Australia is simply running out of water for human use. How did this happen? Maude Barlow, Chairperson of The Council of Canadians, offers some explanations and some solutions.
Australia has a water crisis; on this everyone is agreed. There is no consensus however, on the cause of the crisis or the best solution to address it. Many blame climate change or believe that the current drought is cyclical and will pass.
But what if this is not a cyclical drought? What if it is permanent? In researching my new book, it became clear to me that greenhouse gas emissions are not the only cause of climate change. What is just beginning to be understood is that our collective global abuse and displacement of fresh water is also a serious cause of climate change and a major culprit in the desertification of the planet.
Simply put, humans have polluted so much surface water, we are now mining groundwater and rivers far faster than they can be replaced by nature. We are moving water from where nature has put it, in watersheds and aquifers, either for flood irrigation, where much of it lost to evaporation, or to service mega cities, where it is often dumped into the ocean rather than returned to the watershed. Water is also lost to ecosystems in the form of virtual trade - water used in the production of crops or manufactured goods that are then exported. Finally, urbanization, deforestation and wetland destruction greatly destroy water-retentive landscapes, reducing the capacity of the hydrologic cycle to function properly.
Australia (like most other countries in the world) has mismanaged its water resources. Excessive land clearance, gross over-allocation and extraction for human use, water intensive food production for export, rampant dumping of pollutants, all these practices have led to excessive salinity, growing land degradation and dying rivers. Total water allocations for human use in the Murray-Darling Basin, for instance, are roughly twice the recent average flow of the river - a totally unsustainable practice. The water is just not there. Yet vast amounts of water are still shipped out of depleting watersheds in the form of virtual water trade every day, a practice protected by successive governments committed to a competitive export model at all costs. Recently, governments have promoted lucrative private water trading schemes, allowing the further removal of water from rivers and watersheds needed for their survival. Disturbingly, protections promised in government policies for groundwater and integrated river systems that could act as an environmental buffer against these abuses have not been effectively implemented.
It is entirely possible, in fact almost certain, that Australia is one of what scientists call "hot stains" - parts of the world that are literally running out of water. These also include northern China, much of India, twenty-two countries in Africa, most of the Middle East, Mexico City and the U.S. Southwest. Urgent, comprehensive action is needed to reverse the further drying of the driest inhabited continent on earth.
The Australian government must approach its water crisis as it would a war. All other activity must be geared to this great project - the restoration of the freshwater systems of the country - and all other levels of government and all citizens and businesses must be enlisted to this great project. Eco-system restoration and preservation must take priority over short-sighted and short-term technological solutions such as desalination or future Australia will be a desert surrounded by hundreds of giant de-sal plants ringing the oceans. As well, Australia's surface and ground water must be declared a Public Trust and a Commons that belongs to all Australians, future generations and nature, not to private interests.
Wrenching as it is going to be, Australia must make decisions to use its limited water resources to provide first for local needs and only then for export opportunities. Corporate agribusiness and big mining interests have been granted access to water rights in excess of any long-term good they return to the country. Local, sustainable food production for local consumption is a growing trend around the world, but must be a basic priority in drought-plagued countries.
The destruction of clean water plus the growing corporate control of water is driving the price of water up everywhere. While the real service costs of providing water should be applied to all users to promote conservation, no one must be denied access to water because of an inability to pay. Furthermore, all decisions about water must be made in a fully transparent manner with full public participation. Water is every Australian's business.
