Showing posts from category natural resources.
-
How Population Growth Is Straining the World’s Most Vital Resource
Turning Up the Water Pressure [Part One]
›January 18, 2011 // By Russell SticklorThis article by Russell Sticklor appeared originally in the Fall 2010 issue of the Izaak Walton League’s Outdoor America magazine.
For many Americans, India — home to more than 1.1 billion people — seems like a world away. Its staggering population growth in recent years might earn an occasional newspaper headline, but otherwise, the massive demographic shift taking place on our planet is out of sight, out of mind. Yet within 20 years, India is expected to eclipse China as the world’s most populous nation; by mid-century, it may be home to 1.6 billion people.
So what?
In a world that is increasingly connected by the forces of cultural, economic, and environmental globalization, the future of the United States is intertwined with that of India. Much of this shared fate stems from global resource scarcity. New population-driven demands for food and energy production will increase pressure on the world’s power-generating and agricultural capabilities. But for a crowded India, domestic scarcity of one key resource could destabilize the country in the decades to come: clean, fresh water.
Stepping Into a Water-Stressed Future
From Africa’s Nile Basin and the deserts of the Middle East to the arid reaches of northern China, water resources are being burdened as never before in human history. There may be more or less the same amount of water held in the earth’s atmosphere, oceans, surface waters, soils, and ice caps as there was 50 — or even 50 million — years ago, but demand on that finite supply is soaring.
Consider that since 1900, the world population has skyrocketed from one billion to the cusp of seven billion today, with mid-range projections placing the global total at roughly 9.5 billion by mid-century. And it only took 12 years to add the last billion.
Unlike the United States — which is a water-abundant country by global standards — India is growing weaker with each passing year in its ability to withstand drought or other water-related climate shocks. India’s water outlook is cause for alarm not just because of population growth but also because of climate change-induced shifts in the region’s water supply. Depletion of groundwater stocks in the country’s key agricultural breadbaskets has raised water worries even further. Water scarcity is not some abstract threat in India. As Ashok Jaitly, director of the water resources division at New Delhi’s Energy and Resources Institute, told me this past spring, “we are already in a crisis.”
How the country manages its water scarcity challenges over the coming decades will have repercussions on food prices, energy supplies, and security the world over — impacts that will be felt here in the United States. And India is not the only country wrestling with the intertwined challenges of population growth and water scarcity.
Transboundary Tensions
Several of the world’s most strategically important aquifers and river systems cross one or more major international boundaries. Disputes over dwindling surface- and groundwater supplies have remained local and have rarely boiled over into physical conflict thus far. But given the challenges faced by countries like India, small-scale water disputes may move beyond national borders before the end of this century.
Looming global water shortages, warns a recent World Economic Forum report, will “tear into various parts of the global economic system” and “start to emerge as a headline geopolitical issue” in the coming decades.
This has become a national security issue for the United States. Any country that cannot meet population-linked water demands runs the risk of becoming a failed state and potentially providing fertile ground for international terrorist networks. For that reason, the United States is keeping close track of how water relations evolve in countries like Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. It is also one of the reasons water security is a key goal of U.S. development initiatives overseas. For instance, between 2007 and 2008, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) invested nearly $500 million across more than 70 countries to boost water efficiency, improve water treatment, and promote more sustainable water management.
More Mouths to Feed, Limited Land to Farm
Water is a critical component of industrial processes the world over — from manufacturing and mining to generating energy — and shapes the everyday lives of the people who rely on it for drinking, cooking, and cleaning. But the aspect of modern society most affected by decreasing water availability is food production. According to the United Nations, agriculture accounts for roughly 70 percent of total worldwide water usage.Global population growth translates into tens of millions of new mouths to feed with each passing year, straining the world’s ability to meet basic food needs. Given the finite amount of land on which crops can be productively and reliably grown and the constant pressure on farms to meet the needs of a growing population, the 20th and early 21st centuries have been marked by periodic regional food crises that were often induced by drought, poor stewardship of soil resources, or a combination of the two. As demographic change continues to rapidly unfold throughout much of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the ability of farmers and agribusinesses to keep pace with surging food demands will be continually challenged. Food shortages could very well emerge as a staple of 21st century life, particularly in the developing world.
Mirroring the growing burden on farmland will be a growing demand for water resources for agricultural use — and the outlook is not promising. According to a report from the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka, “Current estimates indicate that we will not have enough water to feed ourselves in 25 years’ time.”
As one of the world’s largest agricultural producers, the United States will be affected by this food crisis in multiple ways. Decreased food security abroad will increase demand for food products originating from American breadbaskets in California and the Midwest, possibly resulting in more intensive (and less sustainable) use of U.S. farmland. It may also drive up prices at the grocery store. Booming populations in east and south Asia could affect patterns of global food production, particularly if severe droughts spark downturns in food production in key Chinese or Indian agricultural centers. Such an outcome would push those countries to import huge quantities of grain and other food staples to avert widespread hunger — a move that would drive up food prices on the global market, possibly with little advance warning. Running out of arable land in the developing world could produce a similar outcome, Upmanu Lall, director of the Columbia Water Center at Columbia University, said via email.
Changing Tastes of the Developing World
Economic modernization and population growth in the developing world could affect global food production in other ways. In many developing countries, rising living standards are prompting changes in dietary preferences: More people are moving from traditional rice- and wheat-based diets to diets heavier in meat. Accommodating this shift at the global level results in greater demand on “virtual water” — the amount of water required to bring an agricultural or livestock product to market. According to the World Water Council, 264 gallons of water are needed to produce 2.2 pounds of wheat (370 gallons for 2.2 pounds rice), while producing an equivalent amount of beef requires a whopping 3,434 gallons of water.
In that way, the growing appeal of Western-style, meat-intensive diets for the developing world’s emerging middle classes may further strain global water resources. Frédéric Lasserre, a professor at Quebec’s Laval University who specializes in water issues, said in an interview about his book Eaux et Territories, that at the end of the day, it simply takes far more water to produce the food an average Westerner eats than it does to produce the traditional food staples of much of Africa or Asia.
Continue reading part two of “Turning Up the Water Pressure” here.
Sources: Columbia Water Center, ExploringGeopolitics.org, International Water Management Institute (Sri Lanka), Population Reference Bureau, The Energy and Resources Institute (India), United Nations, USAID, World Economic Forum, World Water Council.
Photo Credits: “Ganges By Nightfall,” courtesy of flickr user brianholsclaw, and “Traditional Harvest,” courtesy of flickr user psychogeographer. -
Watch: Cynthia Brady on Natural Resources, Climate Change, and Conflict at USAID
›“While we know that natural resources alone are neither necessary nor sufficient to drive conflict, we do know that competition over resources and their revenues often helps to drive conflict and to sustain it over time,” said Cynthia Brady, a senior conflict advisor at USAID’s Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation. “We also know that climate change impacts are going to interact with those dynamics, so we need to better understand how, in order to really program effectively against it in the future.”
Brady spoke to an audience of peacebuilding professionals at the 2010 Alliance for Peacebuliding Conference in Annapolis, Maryland, this fall. She noted that the issue of climate security is a relatively new one and when talking about the risks of climate-related conflict, it’s important to avoid hyperbole.
“The science of analyzing both the risks of climate impacts and the risks of conflict is pretty uncertain – they’re both still evolving,” Brady said. “There’s a very limited evidence base of real-world analysis from which we draw about this intersection.”
“I think it’s really important that we avoid over-simplification and we really focus, as peacebuilding and conflict practitioners, on the reality that conflict is such a complex phenomenon, and that opens a lot of opportunities for various points of intervention,” said Brady. -
Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts: Quantifying the Integration of Population, Health, and Environment in Development
›It makes intrinsic sense that integrated approaches working across development sectors are a good thing – especially when it comes to the complex issues facing people in developing countries and the environment in which they live. After all, integration avoids overlap and redundancies, and adds value to results on the ground. Yet, quantifying the benefit of integration has been difficult and to date, little on this topic has been published in the peer-reviewed literature.
Not anymore. Our article, “Integrated management of coastal resources and human health yields added value: a comparative study in Palawan (Philippines),” recently published in the journal Environmental Conservation, breaks new ground. Rigorous time-series data and regression analysis document evidence of different disciplines working together to produce synergies not obtainable by any one of the disciplines alone.
The article presents quasi-experimental research recently conducted in the Philippines that tested the hypothesis that a specific model of integration – one in which family planning information, advocacy, and service delivery were integrated with coastal resources management – yields better results than single-sector models that provide only family planning or coastal resources management services.The study collected data from three island municipalities in the Palawan region of the Philippines, where the residents are dependent on coastal resources for their livelihoods. The integrated model was implemented in one municipality, while the single-sector models (one coastal resource management program and one reproductive health management program) were conducted in two separate municipalities.
The results of the study provide strong evidence that the integrated model outperformed the single-sector models in terms of improvements in coral reef and mangrove health; individual family planning and reproductive health practices; and community-level indicators of food security and vulnerability to poverty. Young adults – especially young men – at the integrated site were more likely to use family planning and delay early sex than at the sites where only family planning and reproductive health interventions were provided.
Coral reef health – as measured by a composite condition index – and mangrove health increased significantly at the integrated site, compared to the site where only coastal resource management interventions were provided. Data from the integrated site also showed a significant decline in the number of full-time fishers, as well as fewer people who knew someone that used cyanide or dynamite to fish – both factors that amplify a community’s vulnerability to food insecurity. Finally, the proportion of young people with income below the poverty threshold decreased by a significant margin in areas where the integrated population and coastal resources management (IPOPCORM) model was applied.
Let’s hope this research is just the beginning of a more thoughtful and effective approach to meeting multiple development goals in a lasting mannerEducational activities at the integrated site focused on illuminating the intrinsic relationship between fast-growing coastal communities in the Philippines and the diminishing health of the coral reefs and fisheries that they depend on for food and livelihoods. Community change agents, often fishermen and their families, talked to their neighbors and fellow fishers about the importance of planning and spacing families and establishing and respecting marine reserves to protect the supplies of food from the sea. They referred those interested in family planning to community-based social marketers of contraceptives or the nearest health center for other services.
These same community members also participated in activities to sustainably manage their coastal resources: working with local government officials to establish marine reserves, replant mangroves, serve as community fish wardens to patrol those reserves, test out alternative livelihoods such as seaweed farming, and start small businesses to diversify their income and reduce fishing pressure.
Development professionals should pay close attention to the conclusions of this study. In environmentally significant areas where human population growth is high, it will be difficult to sustain conservation gains without parallel efforts to address demographic factors and inequities in the distribution of health and family planning services. Integrating responses to population, health, and environment (PHE) issues provides an opportunity to address multiple stresses on communities and their environments and, as this study demonstrates, adds value in such a way that significantly improves community resilience and other outcomes.
This research allows those of us who believe strongly in integrating population, health, and environment programming to point to quantitative proof that the approach works. We now need to expand PHE programming to reach more people in other parts of the world where communities face a similar nexus of challenges. New initiatives have started taking the lessons from this research, applying them to new contexts in Africa and Asia, and scaling them up to reach many more in the Philippines.
Let’s hope this research is just the beginning of a more thoughtful and effective approach to meeting multiple development goals in a lasting manner in the places that need it most.Leona D’Agnes is the technical director of IPOPCORM, Joan Castro is the executive vice president of PATH Foundation Philippines Inc, and Heather D’Agnes is the Population, Health, Environment Technical Advisor in the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Office of Population and Reproductive Health.
Sources: BALANCED, Link TV, PATH Foundation Philippines Inc., World Wildlife Foundation.
Image Credit: Philippines village (adapted) and municipalities map courtesy of PATH Foundation Philippines Inc. -
Bringing PHE to a Muslim Community in Tanzania
Abdalah Overcomes the Odds
›This PHE Champion profile was produced by the BALANCED Project.
“Now, people can plan their families and know how to use a condom,” says Abdalah Masingano as he proudly tells how his community has come to accept integrated population, health, and environment (PHE) activities.
The 35 year-old Abdalah is a PHE provider. He lives near the Saadani National Park (SANAPA) — one of Tanzania’s newest, and the only terrestrial park with a contiguous marine area in southeastern Tanzania. Saadani is home to the rare Roosevelt Sable antelope and the nesting grounds for several endangered species of marine turtles. One of the largest threats to biodiversity in this area is the clearing of mangroves and coastal forests for firewood and charcoal-making. About 95 percent of households in the area depend on firewood for cooking and most use a three-stone fireplace that utilizes only about 10 percent of its energy potential. These are just some of many pressures that people living around the park place on the biodiversity-rich forest and marine resources of the area.
Abdalah and his 31 year-old wife have two children: a 14-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl. His wife has been on the pill for four years. For two years now, Abdalah has been selling condoms in his village store. He made this decision for simple reasons. He saw that people needed condoms for both family planning and health, and he had come to understand the linkages between the behaviors of people living in the area and the health of the environment.
Abdalah gained this understanding when he was recruited to become a PHE provider by the Tanzania Coastal Management Partnership as part of its work through the USAID-supported BALANCED Project, which is promoting PHE implementation in biodiversity-rich countries. In a two-day training, Abdalah learned about integrated PHE and the links between population (family planning), health, and the environment. He has been educating villagers ever since.
“In the past, it was difficult for people to plan their families because they were embarrassed,” recalls Abdalah. As a PHE provider, Abdalah delivers integrated PHE messages to his fellow villagers. After attending the BALANCED training, Abdalah learned that promoting family planning makes sense for reasons beyond health. Forest and marine resources found both around and inside the Saadani are heavily exploited by local villages – and from a biodiversity conservation perspective, reducing population pressures is just one critical step in protecting this biodiversity.
When people visit his shop, Abdalah takes the opportunity to explain the population and environment connection. Because deforestation is a particular problem in the area where Abdalah lives and works, he promotes the use of fuel-efficient stoves.
Showcasing his own stove, his explains that by using a simple clay stove – which is made locally – a household can save almost 1.5 tons of fuelwood annually and reduce by 50 percent the time women spend collecting fuelwood. At the same time, he reminds villagers that when they plan their families they help keep mothers and children healthy. Healthier families also tend to put fewer pressures on – and thus keep healthier – the very natural resources they depend on for food and income.
Initially, Abdalah’s Muslim neighbors were unhappy with him promoting family planning and condom use. They believed what he was doing encouraged sex and prostitution. “They thought I was lost,” he explains smiling. Fortunately, his wife has been very supportive of him despite the discouraging reactions of his fellow villagers early on in his efforts.
Today, Abdalah’s perseverance has paid off. He now sells more than 200 condoms monthly and takes the time to demonstrate to his customers how to use them properly. When there is the opportunity, he also refers his customers to the local health dispensaries for additional family planning services and commodities. Abdalah believes people respect him now. “I feel good because I am able to help,” he concludes. That “help” impacts both the health and well-being of his fellow villagers and the health and well-being of the environment. Abdalah and his wife plan to have their third child two years from now.
This PHE Champion profile was produced by the BALANCED Project. A PDF version can be downloaded from the PHE Toolkit. PHE Champion profiles highlight people working on the ground to improve health and conservation in areas where biodiversity is critically endangered.
Sources: Darfur Stoves Project, IPS News, TSN Daily News, UN.
Photo Credit: Abdalah showing a box of condoms for sale in his small shop by Juma Dyegula, courtesy of the BALANCED Project. -
Peter Gleick on Peak Water
›“The purpose of the whole debate about peak water is to help raise awareness about the nature of the world’s water problems and to help drive toward solutions,” says the Pacific Institute’s Peter Gleick. But Gleick asserts that in the same way certain countries have been contending with “peak oil” concerns in recent years, they may soon also have to deal with “peak water” as well.
Unlike oil, water is largely a renewable resource, but countries in Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere are pumping groundwater faster than aquifers can replenish naturally. Gleick explains “there will be a peak of production in many of those places and eventually the food that we grow with that water or the widgets that we make from the factories that use that water will be nonsustainable and production will have to drop.”
The world’s surface and groundwater resources can be used sustainably even in the face of continued global population growth, says Gleick, but only “if we are careful about the ecological consequences and the efficiency with which we use it.” However, to date, he says, “those issues have not adequately been brought into the discussion about water policy.”
The “Pop Audio” series is also available as podcasts on iTunes. -
A Crucial Connection: India’s Natural Security
›January 5, 2011 // By Michael KugelmanExcerpted from the original op-ed, “A Crucial Connection,” by Michael Kugelman in The Times of India:
With India’s soaring growth and rising global clout hogging media headlines, it is easy to forget the nation is beset by security challenges. Naxalite insurgency rages across more than two-thirds of India’s states, while long-simmering tensions in Jammu and Kashmir exploded once again this summer. Meanwhile, two years post-Mumbai, Pakistan remains unwilling or unable to dismantle the anti-India militant groups on its soil. Finally, China’s military rise continues unabated. As Beijing increases its activities across the Himalayan and Indian Ocean regions, fears about Chinese encirclement are rife.
It is even easier to forget that these challenges are intertwined with natural resource issues. Policy makers in New Delhi often fail to make this connection, at their own peril. Twenty-five per cent of Indians lack access to clean drinking water; about 40 per cent have no electricity. These constraints intensify security problems.
India’s immense energy needs – household and commercial – have deepened its dependence on coal, its most heavily consumed energy source. But India’s main coal reserves are located in Naxalite bastions. With energy security at stake, New Delhi has a powerful incentive to flush out insurgents. It has done so with heavy-handed shows of force that often trigger civilian casualties. Additionally, intensive coal mining has displaced locals and created toxic living conditions for those who remain. All these outcomes boost support for the insurgency.
Meanwhile, the fruits of this heavy resource extraction elude local communities, fuelling grievances that Naxalites exploit. A similar dynamic plays out in Jammu and Kashmir, where electricity-deficient residents decry the paltry proportion of power they receive from central government-owned hydroelectric companies. In both cases, resource inequities are a spark for violent anti-government fervor.
Continue reading on The Times of India.
For more on India’s Naxalite rebellion and its natural resource drivers, see The New Security Beat’s “India’s Maoists: South Asia’s ‘Other’ Insurgency.”
Michael Kugelman is program associate with the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Photo Credit: “Mysore Coal Man,” courtesy of flickr user AdamCohn. -
Minister Izabella Teixeira at the Wilson Center
A Review of Brazil’s Environmental Policies and Challenges Ahead
›Stressing the need for concrete, tangible institutional policies, Izabella Teixeira, Brazil’s Minister of the Environment, discussed the challenges and goals of her ministry at the Wilson Center on October 20. Sustainable development, not just conservation, must be the focus, and that requires bringing lots of different players to the table, taking into account not only environmental but also social and economic agendas. To do this, she argued, one must take the rather ephemeral and hypothetical notions of environmental stewardship and put them into the realm of a practicable, institutionalized framework, built on a social pact that engages all sectors of society.The foundation of sustainable development and environmental policy must be biodiversity, according to Teixeira. Central concerns, such as food and energy security and combating climate change, all rely on a diverse array of natural resources. These need to be conserved, but they must also be developed in a responsible, sustainable way. A legal international framework toward this end, covering access to biodiversity and genetic resources, has yet to be implemented. Developing and developed countries need to find a middle ground on allocating the benefits that accrue from the use of genetic resources found in areas such as the Amazon, and this agreement must then be linked into existing political institutions.
Teixeira noted the strides Brazil has made toward protecting its environment – including having set aside the equivalent of 70 percent of all protected areas in the world in 2009 and the establishment of the Amazon Fund. Nevertheless, Brazil must continue to protect and maintain these nature preserves, not just establish them. Creating a program that pragmatically implements international goals in a national context is an ongoing process, and countries like Brazil now need to focus on the “how” of implementing these goals, rather than just the “what.”
Teixeira also highlighted the complexity of formulating environmental policy that integrates all the various points of view that must be taken into consideration. At recent meetings to discuss transitioning to a low-carbon economy, 17 different cabinet ministers had to be present to coordinate government positions and policies. The complexity is due in part to the need to create alternatives, not just to prevent certain activities. For example, one must not only use legal enforcement to stop illicit deforestation, but also create paths to legal, sustainable logging. Once again, attempting to balance environmental, social, and economic concerns is difficult, to say the least, but crucial for long-term effectiveness.
Also a unique challenge for Brazil is the natural diversity that exists within such a large country. While much of the attention paid to the environment goes (rightly so) to the Amazon, there are many other biomes and local environments that must be taken into consideration, Teixeira observed.
The cerrado, Brazil’s enormous savanna, requires a different strategy than the Amazon, which is different than the coastal Atlantic forest. Furthermore, urban areas need their own environmental policies that can take into account issues of human development and population density.
To illustrate the need for an inclusive, well-thought-out policy, Teixeira discussed–rather frankly–the controversy surrounding the recent proposed amendments to the Forest Code. She argued that the proposal makes blanket changes that do not take into consideration differences in biomes, differences between large agribusinesses and family farms, and between historic, settled communities and recent developments. The implications of this proposal, according to the minister, could have enormous social costs. Teixeira said she believes that it would be virtually impossible to enforce the amended Forest Code if it was approved by Congress. She used this example to underscore her role in offering legislative alternatives that seek to provide a more nuanced, and ultimately more effective, institutional framework that can use Brazil’s many natural resources to help its population to the greatest extent possible.
J.C. Hodges is an intern with the Brazil Institute at the Wilson Center; Paulo Sotero is the director of the Brazil Institute.
Photo Credit: “Rio Jurua, Brazil (NASA, International Space Station Science, 05/29/07),” courtesy of flickr user NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, and David Hawxhurst/Wilson Center. -
Those Who Would Carry the Water
›December 24, 2010 // By Mark NepoThis article will appear as the introduction in the forthcoming Fetzer Institute and Wilson Center publication, Our Shared Future: Environmental Pathways to Peace, based on an event cosponsored at the Wilson Center in January 2009.
It is fitting to say “welcome,” since this timeless greeting originally meant “come to the well.” Let me try to describe the well we are coming to. We are at once trying to gather the best experience and thinking of current environmental practice, to help advance the issue of water as a resource, and to use environmental work around water as a case study for the lessons and challenges of global community engagement. In convening leading practitioners and thinkers in the field of environmental peace-building and focusing on the ever-present issue of water, we hope to surface the strengths of human resources and how they impact the emerging global community.
In truth, the issues that bring us here have been present in the human condition forever. They are spoken to in every tradition. A few stories will help create a context for our time together.
If we turn to the Hindu tradition, we learn that Saraswati is the goddess of knowledge, music, and the arts. Her name means “the one who flows” and legend has it that she was born of the Saraswati River, which is an invisible river that carries the waters that sustain all life. From the earliest times, in many traditions, the waters that sustain all life refer to both natural resources and human and spiritual resources; actual water and the water we have come to know since the beginning of time as wisdom and love.
In Hindu lore, Saraswati’s ageless counterpart on earth is the serpent-demon, Vritrassura, who is driven to hoard all the Earth’s water. And so the endless struggle begins; at least this is one tradition’s beginning. Thankfully, in the Rig-Veda, the sacred collection of Sanskrit hymns, we are given hope as Saraswati – with help from her brother Ganesh, the provider and remover of obstacles, and Indra, the god who connects all things – kills the demon who would hoard the Earth’s water.
But clearly, throughout the ages, those who would carry the water and those who would hoard the water have appeared again and again and again. This is why we are here. Unspoken or not, unaware or not, we are by care and kinship of the lineage that would carry the water.
If we turn to the Haitian tradition, we find a very telling teaching story called The Chief of the Well. This story speaks of a time of drought when the streams are dry and the wells are parched. There is no place to get water. The animals meet to discuss the situation and decide to ask God for help. God creates a well that will have endless water as long as one of the animals serves as caretaker and welcomes all who would come in need. The lizard Mabouya volunteers. But intoxicated with his newfound power, Mabouya becomes a gatekeeper, not a caretaker, and sends everyone in need away. Eventually, God replaces the lizard with the frog who croaks to all, “Come! This is God’s well! The hole in the ground is yours, but the water belongs to God.” And we are left, in each generation, to discover what is ours and what is God’s, and to understand what turns the caretaker in us to the gatekeeper?
If we can accept our role as caretakers of resources that outlive us, then the history of the acequia might be relevant. An acequia (a-sā’kē-e) is a community-operated waterway used for irrigation. It is the name for a sluiceway or gravity chute that flows down a mountainside, providing water for a village. The Spanish word acequia, which means “ditch or canal,” comes from the Arabic al saqiya, which means “water conduit.” The Islamic occupation of Spain, beginning late in the eighth century, brought this technique of irrigation to Spain.
Acequias were then brought to the Americas by the Spanish, only to find their indigenous counterparts already in use. Particularly in the Andes, northern Mexico, and the modern-day American Southwest, acequias exist as the outgrowth of ancient systems created to carry snow runoff or river water to villages and distant fields. Many South American villages have settled around the mouth of an acequia that begins high and out of sight in the crags of a mountain. There, the source-water collects all winter near the top and, in spring, with the thaw, it streams into the village.
In many of these South American villages, as in Peru for example, there is an annual ritual in which an entire village climbs the acequia in early spring to clear the rocks and tree limbs and snake nests that during the winter have blocked the path of water that the village depends on. This ancient pragmatic ritual of clearing the acequia provides a powerful model for how community can care for its natural resources together.
In fact, keeping the acequia clear and flowing is a useful metaphor for interdependence and cooperation. The life of the acequia and our responsibility to keep its path of flow clear represents a cycle of natural and human erosion and cleansing that is intrinsic to life on earth. Therefore, keeping the acequia clear – both the actual acequia and the acequia of humanity – bears learning how to do well.
With all this in mind, I am drawn to lift up one more story. It comes from Éliane Ubalijoro, a professor at McGill University in Montreal, who as a Rwandan is working with the generation there orphaned by the genocide. After the mass killings, those surviving were confined to refugee camps. In this particular settlement, women had to cross a dark field outside of the camp and risk being raped to get water for their children, which they did repeatedly. This difficult situation points to the complex levels of the issues before us; all of which demand our attention.
First, we might consider access to the water itself. With regard to the conservation and preservation of natural resources, we are asked to solve the perennial question: How do you bring the water to those who need it? At this level, a direct solution might be to move the water supply inside the refugee camp.
Under this, however, we might consider access to the human resources. What is blocking the human acequia? With regard to conflict transformation and peace-building, we are compelled to ask: What are the values implicit in this situation by which the refugee camp guards put the water outside of the camp in the first place in order to create the opportunity to rape the women?
This leads to the work of education, the work of clearing the human acequia. So with regard to the development of social equity, we are now compelled to ask: What are the assumptions and traditions in this community that enable them to believe that exploiting women is not only permissible but entitled? How do we clear the human acequia so that wisdom and compassion can flow?
Finally, we might consider the conservation and preservation of human resources. For at the heart of this insidious atrocity is the resilience and courage and love of these women who went into the dark to get water for their children knowing the violation that awaited them. What kind of deep water is this and how can we insure access to this resource?
This story from Rwanda is one more example that shows how natural resources and human resources are inextricably linked. One central question before us is: How do we tend all levels at once? How do we develop multiple strategies? How do we convene and surface the wisdom of all frames?
Part of our inquiry here is to take our turn in trying to understand how natural resources and human resources are so linked. What blocks their access? What lets them flow together and sustain life? How do we understand the water of humanity and the water of the earth and how both kinds of water are shared or not in the world today?
We could say that knowledge flows like water between countries and communities. If this is so, then each of you is such water. We are here to drink from you and people like you, and to understand the currents that run between us and beneath us; to insure the clear flow of natural and human resources into the world; and to keep the global acequia clear; to embody and to further the art and science of carrying the water in all its forms to those who need it.
Mark Nepo is the author of The Book of Awakening as well as the forthcoming As Far As the Heart Can See.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “The Water Carrier,” courtesy of flickr user Portrait Artist – Enzie Shahmiri.
