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FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY
Looming Global Water Crisis - Linked to Forest Loss & Climate Change
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August 18, 2002
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org
A child dies every 30 seconds from dirty water. Forty percent of the
world's population faces water shortages and one billion people lack
access to safe drinking water. And the problem is worsening.
Deterioration in the availability and quality of water is perhaps THE
major international environmental, economic, justice and security
issue. I continue to mourn the senseless loss of life on 911.
However, the scale of that disaster pales in comparison with the
expected millions of deaths over the next decades caused by problems
with water supply, most which could be avoided with relatively small
investments (particularly when compared to the military response to
global threats). If we do not change our water conservation
policies, a new report indicates seventy-six million people are
likely to die from bad water by the year 2020.
Water conservation captures particularly well the ecological
connectedness of all being. Climate changes are exacerbating natural
weather variance leading to more pronounced droughts and flooding.
Terrestrial ecosystems are crucial for the storage and management of
water flows and their quality. We can not have adequate quality
water without maintaining and restoring large forests and other
natural terrestrial ecosystems, and protecting our climate by
reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Major investments in restoration
ecology, renewable energy and water infrastructure are some of the
most important investments society can make to secure our ecological
future.
g.b.
P.S. Forests.org is pleased to announce that in the future we will
be launching a global water conservation portal to build upon our
highly successful forests (http://forests.org/), climate
(http://www.climateark.org) and environmental sustainability
(http://www.EnviromentalSustainability.info) portals.
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ITEM #1
Title: Water is Single Largest Killer of Asian Children
Source: OneWorld South Asia
Date: August 15, 2002
Byline: Kalyani, OneWorld South Asia
Dirty water, resulting from poor sanitation, is the largest single
killer of children in Asia, and globally claims the life of one child
every 30 seconds, a new United Nations report has warned.
More children in some of the world's poorest countries--many of which
are in the Asian-Pacific region--have died from the effects of
diarrhea, caused by unclean water or low sanitation levels, than the
number killed during armed conflicts since the end of the second
world war, according to the report released Wednesday by the UN
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and
the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
ADB research has shown that water pollution--caused by factors such
as untreated sewage, chemical discharges, and disposal of domestic
and industrial waste directly into rivers--is the most serious
environmental problem confronting Asia. Human sewage provides a
fertile breeding ground for waterborne diseases such as cholera,
typhoid, and hepatitis strains, it said.
The ESCAP report, 'State of the Environment in Asia and the Pacific
2000,' was published ahead of a focal environmental summit, to be
held in the South African city of Johannesburg later this month, at
which the issue of access to clean water, for both children and
adults, will be a major theme.
With 40 percent of the world's population facing water shortages and
one billion people lacking access to safe drinking water, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has identified water as one of the five
key issues to be discussed at the summit, which has the general aim
of examining ways that countries can develop economically without
causing environmental damage.
A delegation led by ESCAP's executive secretary Kim Hak-Su would call
on government representatives at the summit, which opens August 26,
to "implement the necessary measures to tackle the crisis of water,"
the Bangkok-based body said in a statement Wednesday.
The appeal is expected to draw attention to the water and sanitation
problems faced by some 900 million of the world's poorest people who
live in the Asia-Pacific region, where, according to ADB figures, one
in three have no access to sources of safe drinking water within 200
meters of their homes.
An ADB report published in 2000 found that one of the main
contributors to the scarcity of clean water in the region was heavy
pressure on local water sources caused by rapid population growth and
city expansion.
Central and South Asia were experiencing a period of "high water
stress," in which annual water demand was 50 percent more than the
supplies available. China and Mongolia, where water use was 25
percent above supplies, had medium stress conditions.
The issue was raised at a high-level regional meeting in the
Cambodian capital Phnom Penh last year in preparation for the
Johannesburg summit. "We recognize that the availability of fresh
water is an increasingly important issue in the region," government
delegates said in a concluding statement.
The meeting identified economic growth, urbanization,
industrialization, population growth, and the limited availability of
freshwater resources in some countries of the region as factors that
have contributed to water scarcity.
ITEM #2
Title: Report: Water-related diseases could kill up to 76 million
worldwide
Source: Associated Press
Date: August 16, 2002
Byline: COLLEEN VALLES, Associated Press Writer
Seventy six million people - mostly children - could die from water-
related diseases by 2020 if changes aren't made worldwide, according
to a California think tank.
The United Nations has set a goal of 2015 for cutting in half the
number of people who can't reach or afford safe drinking water. Even
if that goal is met, 34 million to 76 million people could die of
water-related illnesses, said a report for release Friday by the
independent Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment
and Security.
More people die of diarrheal diseases, such as dysentery, than other
water-related diseases, and children are extremely vulnerable to
them.
"All of these diseases are associated with our failure to provide
clean water," said Dr. Peter Gleick, director of the institute. "I
think it's terribly bleak, especially because we know what needs to
be done to prevent these deaths. We're doing some of it, but the
efforts that are being made are not aggressive enough."
The problem is many people, especially those in developing countries
in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, don't have access to clean
water or basic sanitation, Gleick said.
While most of the deaths are projected to occur in developing
nations, Joan Rose, professor of water microbiology at the University
of South Florida, said every country is vulnerable. She pointed to a
recent deadly outbreak of E. coli in Canada that came from a
contaminated well.
"We look at our political agreements like NAFTA, and they've been
economically beneficial to South America because we have allowed them
to export their vegetables to the United States," she said.
"But none of that finance has been reinvested in sanitation, and in
fact, we may be getting vegetables - we already have - that bring
diseases into the United States."
The United Nations says 1.1 billion people worldwide live without
access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion lack proper sanitation.
The institute will send the report to the World Summit on Sustainable
Development being held Aug. 26 through Sept. 4 in Johannesburg, South
Africa.
___
On the Net:
Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and
Security: www.pacinst.org
ITEM #3
Title: European governments urged to adopt five-point plan against
flooding
Source: WWF International
Date: August 17, 2002
European governments urged to adopt five-point plan against flooding
Gland, Switzerland - On the eve of a summit on the floods hosted by
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Berlin with the expected
presence of the premiers of Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia,
as well as European Union Commission President Romano Prodi, WWF is
calling on the European leaders to adopt a five-point plan to
minimize the impact of future flooding.
WWF believes that cross-border rivers need to be managed
cooperatively by all the countries in each river catchment to reduce
the impacts of floods and maximise river health and clean water
supplies.
The conservation organization urges the European leaders to adopt the
following measures:
1. Set a timeline at the World Summit for countries that share each
transboundary river to cooperate to manage floods, water supplies and
environmental health.
2. Allocate funds to accelerate implementation of the European
Union's Water Framework Directive that requires European countries to
sustainably manage their rivers.
3. Accelerate implementation of the agreements reached at the Danube
Heads of State Summit in Bucharest in April 2001.
4. Allocate funds to restore functioning floodplains in the upper
reaches of Europe's rivers, thus giving the rivers room to hold
floodwaters naturally and safely.
5. Adopt a target to source 10 percent of energy from new renewable
sources by 2010 at the World Summit, to reduce the greenhouse gas
emissions driving climate change, which appears to be exacerbating
flooding globally.
"We expect European governments to lead efforts to re-establish a
target for cooperative management of each of the world's trans-
national rivers at this month's World Summit on Sustainable
Development," said Jamie Pittock, Director of WWF's Living Water
Programme. "It is disgraceful that the world's governments axed a
draft agreement to better manage transboundary rivers at the Summit's
preparatory meeting in Bali in June."
Flood damage is exacerbated when rivers are put in narrow straight-
jackets of dams and dykes.
According to the conservation organization, the European governments
have previously agreed to work with nature rather than fighting these
rivers, but have been too slow to implement action on the ground.
On the Danube, Elbe and other rivers, WWF and our partners have
started working with nature to restore floodplain areas to give
rivers room to flood without damaging towns and cities.
"Floods will be reduced if European governments cooperate to restore
floodplains to give rivers room," Jamie Pittock added.
For further information:
Jamie Pittock, Director of WWF International's Living Water
Programme, tel.: +31 629 09 18 41
Olivier van Bogaert, Press Office, WWF International, tel.: +41 79
477 35 72
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