Many companies, it says, have not been able to make money and are now concentrating on less risky markets in Europe and North America.

Water privatisation was seen by the World Bank and G8 countries as the most effective way to bring clean water to large numbers of poor countries throughout the 1990s, but in spite of investments of $25bn (£14bn) between 1990 and 1997, the rich have mostly benefited at the expense of the poor. Sub-Saharan Africa has received less than 1% of all the money invested in water supplies by private companies in the last 10 years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/water/stor...736511,00.html

[carbar]

Water with strings attached

Western self-interest is stopping one of the most vital forms of aid from going where it is most needed, writes Joanne Green.

Recently, in a remote rural Tanzanian village, Joyce Mbwilo, a 35-year-old mother, explained to Tearfund colleagues how it was that she came to walk 5,200 miles - the equivalent of three times round the globe - in search of water for her family.
For decades, Joyce rose at midnight, picked up her bucket and walked 22 kilometres through the night to the nearest water source before retracing her steps and finally reaching her home at 10am the next morning with 20 litres of water. It was the only way she could keep her family alive.

Joyce is one of 1.1 billion people lacking access to water; 2.6 billion more lack basic sanitation, with the inevitable result that unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation now kill 6000 children every day.
Half of all hospital beds in the world are now filled with people suffering from water-related diseases, such as diarrhoea.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/water/stor...736651,00.html

[Lindox]

How do we developed countries send out monies and then
not oversee that the monies are used by the cause it was sent for..instead of being eaten up by thiefs?

This has to change.
Will we continue to be greedy until we too are needy?

We are destroying the planet that gives us life..what a way to say thank you.

[LaoziSailor]

The water pollution "export" problems from Devils Lake in North Dakota into Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba have been going on for some time now.

Watchdog to probe US water diversion to Canada
Mon Mar 27, 2006 3:01 PM EST
By Marcy Nicholson

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - North American environmental groups, upset over water diverted from the U.S. into Canada, have asked an international watchdog to investigate the matter, the coalition said on Monday.

"Canada and the U.S. are violating the international laws designed to protect our shared lakes and rivers from pollution. An independent inquiry by the CEC (North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation) will uncover why Canada and the U.S. have failed to resolve the dispute by not enforcing the century-old treaty," said Sierra Legal Defense Fund lawyer Robert Wright.

The International Boundary Waters Treaty was established in 1909 to resolve water-quality disputes along the U.S. and Canadian borders.

Sierra, along with U.S. and Canadian environmental groups, said both countries violated obligations when North Dakota, in a bid to prevent flooding last year, briefly drained water from the Devils Lake in North Dakota into Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba.

North Dakota is scheduled to reopen the drainage system on May 1 at an increased capacity of 100 cubic feet per second. The water will flow into the Sheyenne River and eventually into Lake Winnipeg.

A temporary filter was installed last year to prevent fish from entering Canadian waters.

The Manitoba government and North American environmentalists want a permanent barrier installed, to keep out all invasive species, organisms and pollutants, before water is drained from Devils Lake this year.

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation, created under the North American Free Trade Agreement, offers a "spotlight remedy" to the issue, said the commission's legal officer Katia Opalka.

...MORE