 |
|
Don’t cry
wolf
Jerome
Delli Priscoli, senior policy analyst at the Institute of Water Resources, U.S. Army
Corp of Engineers |
|
There is no denying
the potential violence surrounding the current water crisis. About 40 percent of
the world’s population live in river basins shared by two or more countries. These
basins comprise more then 50 percent of our planet’s landmass. Only a fool would
be surprised to find competing claims over water. Yet this interdependence does not
inevitably lead to war over water.
The “water war” thesis may actually help create the very conflicts it seeks to avoid.
It is usually presented as a growing number of people vying for less and less water.
However, the current crisis is not about an absolute limit, but about distribution.
For water to reach people at the right place and time, a government must have access
to technology, knowledge and money as well as the institutional capacity to distribute
this essential resource.
The wealthy North cannot approach the South by saying, “Conserve water! Don’t develop
the resource. Don’t use water-saving technologies to grow food. And for God’s sake,
reduce population!” This message may be based upon good intentions but it reinforces
a sense of panic and the notion of a zero-sum game, in which one side must compete
against another for water. It is a message to the bullies, “You better get yours
first!”
By focusing on looming water wars, we fail to see water as a tool for preventive
diplomacy. For example, a river basin forces us to rethink notions of inter-
dependence. Instead of fearing it as weakness, we use it as a network to better respond
to the tests of nature. By exchanging information on events like a flood or drought,
states can reduce the potential danger. This flexibility addresses the basic, almost
primordial fear that has driven humans to become toolmakers and engineers: fear of
uncertainty in a harsh environment. While often challenging the engineering mentality,
this same fear inspires environmental concerns. Somehow water forces us to go deeper,
beyond adversarial relationships, to confront what we really share—an instinct for
life.
Water is one of our enduring human symbols of life, regeneration, purity and hope.
It is one of our potent links with the sacred, with nature and with our cultural
inheritance. It offers a medium for a global project that unifies humanity in a single
cause for peace, stability and ecological sustainability. The water war thesis takes
us in the opposite direction. It denies the universal acceptance of water as a common
good.
The water war thesis has raised consciousness of the resource. But we are in danger
of crying wolf too often. This thesis plays to human fears—fears of change, fears
of deprivation, fears of limits, fears of violence and indeed primordial fears of
death. It is time to move beyond fear to action. Leaders need to rediscover and harness
water’s capacity to generate wealth, its potential for multiple uses and reuse, its
great convening power, its ability to provide the learning ground for building civic
culture.
Perhaps we need to “go back to the future” and look at how water has been used in
order to redefine the goals of water leadership. Water holds the potential for both
conflict and cooperation—the choice is ours. |
|
|
