Looking ahead of the World Water Forum 2015

Water and its related aspects of hygiene and sanitation will seal the success of many of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): access to food, poverty eradication, gender equality and education to name a few. There can be no real absolute improvements in the later if water remains insufficient. Recently, Germany and the World Food Program have pledged to eradicate hunger by 2030.  How can this be possible without water to irrigate, clean and cook food products, not to mention water needed to maintain life stocks? Is this even realistic in poor areas impacted by climate change? Truly, we need to set clear priorities in what must come first on the international development agenda.

Unique in its global political dimension, the 7^th Edition of the World Water Forum is organized by South Korea in April 2015. In its previous editions the Forum was often seen as a platform promoting state-run water projects and advertising “best practices” or public development programs. Hence, the Forum has often been viewed as a show room for state actors.  However, in the face of sobering and pressing international water challenges, see for instance the new UNESCO World Water Development Report, the Forum needs to depart from political status quo and take the lead regarding three cardinal points:

Courtesy World Water Council @ worldwatercouncil.org

Courtesy UNESCO @ unesco.org

First, the Forum must actively seek to get those that ultimately provide water services and deliver drinking water to all sectors on board: small and medium companies, water utilities and spare parts producers to share their concerns, co-design and produce tailor-made and low-cost water infrastructure. In fact, the UN and various stakeholders have drafted very ambitious SDGs for water, hygiene and sanitation (Goal 6) to be achieved in no less than 15 years. In order to meet those universal and quantifiable targets, the Forum should launch regional working groups linking up local businesses from the water sector, civil society representatives with public servants to trigger applied discussions on how to best solve local problems and present concrete regional recommendations before, during and after the Forum.

Second, the Forum should be an open platform for testimonies, critics and diverging point of views from water users experiencing the daily water crisis. During the last 2012 World Water Forum, in France, the only place to meet and hear the alarm call of farmers, community representatives, women and minority groups suffering from the water crisis was at the unofficial side event or “Alternative World Water Forum”: a civil society initiative organized for civil society.  For many people around the world the World Water Forum remains a vitrine organized by public authorities for public authorities.  Yet, the Forum must become the place for all water users to voice their concerns on the international stage. 

Courtesy United Nations @ sustainabledevelopment.un.org

Third, the Forum ought to coordinate with other high level environmental summits such as the climate change and sustainability summits. For instance in Lima 2014 and in Copenhagen 2009, member states have pledged financial help for least developed and developing countries to adapt to climate change, via National Adaptation Plans.  As such, part of those adaptation funds will be channelled to non conventional supply technologies (efficient irrigation, flood control, desalination etc.).  The Forum can help to tailor low-cost technologies more systematically and get political commitment on critical issues such as technology transfer and awareness-raising.  This will be of great help to realistically plan and implement the framework agreements of future environmental summits.

Political commitment to fast-track related summits; more openness and inclusion towards civil society and the water industry; those are but a few points to guarantee overall coherence and generate the extra momentum needed for the World Water Forum to effectively contribute to world peace and human development:  without safe drinking water, proper hygiene and sanitation for all, the Sustainable Development Goals won’t be sustainable!

RB

From the ethics of islands (Part 2) - two different stories

Two places, two different stories in terms of water ethics. Both have one thing in common: they are small islands with a fragile ecosystem.  The Republic of Nauru is located in Oceania, while El Hierro is part of the Canaries, off the Atlantic coast. These two islands have chosen to give very different answers to these ethical questions:

1. Do we promote long term profits over short term profits?
2. With what means do we exploit our natural resources and to what ends?
3. Should we protect our human and natural capital and seek self-sufficiency?
4. Is there a limit to growth beyond the expansion of economic capital?
5. How do we provide the island with a sustainable water and energy source?
6. Is it feasible to bear initial investments by generating renewable energy?

Nauru unlike El Hierro had tremendous amounts of phosphates exploited throughout colonial times and after its independence in 1964. Driven by the international market for fertilizers, Nauru became  one of the world’s wealthiest countries in the 1960s-70s.  In the 1970s its citizens used to buy all sorts of goods, some driving their SUV along the only road, leaving it on the sidewalk once the tank got empty to immediately get a brand new car. However, failing to diversify its tiny economy, phosphate-moneys were squandered abroad in shady real estate and trust funds. After the 1980s the promised return on investments did not occur and phosphate reserves rapidly declined – so did royalties to landowners in Nauru.  Today billions of profits have vanished, state debts are piling up, public health is disastrous due to fast-food diets and inactivity – for years work was subcontracted to foreigners.  The deliberate choice to promote phosphates as the only trade and rampant political corruption have destroyed the island’s ecosystem within less than 50 years. Top-soils have been completely dug out (80% of the Nauru’s surface) causing soil erosion and desertification, underground layers are dangerously hollow and threaten to collapse.  Rising sea levels worsen this phenomenon, as is already the case for other islands in Oceania. Mining activities took a huge toll on groundwater quality and reserves, leaving Nauru a barren land stripped from its plant cover, a reality cast in its topography today (see pictures below).

Courtesy Nauru @ commonground191.com 

Courtesy Nauru @ toptenfamous.com

El Hierro took an entirely different path despite being a resource-poor island. Most of its leaders' decision-making has been aimed at sustainability and self-sufficiency. Ethical choices are set in a strategy called “El Hierro 100% sustainable”.  It required no less than 30 years of persistent lobbying to get approval from Spain and the EU. Let’s take a look at three of this strategy's key-dimensions:

(1) Agriculture: acknowledging that over 40% of El Hierro's water is going to agriculture, biological farming is considered the less harmful approach.  For instance, sheep and goats are preferred over cows to avoid soil erosion. The Island council rents 20 hectares of agricultural land to farmers including a greenhouse.  Locally bio-labelled products such as banana, pineapples, mangos, papayas, avocados and figs are preferred over water-intensive products (e.g. olives, rice).

(2) Energy & water supply: confronted with water and energy scarcity El-Hierro’s initial problem was to find a cost-effective way to desalinate sea water and harvest energy.  Thereby, the technical concept made use of the only natural resource available in bulk: streams of Atlantic wind!  In a nutshell 5 windmills (total capacity 11.5 MW) generate up to three times electricity needs (11,000 households).  Additional power is channeled to the desalination plant producing drinking water. What if there is no wind? The back-up plan involves pumping water from a lower basin to a higher basin, which is then released thus triggering 6 hydro-turbines (total capacity 11.3 MW) satisfying energy and water demand (see sketch below).

Courtesy El Hierro @ GEO Magazine, goronadelviento.es

Courtesy El Hierro @ eldiaro.es

(3) Tourism: El Hierro made the early choice of ecological tourism restraining from building costal sea resorts and huge touristic estates overlooking the main beaches. Instead, its shores are left almost intact with the exception of a small artificial harbor. In turn, scarce resources are not overburdened by mass tourism and local inhabitants do make a living from small businesses (eco-lodges, bed and breakfast, local market ect.) most tourists staying only for a day or two.  The next step is to rely exclusively on electric cars and recycle 100% of waste instead of 50% today.

Ethical choices have bestowed opposite fates upon Nauru and El Hierro – surely we can learn from them in terms of water and environmental ethics.  Islands will always give us valuable insights!

RB

From the Ethics of Islands (Part 1)

Courtesy: WWW

When Robinson Crusoe got stranded on his desolated Island, he first felt that he was being cursed, on second thoughts he came to realize that his prison was ultimately his salvation providing him with all necessities of life (freshwater, goat meat, fruits and crops).  Him being alone in his kingdom, and having nothing to share with anyone, simplified his minimalistic way of life: why desire more when there is enough to live on? Robinson’s answer would have been that it is natural to seek what is being denied and forget about what is already there. 

The ups and downs of the world’s most famous shipwrecked person are deemed as an early tale of capitalism, especially by demonstrating the utility principle.  That is every resource has to be produced and consumed in its best possible way (without waste, because waste is expensive) – more broadly the fulfillment of basic supply and demand equilibrium.  In that sense Robinson is not only a tale of the protestant ideal of capitalism (hard work leads to rightful earnings and deeds), but also entails a critic of unethical consumption patterns. In fact, the harder Robinson worked the more sustainable he became.

I see another important lesson from Robinson Crusoe. Apart from being dependent of the island’s natural ecosystem, his hardship to get agricultural resources (it took him several years to harvest his first crop) makes us rediscover the fragility of human nature.  Available resources are limited and precious, which we tend to forget because of the high division of labor and global supply chains.  Like many, I have no clue about how to produce most of the things I use. It gives us a false impression of almightiness quickly gone once left alone to fend for ourselves like Robinson did on his island. 

Today, Daniel Defoe's novel is still very much related to water ethics.  In fact, Islands offer scarce hydrological resources i.e. biomass, meat, vegetables and fruits. Agriculture and husbandry depend on trade-offs between competing available land/water resources and pollution from inputs (natural or chemical fertilizers) and outputs (solid and liquid waste). Most production processes (e.g. cooling or cooking) depend on freshwater, if not, at some stage, on drinking water. Hence, without any trade with the outside world (all things kept constant, as economists would say), Islands can only sustain a finite number of consumers such as Robinson.  But what is the Earth if not an island lost in millions of galactic seas?

Courtesy: Daily Telegraph UK

Islands are ecosystems to experience and measure sustainability.  For the ethical observer and practitioner they represent the ideal hydrological unit to study and learn from.  Water ethics is all about sustainability, because ethics brings us back to some of the core questions that tormented Robinson all these years on his Island;

• What are my basic food and water requirements? What is secondary?
• How much inputs (water for instance) do I need to produce?
• How much can the ecosystem provide in future?
• Do I need to share with other people? Am I the only one in need?
• What are the limits to production and consumption?
• Do I make some stocks for next week, next month or next year?

Those questions are of utmost importance because one agent has no exclusive right (we might say natural right) to answer these (or ignore them) on behalf of other living creatures (including flora), thus jeopardizing the ecosystem by over-producing or over-polluting.  Hence, water ethics should guide us away from productive quantity to enter the age of productive quality.  In fact, one might argue that being moderate is already an amazing achievement in terms of sustainability.  Do we need a new smart phone, mineral water from the Fijis, a steak-meal every day, all of these water-intensive products? Robinson teaches that it is already unethical to produce more than what is needed, for instance, by boosting bio fuel profits using chemical fertilizers and cheap labor (Robinson’s boat sunk on his way to find slaves for his plantation) diverting water and ultimately distorting food prices in many parts of the world.  Islands will help us to understand this idea – Robinson, apart from finding faith was also an early environmentalist, but it took him many, many years on the Island to realize it.  

Soon a comparative case study about islands and water ethics!

RB

The Water Integrity Network

© Hansa Tangmanpoowadol (*)

The Water Integrity Network (WIN) was formed in 2006 to respond to increasing concerns among water and anti-corruption stakeholders over corruption in the water sector. It combines global advocacy, regional networks and local action, to promote increased transparency and integrity, bringing together partners and members from the public and private sectors, civil society and academia, to drive change that will improve the lives of people who need it most.

WIN’s vision is a world with equitable and sustained access to water and a clean environment, which is no longer threatened by corruption, greed, dishonesty and wilful malpractice. To achieve this WIN will continue to raise awareness about the issue of corruption in its different forms (e.g. not just bribery, but also extortion, collusion and large-scale systemic corruption) and the fact that something can be done about it through multi-stakeholder coalitions that build integrity.  It will share and facilitate the use of water integrity tools, methods and applied research findings and knowledge among water-users and professionals. 

WIN’s work will not just concern preventing corruption, a big enough challenge in itself, but also ensuring that the poor participate meaningfully in decision-making processes and benefit in particular from the solutions put in place.

(*) The story behind the photo is as follows: The Fishermen live close to the Mae Moh Coal Mine, a power plant factory in Lampang Province, Thailand. They have to live with environmental fluxes of arsenic from lignite mining and power generation contaminating their water and food source.

A Vehicle for Water Ethics

Two years ago I was working on my master’s degree, concentrating on water and its relation to sustainability. I was not quite sure of how to put my ideas together into a practical and meaningful application. As I was doing research for a paper on water privatization, I came across a small book by Robert William Sandford and Merrell-Ann S. Phare called Ethical Water: Learning to Value What Matters Most. This book, while small in size was big on content and became the basis for the rest of my academic career and the inspiration for my self-designed degree. All of my thinking about water seemed to suddenly find its focus.

The issue with water went beyond the disproportionate amounts that people had access to and the shortages and lack of sanitation that were occurring around the world. The real problem seemed to be in how easily water was ignored by most people unless there was some issue relating to either its lack or abundance. It was not appreciated for its value in everything including not just health and sanitation, but manufacturing, transportation, energy, and literally every aspect of our lives. Without water there would be no life as we know it on earth.

As the importance of all this took hold of me, I also questioned how I could pass on this vital understanding to others. I knew this would be difficult for any one person to do and I wondered how much impact I could realistically have. My idea was to try and pass these lessons on to children, the water stewards of tomorrow. I carried this notion forward into my thesis, “Water Ethics in Elementary Education.” I discovered there were no easy answers, as is so often the case in life. My research exposed as many new questions as answers, but it did not reduce my resolve or the importance of the message. I am still looking for a meaningful outlet to help people understand the significance of water in every aspect of our lives. I hope by reading my thesis, you will begin to understand some of the challenges in teaching our children about the ethics of water as well as the importance to do so.

Nancy Wells, Self-Designed MA in Water Ethics & Sustainability (*)

(*) The author's work (MA thesis) can be downloaded here.  Usual copyrights apply, please contact the author for further information.