Date published: 2006/03/21
The BBC says:
Farming poses the biggest threat to fresh water supplies, according to a major United Nations report.
Agriculture is consuming more water as the world population increases and as people turn to a Western diet, one of the scientists on the report said.
Farms use two-thirds of fresh water taken from aquifers and other sources.
The UN concludes that ending subsidies on pesticides and fertilisers, and realistic pricing on water, would reduce demand and pollution.
A lack of adequate protective measures now will lead to greater problems in the future, warns the report, entitled Challenges to International Waters: Regional Assessments in a Global Perspective.
Co-ordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), it brings together evidence from about 1,500 researchers throughout the world.
...
"There are many important messages emerging from this pioneering study," said Unep's executive director Klaus Toepfer."One that rings loud and clear is the economic one - that our collective failure to value the goods and services provided by international waters, and to narrowly price the benefits in terms of the few rather than the many, is impoverishing us all."
The dilemma facing developing countries is made clear by the contradiction between this report and another released earlier in the World Water Forum by a different UN agency, the African Development Bank (ADB).
The ADB urges greater exploitation of water resources - more irrigation for farms, more dams for hydropower - in order to promote Africa's economic and social development.
Unep, by contrast, is highlighting the long-term environmental damage which would result if development is unsustainable, and pointing up the economic costs which would eventually ensue.
Of course Unep has a narrow remit, and that is the problem with this kind of report. It's not as if farmers are throwing water away for the joy of wasting it, they are using it to grow food. Perhaps Unep would be happier if instead millions more people starved to death. And similarly the snide remark about "Western diet" is a bit ridiculous given that UN agency employees are amongst the richest, and best fed, on the planet. Perhaps the Unep motto should be "let them eat cake", how dare the peasants expect the same lifestyle as the world elite. And sure we should "value the goods and services provided by international waters" (and a zillion and one other things, just pick your favourite pet topic). Only if we had a dozen economists doing this valuation their prices would no doubt be over a factor of two in range (because it is not even close to being well defined), which is just not good enough.
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