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Massachusetts Faces Bottled Water Bill of $500,000

By hudson in July 29th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under bottled water, drinking water, fresh water, health, social structures     Tags: , , , , , , , , ,      

Nearly half-a-million dollars for bottled water? Now that’s a LOT of bottled water – Hudson

By DAVID ABEL of the Boston Globe

State lawmakers and environmental activists yesterday urged Governor Deval Patrick to reduce the amount of money the administration spends on bottled water.

They called on Patrick to sign an executive order limiting purchases of bottled water and increasing the amount of money being spent to upgrade the state’s water systems. They argued that relying on bottled water sets a bad example for residents and comes at the expense of support for public drinking water systems, which have a backlog of maintenance projects totaling $8.5 billion.

“Spending taxpayer money on bottled water is a misallocation of limited resources,’’ wrote Senator James B. Eldridge, an Acton Democrat and chairman of the state’s Water Infrastructure Finance Commission, in a letter sent to Patrick that was signed by 11 other lawmakers.

At a rally in front of the State House yesterday, environmental activists handed out cups of tap water and erected an exhibit to show how many bottles of water state residents consume — more than 300 million annually, they said, enough to circle the planet more than 11 times.

In fiscal year 2010, Massachusetts spent about $475,000 on bottled water and water filtration systems, down from $675,000 in 2009, said Cyndi Roy, a spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Administration and Finance.

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United Nations Declares Clean Water Is a Fundamental Human Right

By hudson in July 28th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under drinking water, fresh water, health, infrastructure, rivers, social structures, water born diseases, water bourne diseases, water security, waterborne diseases, waterbourne diseases, watershed, world water     Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,      

About time, too. Although it is deplorable – and immoral – that countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada abstained, presumably to ensure that they’re in line first if there is any money to be made from selling clean water – Hudson

From BBC News

Many people around the world have little or no access to clean drinking water The UN has declared that access to clean water and sanitation is a fundamental human right. A non-binding resolution was passed with 122 nations in favour, none against and 41 abstentions. Abstaining countries said the resolution could undermine a process in the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva to build a consensus on water rights.

According to the UN, about 1.5 million children under five die each year from water and sanitation-related diseases. The text of the resolution said that 884 million people have no access to safe drinking water and more than 2.6 billion lack access to basic sanitation.

It “declares the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of the right to life”. It urges the international community to “scale up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable water and sanitation for all”.

Canada, the US, the UK, Australia and Botswana were among the countries which abstained from voting.

China, Russia, Germany, France, Spain and Brazil were among those supporting the resolution.

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Read Reuter’s take on the story here
Read Canada’s National Post’s story here

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A letter to all UN Missions from Maude Barlow

By admin in July 23rd 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under communications, drinking water, food security, fresh water, health, social structures, world water     Tags: , , , ,      

The Council of Canadians | 6th July 2010

Dear Excellencies,

I am writing all UN Ambassadors, permanent missions, and member states of the United Nations to seek your support for a very important initiative now taking place at the United Nations General Assembly concerning the human right to water and sanitation.

On June 17, a draft resolution declaring the human right to “safe and clean drinking water and sanitation” was presented by the Bolivian government in an informal consultation at the UN General Assembly. As you know, the resolution will be further developed by member states over the next several weeks, with the final text presented to the President of the General Assembly for tabling near the end of July, 2010.

This is the first time the General Assembly has been asked directly to deal with this issue and presents a huge test for the world. It is very important that many states co-sponsor this resolution and ultimately pass it with the current clear language. This issue touches the lives of billions every day and the world needs a clear signal that water is an issue of the highest priority.

When the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written, no one could foresee a day when water would be a contested area. But in 2010, it is not an exaggeration to say that the lack of access to clean water is the greatest human rights violation in the world. Nearly two billion people live in water-stressed areas and three billion have no running water within a kilometre of their homes. Every eight seconds a child dies of a water-borne disease, in every case preventable if their parents had access to clean water and if adequate sanitation was available. And it is getting worse as the world runs out of clean water. A new World Bank reports says that by 2030, global demand for water will exceed supply by 40 percent, a shocking prediction that foretells of terrible suffering.

For several years, international and local community groups fighting for water justice have been calling for the UN to recognize once and for all that water and sanitation are human rights. A right must be put in place that will ensure that no one will be denied water used for basic living needs because of an inability to pay, and that will codify that states have the obligation to deliver sufficient, safe, accessible and affordable water to their populations. The fact that water is currently not recognized as a human right has allowed decision-making over water policy to shift from the United Nations to institutions that are not accountable to member governments and do not adhere to UN norms.

While this resolution respects the sovereignty of member states and is not binding, and while I still support a full covenant or treaty on the human right to water and sanitation, it is nevertheless a crucial step forward in the realization of clean water for all. I want to be clear that I also strongly support the work of Catarina de Albuquerque, the Independent Expert examining the issue for the Human Rights Council, and that this resolution will strengthen her efforts and the attention they receive.

In 2008/2009, I had the privilege of serving as Senior Advisor on Water to the 63rd President of the United Nations General Assembly. In that capacity, I met with many senior UN officials working in the various agencies that deal with water. They shared with me their desire to see more political cohesion in the responses of the UN to the world water crisis and expressed a great need for political direction for their work from the heart of the UN – the General Assembly. In the year I served as advisor, I observed growing support from member countries for such a resolution and a growing expectation from civil societies around the world that the right to water will one day soon be seen as a cornerstone of UN policy.

I am writing to urge UN member states to do all they can to support this resolution including acting as a co-sponsor in this far-sighted and courageous endeavour. The time has come to declare basic water and sanitation to be a human right and to give hope to the billions without adequate access to them now.

The whole world is watching.

Sincerely,

Maude Barlow

Maude Barlow National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians Former Senior Advisor on Water to the President of the United Nations General Assembly Chair of the Board of Food and Water Watch

And the draft resolution is here…

DRAFT RESOLUTION

The Human Right to Water and Sanitation

Item 48 of the General Assembly: Integrated and coordinated implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits in the economic, social and related fields.

Antigua and Barbuda, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Central African Republic, Congo, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Fiji, Georgia, Madagascar, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tanzania (United Republic of), Tuvalu, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of), Yemen.

The General Assembly

PP1 Recalling its resolutions 54/175 of 17 December 1999, The Right to Development, 55/196 of 20 December 2000 proclaiming 2003 as the International Year of Freshwater, 58/217 of 23 December 2003, proclaiming the International Decade for Action, “Water for Life” (2005–2015), 59/228 of 22 December 2004 and 61/192 of 20 December 2006, proclaiming 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation, 64/198 of 21 December 2009 regarding the Midterm comprehensive review of the implementation of the International Decade for Action, “Water for Life,” Agenda 21 of June 1992, the Habitat Agenda of 1996, the Mar del Plata Action Plan of 1977 adopted by the United Nations Water Conference, and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development of June 1992,

PP2 Recalling the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War,

PP3 Recalling also all previous resolutions of the Human Rights Council on “human rights and access to safe drinking water and sanitation,” inter alia, resolutions 7/22 of 28 March 2008 and 12/8 of 1 October 2009 related to the human right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation, General Comment 15 of the CESCR on “The Right to Water,” the “Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the scope and content of the relevant human rights obligations related to equitable access to safe drinking water and sanitation under international human rights instruments,” as well as the “Report of the independent expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation,”

PP4 Deeply concerned that approximately 884 million people lack access to safe drinking water and that over 2.6 billion do not have access to basic sanitation, and alarmed that approximately 1.5 million children under 5 years of age die and 443 million school days are lost each year from water and sanitation related diseases,

PP5 Acknowledging the importance of equitable, safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as an integral component of the realization of human rights,

PP6 Reaffirming the responsibility of States for the promotion and protection of all human rights, that are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated, and must be treated globally, in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing and with the same emphasis,

PP7 Bearing in mind the commitments made by the international community to achieve fully the Millennium Development Goals, and stressing, in that context, the resolve of Heads of State and Government, as expressed in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people unable to reach or afford safe drinking water, and to halve the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation, as agreed in the Johannesburg Plan of Action,

OP1 Declares the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of the right to life;

OP2 Calls upon states and international organizations to provide financial resources, capacity building and technology transfer, through international assistance and co-operation, in particular to developing countries, in order to scale up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable water and sanitation for all;

OP3 Welcomes the decision by the Human Rights Council to request that the independent expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation present an annual report to the General Assembly, and invites the independent expert, in consultation with all relevant United Nations agencies, funds, and programs, to include in her report to the General Assembly, at its sixty-sixth session, the principal challenges related to the realization of the human right to water and sanitation and their impact on achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

[End]

Do more than read here…

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Major Wetland Restoration Project in the Northern Everglades Watershed

By admin in July 21st 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under biodiversity, conservation, flora and fauna, habitat, health, watershed, wetland     Tags: , , , , , ,      

United States Department of Agriculture

ORLANDO, July 19, 2010 – Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan today announced a major wetland restoration project in Florida’s Fisheating Creek, part of the Northern Everglades Watershed. USDA, in partnership with four landowners on five ranches and local and non-governmental organizations, will create one of the largest contiguous easement acquisitions in the history of the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP).

“The Northern Everglades watershed is one of the last frontiers for large‐scale land conservation in Florida, and USDA is proud to work with private landowners and state and local partners to protect this unique habitat,” Merrigan said. “The enrollment of these five properties in the Wetlands Reserve Program will result in significant wetland restoration and protection, and provide important habitat for rare, endangered and threatened animals, birds and plants.”

USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) will provide $89 million through the WRP to acquire easements on almost 26,000 acres of land in the Fisheating Creek Watershed, located in remote Highlands County, about 130 miles south of Orlando. Once the land is restored, it will enhance and improve wetlands, wildlife habitat and the quality of the water draining into the Everglades. Merrigan toured the Fisheating Creek Watershed via helicopter and later announced the project at an event here today.

Contiguous natural areas along the region’s creeks and rivers, on cattle ranches and existing conservation lands provide the large open spaces, food resources and connectivity needed to sustain wide‐ranging animals like the Florida black bear, whooping crane and the Florida panther. NRCS already has other WRP projects in this sub-basin and this project will help connect the open spaces, sustain the biological diversity of the landscape, and restore the natural hydrology.

This land can support numerous rare and federally endangered and threatened species, such as the crested caracara, Florida panther, and the red-cockaded woodpecker. At least two rare federal candidate plant species, cutthroat grass and Edison’s ascyrum, are also known to occur on the five ranches.

The Nature Conservancy and the South Florida Water Management District partnered with NRCS on this project. The two partners will assist NRCS with easement acquisitions and wetland restoration planning and monitoring.

WRP, a voluntary program, provides technical and financial assistance to private landowners to restore, protect, and enhance wetlands in exchange for retiring eligible land from agriculture. This program offers landowners an opportunity to establish long-term conservation and wildlife practices and protection. The NRCS goal is to achieve the greatest wetland functions and values, along with optimum wildlife habitat, on every acre enrolled in the program.

For more information on the Wetlands Reserve Program, visit www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/wrp.

NRCS is celebrating 75 years of helping people help the land. Since 1935, the NRCS conservation delivery system has advanced a unique partnership with state and local governments and private landowners delivering conservation based on specific, local conservation needs, while accommodating state and national interests.

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Large China oil spill threatens sea life, water

By admin in July 21st 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under China, biodiversity, disaster, flora and fauna, habitat, health, pollution, seawater     Tags: , , , , , , ,      

By CARA ANNA and YU BING for Associated Press

BEIJING – China’s largest reported oil spill emptied beaches along the Yellow Sea as its size doubled Wednesday, while cleanup efforts included straw mats and frazzled workers with little more than rubber gloves.

An official warned the spill posed a “severe threat” to sea life and water quality as China’s latest environmental crisis spread off the shores of Dalian, once named China’s most livable city.

One cleanup worker has drowned, his body coated in crude.

“I’ve been to a few bays today and discovered they were almost entirely covered with dark oil,” said Zhong Yu with environmental group Greenpeace China, who spent the day on a boat inspecting the spill.

“The oil is half-solid and half liquid and is as sticky as asphalt,” she told The Associated Press by telephone.

The oil had spread over 165 square miles (430 square kilometers) of water five days since a pipeline at the busy northeastern port exploded, hurting oil shipments from part of China’s strategic oil reserves to the rest of the country. Shipments remained reduced Wednesday.

State media has said no more oil is leaking into the sea, but the total amount of oil spilled is not yet clear.

Greenpeace China released photos Wednesday of inky beaches and of straw mats about 2 square meters (21 square feet) in size scattered on the sea, meant to absorb the oil.

Read article… incredible pictures here

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Botswana High Court denies Kalahari’s indigenous Bushmen water rights in their homeland

By admin in July 21st 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under drinking water, habitat, health, resettlement     Tags: , , , , , , ,      

The Washington Examiner | AP

GABORONE, BOTSWANA — A court in Botswana ruled Wednesday that indigenous dwellers in one of the driest parts of the world will not be allowed to drill wells for water.

The Botswana High Court said the Bushmen people were not entitled to use a well already established on their traditional land in the Kalahari Game Reserve or excavate a new one.

The government has argued that the Bushmen’s presence in the reserve is not compatible with preserving wildlife and that living in such harsh conditions offers few prospects.

In 2006, another court allowed the Bushmen to return to desert-like homelands where diamond mining claims and a new luxury tourist lodge led to their eviction by the government.

Hundreds returned and their leaders protested that they were denied water to drive them away again.

After the ruling Wednesday, community spokesman Jumanda Gakelebone said they will seek legal advice to fight the ruling.
“It’s a sad day,” he said. “If we don’t have water, how are we expected to live?”

He told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that a tourist lodge with a swimming pool and a bar and wells at diamond claims lay just a few miles (kilometers) from Bushmen settlements.

He said watering holes for wild animals were paid for by diamond and tourist firms, but Bushmen were prevented from carrying water into the game park for their families.

Survival International, an international support group for indigenous peoples, immediately condemned the ruling in the southern African country.

“In the last ten years, Botswana has become one of the harshest places in the world for indigenous peoples. If Bushmen are to be denied water on their lands when it is freely provided it for tourists, animals, and diamond mines, then foreigners should be asked if they really want to support this regime with their visits and jewelry shopping,” said group director Stephen Corry in a statement.

The Bushmen’s water case was heard in the Botswana High Court in early June, but judgment was reserved until Wednesday.

Gakelebone said the government first sealed a well used by the Bushmen in 2002 to drive them off their land to make way for tourism and mining.

Community leaders won their right to return on constitutional grounds in the 2006 case but they were still prevented from reopening the old well, he said.

Source

AP

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Environmentalists urge closure of Jordan River baptism site over poor water quality

By admin in July 21st 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under conservation, fresh water, health, irrigation, pollution, rivers, social structures, watershed     Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,      

DPA

FoEME says Israel, Syria and Jordan are diverting 98% the Jordan and are discharging untreated sewage, agricultural run-off, saline water and fish pond effluent into it.

An environmental group Wednesday urged the Israeli government to close down a baptism site at the lower Jordan River until water quality standards for tourists and pilgrims bathing at the holy site were met.

“The Lower Jordan River is arguably the most famous river in the world, of international significance to more than half of humanity due to its rich natural and cultural heritage and its symbolic value and importance to the three monotheistic religions,” Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) said in a statement from Tel Aviv.

“Sadly, the lower Jordan River has long suffered from severe mismanagement,” it added.

Israel, Syria and Jordan were diverting 98 per cent of its water and were discharging untreated sewage, agricultural run-off, saline water and fish pond effluent into it, FoEME said.

The highly polluted water caused a serious health risk, it said.

Gidon Bromberg, FoEME’s Israel Director, also accuses the Tourism Ministry and Nature and Parks Authority of attempting to lower health standards in order to keep the baptism site open.

Located near the Biblical city of Jericho, located in the Jordan Valley on the occupied West Bank, it is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the Holy Land.

More than 100,000 tourists visit it each year.

The Health Ministry told the German Press Agency dpa that no final decision had yet been taken, because the results of samples it had ordered the Nature and Parks Authority to take had yet to come back.

It would not changes its existing guidelines, which allow bathing at the site, until that decision was taken, it said.

Friends of the Earth called on both Israel and Jordan to work on rehabilitating the river, whose poor state it warned was also harming the livelihood of the some 250,00 Jordanians, 60,000 Palestinians and 30,000 Israeli settlers living in the Jordan Valley on either side of the border.

[Ed-Apols for full quote]

Source

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No Need to Despair on Biodiversity

By admin in July 20th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under biodiversity, collaboration, communications, deforestation, flora and fauna, forestry, habitat, health, jobs, social structures     Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,      

By IDN Environment Desk

(IDN) – Humankind will suffer annual losses of ‘natural capital’ valued at between 1.3 to 3.1 trillion Euros, if ‘business as usual’ deforestation and land use change continue, according to United Nations’ latest estimates. These stupendous figures exceed the total financial capital lost to Wall Street and City banks during 2008, their worst year in history.

The calculation has been made by the TEEB project of the UN Environment Programme’s Green Economy Initiative in the lead-up to the 10th Conference of Parties (COP10) of the UN Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) from October 18 to 29 in Nagoya, Japan.

The CBD is one of the three Rio Conventions, which emerged from the UN Conference on Environment and Development, popularly known as the Earth Summit, in June 1992 in Rio, the second largest city of Brazil.

“A central concern of our project TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) is the economic invisibility of natural capital — the inability of our dominant economic model to recognize economic value delivered by nature to society,” says Pavan Sukhdev, special adviser to UNEP’s Green Economy Initiative.

Biodiversity and ecosystem services have conventionally been seen as public goods: enough for everyone and available to everyone. These include clean air, fresh water, species richness, and numerous other ecosystem services that come from forests.

“But many of these forests and their goods and services are now threatened with losses or scarcities,” writes Sukhdev in the IUCN Forest Conservation Programme Newsletter titled ‘arborvitae’.

“The cornucopian assumption of abundant and unfettered availability of these ‘public goods’ simply does not reflect the harsh reality. Ongoing losses of natural areas are significant, and their impact on human welfare benefits is palpable,” writes Sukhdev.

From common people to national governments, there is a lack of understanding of the finite nature of natural ‘public goods’, of their contribution to the economy, and of their larger significance in maintaining human wellbeing.

TEEB explains that the problems often lie with open access to natural resources, coupled with unclear property rights and the lack of applicable national laws or effective international treaties. Together, these effects lead to depletion of biodiversity and ecosystem services, in a race to the bottom called “the tragedy of the commons”.

For Sukhdev there is no doubt that within this exploitative and unsustainable framework, it is the poor who suffer most as their livelihoods depend heavily on environmental resources.

The long-term purpose of TEEB is to bring together and communicate the best available scientific and economic analysis on the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity.

“Through this exercise, our goal is to help policy-makers, administrators, businesses and citizens to formulate responses to address the losses we see all around us. These actions collectively have the power to halt and reverse the losses of natural capital and to improve well-being for humanity, especially the poor,” writes Sukhdev.

TEEB has released a number of reports on the subject, starting May 2008. More are planned ahead of the CBD — for a range of decision-makers or ‘end-users’.

TEEB reports for policy-makers and administrators analyze many examples of successful incentive structures, subsidy reforms, community based conservation schemes, effective protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, and new market mechanisms for rewarding ecosystem benefits.

TEEB is also working closely with the business world to identify their main opportunities, risks, and disclosure requirements, which will be condensed into a report for business. These sets of reports and their outreach will be strong steps towards reducing the economic invisibility of ecosystems and biodiversity.

MESSAGE STARTING TO GET THROUGH

Sukhdev feels that the message is starting to get through. As an example, biodiversity was on the agenda at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Over half of the World Economic Forum’s 75 Global Agenda Councils evaluating global risks (for example, freshwater scarcity, food scarcity, migration, nutrition, pandemics, catastrophic events, illicit trade, etc.) recognized ecosystem and biodiversity losses as key underlying drivers.

“As this awareness outside the conservation sector grows, change will come,” writes Sukhdev, adding: “There are numerous examples where policy initiatives of national governments and investments by the private sector are changing this dynamic by rewarding unrecognized benefits.”

In Costa Rica for example, payments for environmental services are virtually a country-wide strategy for forest and biodiversity conservation as well as sustainable development. Private corporations are increasingly seeing value in biodiversity preservation and recognizing the interconnectivity with long-term business durability.

Insurance firms and shipping companies are financing the reforestation of the Panama Canal to restore freshwater flow and avoid increased shipping premiums caused by canal closures.

In Guyana, a private equity firm has bought the rights to 20 per cent of the value of environmental services from a 370,000 hectare rainforest reserve anticipating that its carbon storage, water storage, biodiversity maintenance, and rainfall regulation services will only become more valuable and be recognized.

According to Sukhdev, strong opportunities exist for governments to capture the worth of biodiversity, generate revenue streams internally and through international agreements, and create appropriate domestic institutional arrangements to protect it.

“National governments have the responsibility to effectively integrate conservation of resources into environmental and forestry policies and beyond, into finance and planning agendas of the country,” writes UNEP’s special adviser.

“Governments should further provide fiscal or other incentives for people to encourage participation from a diverse set of stakeholders that can change the common property exploitative design of public goods and inspire innovation in the environmental sector,” he adds.

Tropical forests will be key to implementing this paradigm shift, predicts Sukhdev. Internationally, REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) plus is a game-changing mechanism seeking to compensate developing countries for the global carbon mitigation benefits of tropical forests.

With these forests being mostly located in developing countries, forest carbon becomes a prime opportunity to spearhead new international payments for ecosystem services (IPES), Sukhdev points out.

However, TEEB is not alone in stressing that a key priority is to develop eligibility and performance criteria for forest carbon initiatives that reflect not only their carbon capture or emission reduction potential, but also a range of ecological, socioeconomic and biodiversity criteria that more fully reflect the true economic value and development role of forests.

“If agreement can be reached on these issues, and we are hopeful that this will happen expeditiously, then we can collectively start to recognize the real value of our public goods, and address biodiversity loss and the tragedy of the commons,” Sukhdev concludes with an optimistic note.

[Ed-Apols for full quote]

Source

Visit IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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So wasted: The Pacific Garbage Patch

By paulstewart in July 20th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under conservation, fish, food security, habitat, health, mapping, oceans, pollution, seawater, world water     Tags: , , , , , , ,      

by Tim Siegenbeek van Heukelom for The Lowy Interpreter

Since its discovery in the mid-1990s, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has attracted attention from scientists, media and activists. More and more evidence is appearing to show that so-called ‘ocean gyres’ – large rotating ocean currents – essentially function as a marine trash vortex for the plastic waste that ends up in the sea.

The plastic debris in the Pacific Garbage Patch is hardly visible from above, so on the outside it doesn’t appear to be a sea-of-rubbish the size of the Northern Territory. Yet, the micro-particles floating around contain all kinds of dangerous toxins, which in some cases might not immediately kill the confused fish feeding on it but will, due to our increasing love and consumption of fish, end up in our own food chain.

Even worse, the Pacific Garbage Patch is not an isolated phenomenon. There are four more ocean gyres also accumulating plastic waste. Only a couple of months ago scientists discovered the North Atlantic Garbage Patch, containing pollution levels similar to the Pacific Patch.

The problem of this non-traditional security threat lies unmistakably in the nature of plastic marine pollution. It is hardly visible, far offshore and barely understood in terms of long-term impact on the environment and food safety.

While the Dutch may have come up with a creative way of dealing with the plastic marine rubbish, a real solution seems to be a long way out. Awareness-raising campaigns are already underway as a much needed first step. Take, for example, the Australian film-maker Richard Pain, who is in training for an attempt to swim through the Pacific Garbage Patch to put this environmental concern higher on the political agenda.

Still, as climate change has evidenced, awareness of a serious global threat does not automatically translate into sustainable solutions. If we can’t even come to an international agreement on fighting climate change, how do we plan to deal with other less well-known matters of pollution?

The critical problem in this case is our perception and use of plastic. We produce plastic to last forever, but design it for a throwaway society. Hence, we fundamentally need to challenge the way we design plastic products. As outlined in the Cradle-to-Cradle philosophy, we may need ‘the transformation of human industry through ecologically intelligent design’.

Visit The Lowy Institute for International Policy

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A human right Canada rejects: Access to clean water

By admin in July 16th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under drinking water, fresh water, health, sanitation, water security, world water     Tags: , , , , , , , ,      

Contary to what Ottawa says, UN convention would not compel exports to U.S.

By Maude Barlow and Anil Naidoo

On June 17, Pablo Solon, the Bolivian ambassador to the United Nations, presented a draft resolution declaring the human right to “available, safe, acceptable, accessible and affordable water and sanitation” to a closed-door consultation at the UN General Assembly that will be dealt with over the next several weeks. This is the first time the General Assembly has been asked directly to deal with this issue and it presents a huge test for the world and for Canada.

When the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights was written, no one could foresee a day when water would be a contested area. But in 2010, it is not an exaggeration to say that the lack of access to clean water is the greatest human rights violation in the world.

Nearly 2 billion people live in water-stressed areas of the world and 3 billion have no running water within a kilometre of their homes. Every eight seconds, a child dies of water-borne disease, in every case preventable if their parents had money to pay for water.

And it is getting worse as the world runs out of clean water. A new World Bank report says that by 2030, global demand for water will exceed supply by 40 per cent, a shocking prediction that foretells of terrible suffering.

For several years, international and local community groups fighting for water justice have been calling for a binding UN convention that clarifies once and for all that no one should be denied water for life because of an inability to pay, especially in light of the water markets now being set up that allow the wealthy to appropriate dwindling water supplies for private profit.

The fact that water is not now an enforceable human right has allowed decision-making over water policy to shift from the UN and governments to institutions such as the World Bank, the World Water Council and the World Trade Organization that favour a market future for water.

Support for the right to water has been steadily growing in recent years but, strangely, Canada has emerged as the leading opponent.

Canada has blocked even the most modest steps toward international recognition of the right to water and has worked behind the scenes to derail advancement toward a binding instrument. Government officials have not explained their position except to say that such a convention might force Canada to “share” its water with the United States. However, this is a complete red herring and the Harper government knows it.

No UN rights convention obliges one country to provide those rights to another country. Canada signed the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is under no obligation to provide housing, jobs, pensions or health care to everyone in the world, only to its own citizens. A rights convention obliges every country, to the best of its ability, to take steps to ensure the realization of this new right to its own citizens and to report these steps to the UN.

In Canada, that would mean principally that the government would have to clean up its act in First Nations communities where water quality is often substandard. In poorer countries, where there are deep access inequities, a right to water convention would give local communities a tool to demand water justice, challenge the existing privilege of the rich and demand public not private water services.

Far more dangerous to this country’s water are the provisions of NAFTA, which give American companies rights to Canada’s water, and the proposed Canada-E.U. Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which will give water corporations the right to challenge local public control of water services.

The truth is that a right to water convention at the UN would act as a counterweight to those who want to sell Canada’s water for profit and is a more likely explanation of Canada’s continued opposition.

The events of the next few weeks will tell if the UN will adopt this historic resolution. What will Canada do?

Will it stand with those who say no one should be denied water for life?

Or will this wealthy nation yet again take a position that would deny this most basic right to the billions without it now?

The whole world is watching.

Maude Barlow is national chairperson and Anil Naidoo is Blue Planet project organizer with the Council of Canadians.

Source

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