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Activists Slam World Water Forum as a Corporate-Driven Fraud
ISTANBUL - A global ministerial meeting was putting the final touches here Saturday to resolutions for tackling the world's water crisis but activists attacked the process as a corporate-driven fraud.
Demonstrators, protesting against the privatization of water resources clash with riot police in front of the venue of the World Water Forum in Istanbul March 16, 2009. Turkish police fired teargas to disperse a group of hundreds gathered at the start of the global water forum in Istanbul on Monday and detained 17, state-run news agency Anatolian reported. The communique to be issued by more than 100 countries on World Water Day on Sunday climaxes a seven-day gathering on how to provide clean water and sanitation for billions and resolve worsening water stress and pollution.
"The world is facing rapid and unprecedented global changes, including population growth, migration, urbanization, climate change, desertification, drought, degradation and land use, economic and diet changes," according to a draft seen by AFP.
The document, which is non-binding, spells out a consensus for boosting cooperation to ease trans-boundary disputes over water, preventing pollution and tackling drought and floods.
It also describes access to safe drinking water and sanitation as "a basic human need." France, Spain and several Latin American countries were striving to beef up this reference, from "need" to "right," a change that could have legal ramifications.
But campaigners representing the rural poor, the environment and organized labor blasted the communique as a sideshow, stage-managed for corporations who are major contributors to the World Water Council, which organizes the Forum.
Maude Barlow, senior adviser to the president of the UN General Assembly, said the Forum promoted privatization of resources by "the lords of water" and excluded dissident voices.
She called for the meeting to be placed under the UN flag.
"We demand that the allocation of water be decided in an open, transparent and democratic forum rather than in a trade show for the world's large corporations," Barlow told a press conference.
David Boys, with an NGO called Public Services International, said "transparency, accountability and participation" were absent from the Forum, and dismissed the ministerial statement as "vapid."
Around 880 million people do not have access to decent sources of drinking water, while 2.5 billion people do not have access to proper sanitation, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in a report on Tuesday.
By 2030, the number of people living under severe water stress is expected to rise to 3.9 billion, a tally that does not include the impacts of global warming, according to the OECD.
The World Water Council, based in the southern French city of Marseille, holds the World Water Forum every three years. The Istanbul conference, the fifth in the series, drew a record more than 25,000 participants, and registrations from at least 27,000.
The Council's website says it is funded by more than 300 member organizations from 60 countries, including water utilities, governments, hydrological institutions and associations involved in research, environment and education.
Its president, Loic Fauchon, rejected charges of elitism and exclusion.
"Everyone is invited, and in any case, everyone comes these days," he told AFP.
He added: "If it (the Forum) were organized by the United Nations, it would lose its characteristic of being open to all. In a UN conference, not everyone who wants to come can participate. In the World Water Forum, anyone can take part."
The Istanbul Forum has focused overwhelmingly on issues of policymaking and includes a big trade fair by water utilities and engineering firms.
It has also staged side events on issues of civil society, but to a far smaller degree than in other big environmental meetings.
Grassroots campaigners have complained of high registration fees, of geographical separation from the main conference events and of overbearing security.
20 Comments so far
Show AllH2O on sale now: Your money or your life. Make that, your money AND your life.
THEY (the financiers, the corporatists, the globalists) want it all, EVERYTHING.
Somewhere, Satan is having hysterical fits of laughter.
What they need to do is to "discover" the inherent effects of water that are life giving . For this Discovery they can then apply for a trademark to "H20" and rename it to something like Waterios @TM.
Then have all the water WE take for granted declared an Illegal and dangerous substance that is addictive, and if exposed to in excessive amounts can lead to death, flooding and landslides.
You can then bring in Private Industry to help win the "war on water" passing laws that allow search and seizure of "illicit supplies" while they in turn supply us with a Government certified safe supply costing mere dollars a glass.
Didn't we see Becktell Corp try this in Bolivia a few years ago and literally get run out of the country?
Bechtel
---USAn---
If you live rural, have your own well, you're very lucky ...so far- We have a well, but whose to say -maybe having your own well in the future could be taken away. A corporation could say, we own the rights to the water under your land, so we are going to pump out the water under your little plot (sell it for profit) which means you'll be sharing with those who don't have water...
Something like that scenerio...
It's true we need to become very conscious of how we usxe water.My sisters have read up on how to use grey water for stuff, like watering the garden. I quit using bleach. Years ago, like mid 90's, i began using Arm and Hammer washing detergent because they said it had no phosphates. Now,I' using mainly Oxy-clean (not the name brand but a store brand) because i read it's better...
I have a ways to go though...
I heard on NPR the other day that a water bottling company is having a problem with being taxed on the profit they are making on the FREE water they take from a (i think ) lake in California... They said it's not fair because soda companies are not taxed etc. But they are getting the water FREE. I don't know about soda companies or beer etc... probably free...
About your water being taken away in the future; It's already being done here in Maine. Poland Spring is on a tear and already extracting water from Western Maine and other locations. We are not even allowed to tax them. Of course they are selling the water for a profit.
Citizens up here have already challenged the legality of the way in which Poland Spring obtained permission to 'mine' water. A local court agreed that P. S. did indeed acquire the permit illegally.
Of course, the Maine Supremely Stupid Court overturned the ruling and Poland Spring is allowed to just about do anything in Maine except put our children into white slavery. Perhaps that will be next. Where is the outrage?
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-contested-rainwater18-2009mar18,0,5585599.story
>>Reporting from Denver -- Every time it rains here, Kris Holstrom knowingly breaks the law.
>>Holstrom's violation is the fancifully painted 55-gallon buckets underneath the gutters of her farmhouse on a mesa 15 miles from the resort town of Telluride. The barrels catch rain and snowmelt, which Holstrom uses to irrigate the small vegetable garden she and her husband maintain.
>>But according to the state of Colorado, the rain that falls on Holstrom's property is not hers to keep. It should be allowed to fall to the ground and flow unimpeded into surrounding creeks and streams, the law states, to become the property of farmers, ranchers, developers and water agencies that have bought the rights to those waterways.
Ray Berthiaume
I'd like a list of those corporations that sponsored this forum. Bet Coca Cola was one of them. They drill deep wells in India, thus usurping family and neighborhood wells, and then sell the bottled water to those whose wells have run dry! I understand they are being sued in one of the States there.
Another thing I' worried about. I live in the Northeast/ In March we usually fight mud, everywhere. But all we're fighting now, is dust... I can't believe it's actually dusty in march...
Calm down folks. The water shortage (potable or otherwise) is a fraud. Look at a daily weather report. Now look at the relative humidity. Okay? Unless you are on Mars, you probably have more than 20% and that would be extreme desert conditions. As long as we have energy, we can get water. Why? Because that is what air conditioners do! That drip, drip outside the unit that you use to water your plants is drinkable as long as the copper condensing coils on the unit are kept clean. Of course there are devices specifically marketed to extract water from the air but even in poor countries it's quite feasable with solar power to rig up a condenser. We have problems but water isn't one of them. Lighten up, folks.
OK
So we can get enough to drink, but have you ever thought how much water we use to make basic products, build houses and grow basic foods. That drip drip drip of condensed water is surely not enough by a long shot. Getting into a panic is okey if it leads to action to solve the problem. The problem is real where I live. Stay concerned folks!
Green innovators have begun to develop low-energy means to extract drinking water from the air. For example, the water mill gizmo attaches to the outside of the house and can extract twelve liters of water per day.
http://www.elementfour.com/home#
As for non-drinking water, we'll have to learn to get the most out of what we have through things like avoiding wasting water (Don't always flush!) and judicious reuse. The US Marines learn to do this.
The issue is getting people to change their life style. THis is a huge huge barrier. As ellwort stated abouve, don't always flush9like at night when everyone is sleeping anyway) or maybe skip showering every single day,(that's hard in the summer, i like more than one shower a day) But when my house burnt down, I used the hose in the yard on the week ends, which meant the use was shorter than an actual shower. AMericans are obsessed with the idea of being clean.
I know some will have a ball with these statements,but...
Major cities really have an issue. All those people in one area... All that water for sewage and drinking and laundry and... In the states that are already having water issues, like California and I think Nevada, it's interesting that people are still moving there. I don't understand. Are they not aware of the water problem? I can't imagine living in a dry climate anyway. But that's my preference. But if I know that water is becoming even more scarce, why would I want to move there. Because people do not want to believe that their world is falling apart. What ever they hear, they brush off as nonsense from those crazy people who believe in global warming.
There is still not enough education about what is going on. There needs to be real solutions discussed and passed around for people to put into practice. Like a lot of what's in Mother Earth News, etc. EVeryon needs to share as much info as they can, like passing out Common Dreams articles for one idea... That's one thing I do.
I just have to feel like I'm contributing to the solutions...
Also, little peoploe doing little things helps but lets keep in mind the real big problem, corporate misuse and abuse of water. Agribusiness, drilling for natural gas, coal mining etc. These have all destroyed our fresh water. Yet it is so hard to get the average citizen to move on these issues. WE in this country need to get fired up... make some noise,raise some hell...put a stop to corporate greed and stomping on the natural world.
Maybe I sound like I'm just spouting here, but...
All of the USA southwest and a large part of Australia and many places in the world have water shortages.Many areas are only one poor year of precipitation away from no drinking water. 20% humidity is not extreme desert, where I live it is often below 20% and is only border line desert. Corporatisation of water supplies is a huge danger.
Stop drinking bottled water, it takes more water to produce the bottle than the bottle contains, plus the waste of oil and the carbon footprint in transport and production. Use water filters, there are even UV pen like devices you can use in restaurants.
Of all the water on planet earth, only 2% is fresh, the rest saltwater. And much of that fresh water is not fit to drink. This little gem came from the Discover magazine and documents the oil companies assault on this finite resource in the western US. We need a Nigeria type revolt to put a stop to these water barons.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/03/20/oil-cos-buy-rights-to-access-water-before-communities-farmers/
From the looks of it, this World Water Forum, even though it claims to be "open" to all, is focusing mostly on issues favorable to elite corporations in control of (or with designs to control) the water supply. Why else would a "trade fair" and "policymaking" get more importance than "issues on civil society"? (Pepsi and Coke are both sponsors.)
initiate, I know what you mean. My family moved to a desert, but I seem the only one interested in water conservation. The rest of my family seem to prefer "cleanliness", "propriety", and "convenience" over the bother of actually saving water. Values about water (and nature in general) need to change; water is not a commodity (to be taken for granted or worse, for profit), but a precious necessity for all humans (and thus, one we must protect as vigilantly as we would our homes, bodies, and nations). Inevitably, we would need to confront the large, industrial point polluters and wasters of water.
Water's a $400 billion global business nowadays, which is 40% of the size of the oil sector. French corp. Suez is the largest in the field, with a long and infamous history of water privatization through its subsidiary hypocritically named Suez Environment. And, of course, France consequently plays a good guy, asking the Forum communique to beef up the statement from "water as a basic human need" to "basic human right". Costs them nothing since the document's non-binding.
Thanks heaps to the author!
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It’s hard to find knowledgeable people on this topic, but you sound like you know what you’re talking about! Thanks
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