Maude Barlow

September 01, 2008

AUSTRALIA has a water crisis; on this everyone is agreed. There is no consensus, however, on the cause of the crisis or the best solution to address it.
Many blame climate change or believe the drought is cyclical and will pass. But what if this is not a cyclical drought? What if it is permanent?

It has become clear greenhouse gas emissions are not the only cause of climate change. What is just beginning to be understood is our collective global abuse and displacement of fresh water is also a serious cause of climate change and a culprit in the desertification of the planet.

Simply put, humans have polluted so much surface water, we are now mining groundwater and rivers far faster than they can be replaced by nature. We are moving water from where nature has put it, in watersheds and aquifers, either for flood irrigation, where much of it is lost to evaporation, or to service mega cities, where it is often dumped into the ocean rather than returned to the watershed.

Water is also lost to ecosystems in the form of virtual trade – water used in the production of crops or manufactured goods that are then exported. Finally, urbanisation, deforestation and wetland destruction greatly destroy water-retentive landscapes, reducing the capacity of the hydrologic cycle to function properly.

Australia (like most other countries in the world) has mismanaged its water resources. Excessive land clearance, gross over-allocation and extraction for human use, water-intensive food production for export, rampant dumping of pollutants, all these practices have led to excessive salinity, growing land degradation and dying rivers.

Total water allocations for human use in the Murray-Darling Basin, for instance, are roughly twice the recent average flow of the river – an unsustainable practice. The water is just not there. Yet vast amounts of water are still shipped out of depleting watersheds in the form of virtual water trade every day, a practice protected by successive governments committed to a competitive export model at all costs.

Recently, governments have promoted lucrative private water trading schemes, allowing the further removal of water from rivers and watersheds needed for their survival.

Disturbingly, protections promised in government policies for groundwater and integrated river systems that could act as an environmental buffer against abuses have not been effectively implemented, according to policy analyst Jon Nevill. Fifty prominent Australian scientists join Nevill in their assertion that effective protection for freshwater ecosystems is “long overdue”.

It is entirely possible, in fact almost certain, Australia is one of what scientists call “hot stains” – parts of the world literally running out of water. These also include northern China, much of India, 22 countries in Africa, most of the Middle East, Mexico City and the US southwest. Urgent action is needed to reverse further drying of the driest inhabited continent on earth.

The Australian Government must approach its water crisis as it would a war. All other activity must be geared to this great project, the restoration of the country’s freshwater systems, and all other levels of government and all citizens and businesses must be enlisted to this great project. This national plan of action should be based on sound water management, public health and safety and climate security. The powers and funding of the National Water Commission must be greatly increased to tackle this historic project and the NWC must be given the regulatory authority to restore ecosystem health even if it means short-term pain for some. Where compensation is due, it must be paid.

A national plan of action must address a key set of priorities and principles. These include integrated ecosystem protection, or the urgent need to establish comprehensive, systemic freshwater protected areas, a desire to put conservation before technology and the imperative to keep water ownership in public hands.

The trend towards corporate control of water is dangerous and short-sighted. Water trading allows decision-making about water use to be based on what is profitable for the private water trader, not what is sustainable for the rivers and aquifers. Bottled water companies are out solely for profit. Their activities are out of keeping with long-term goals of sustainability. Privately owned municipal water service providers should be replaced by not-for-profit public systems delivering clean safe water as a public service.

Australia must make decisions to use its limited water resources to provide first for local needs and only then for export opportunities. Corporate agribusiness and big mining interests have been granted access to water rights in excess of any long-term good they return to the country. Local, sustainable food production for local consumption must be a basic priority in drought-plagued countries.

Water is every Australian’s business.

Maude Barlow is the author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water.

She will speak in Brisbane tomorrow.

www.blackincbooks.com