Freshwater is Our Common Wealth - EDITORIAL

With Sri Lanka boiling in its hottest temperature and experts warning the heat could rise to as much as 40 degrees Celsius in the coming days or weeks and with the country also running dry in one of our worst ever droughts, we will this month join the United Nations in marking World Water Day.
 
In a statement, the UN says we need to focus on the importance of freshwater because it is our common wealth. According to the UN, 2.2 billion people are surviving without access to safe water.  

The UN says we need to take action to tackle the global water crisis and achieve the UN sustainable goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030. The idea for this international day goes back to 1992, the year in which the UN Conference on Environment and Development took place in Rio de Janeiro. That same year, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution by which March 22 of each year was declared World Day for Water, the event was observed from 1993.   

Later on, other celebrations and events were added. For instance, the International Year of Cooperation in the Water Sphere 2013, and the current International Decade for Action on Water for Sustainable Development, 2018-2028. These observances serve to reaffirm that water and sanitation measures are a key to poverty reduction, economic growth, and environmental sustainability, the UN says.   

There is a close link between water and climate change. World Water Day 2020 is about water and climate change – and how the two are inextricably linked. The campaign shows how our use of water will help reduce floods, droughts, scarcity and pollution, and will help fight climate change itself. By adapting to the water effects of climate change, we will protect health and save lives. And, by using water more efficiently, we will reduce greenhouse gases, the UN adds.  

The key messages for this year are we cannot afford to wait. Climate policy makers must put water at the heart of action plans.Water can help fight climate change. There are sustainable, affordable and scalable water and sanitation solutions. Everyone has a role to play. In our daily lives, there are surprisingly easy steps we could all take to address climate change.   

More water means new hope. More than 2.4 million children in Somalia desperately need clean drinking water. The UN calls on all countries to give their support. Like many farmers in Senegal, Guilé Mané used to struggle through the dry season. Now, Guilé says her life has changed because of a new water-gathering and storage system put in place through 1 million cisterns.  

In Sri Lanka, we still remember the famous appeal by King Parakramabahu the Great. He said rain water should not go waste but should be collected and for this he worked out the concept of Wewas – marvels of ancient civil engineering. More than 10,000 Wewas were built. Cultivators or others did not have problems at times of  droughts. But down the ages, these wewas were neglected and most of them were disused.

During President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumarathunga’s government from 2004 to 2006, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) became a coalition partner and one of its leaders was the Minister in charge of agriculture and irrigation. The JVP promised to restore some 10,000 wewas. But after some months it ran into a conflict with the President over a proposed deal with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) in the aftermath of the tsunami. With the exit of the JVP, the wewa restoration project also ran dry and governments after that seldom even referred to wewas.  

Sri Lanka has scores of rivers and canals. We need to be aware that powerful countries which went to war to take control of crude oil resources in Afghanistan and Iraq may in the coming decades go to war to take control of fresh water resources and Sri Lanka may be one of the targets.   

On a personal basis, we need to act as responsible citizens by saving fresh water. Many are the ways in which we could do this. If we act with responsibility we could collect in some way the water we use to wash rice, vegetables, other food items, plates and sauce pans. This water could be used to water the plants instead of using fresh water. For the washing of vehicles also we need to find ways of stopping the use of fresh water. In these and many other ways good citizens could help to save fresh water and win the battle against climate change.