– Minister Ali
MINISTER of Housing and Water, Mr. Irfaan Ali yesterday exhorted Guyanese to work towards securing Guyana’s gift of the abundance of fresh water and a sustainable pathway to the future. This was his message when the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) hosted a World Water Day observance, in collaboration with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) – Guianas and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The event also served as a precursor to a five-day workshop to be conducted by GWI, in partnership with the two other collaborators, for primary schoolchildren ranging in age from seven to nine years.
It will commence on World Water Day, Monday, which is being observed under the theme ‘Clean Water for a Healthy World’ and is part of GWI’s ongoing ‘H2O Kidz n Action’ school programme, involving participants from St. Gabriel’s,  St. Agnes, St. Sidwell’s, Stella Maris and North Georgetown primary schools.
Yesterday, WWF Guianas Country Manager, Dr. Patrick Williams presented Minister Ali, at GWI’s Vlissengen Road, Georgetown office, with educational materials, tokens and prizes for the upcoming workshop, in the presence of the St. Sidwell’s Primary School pupils.
Ali, delivering the feature address, alluded to the theme and said, without a doubt, the central issues of pollution, climate change, human well-being, food production and sanitation must be addressed within a general policy framework, “if we are to combat the consequences water shortage will have on the quality of life, food production, health and, most importantly, the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
He said, while the total volume of water on Earth is approximately 1.4 billion cubic kilometres, only 2.5 per cent of it is fresh and approximately 30 per cent of that is stored as ground reserves, also the source of 97 per cent of all water available for human consumption.
Ali said 70 per cent of all fresh water available is used for irrigation whilst industry accounts for 22 per cent and domestic consumption eight per cent.
“Guyana’s gross per capita production of water exceeds 400 litres per day, a figure which is far greater than most developing countries and on par with even the most developed nations of the world,” he stated.
Ali said the promotion of conservation and its investment strategy acknowledges and seeks not only to improve the integrity of the infrastructure but promote conservation and responsible use of water through revenue metering.
“The reality has been that the provision of revenue metering infrastructure yields substantial benefits to the performance of the system, by simply providing the impetus for conservation,” he said.

Essential framework
Ali added: “This forms the essential framework through which GWI is aggressively pursuing issues of conservation and equity as its fundamental framework in 2010.”
He said, in the hinterland, the equity of service is featured prominently and will canvas all corners with investments ranging from installation of solar photovoltaic pumping systems to deep wells.
Ali said the equity is seeing a transformation in the type of service being provided in hinterland communities.
He said, according to the (United Nations) Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) intergovernmental panel on climate change, it is predicted that agricultural yields in water stressed areas would decrease 50 per cent by 2020.
Ali concluded that water availability will have a severe impact on food production and sustainability and cited examples, locally, where the rice industry has been affected as a result of lack of fresh water through the El Nino situation.
“It is thus commendable that the Government of Guyana is proactively working towards improved irrigation, which will positively increase yields by 100 to 400 per cent, according to the FAO,” he asserted.
Ali said the Hope Canal and other irrigation channels must, therefore, be pursued aggressively to ensure viability and sustainability of the agricultural sector  “which has excellent prospects in becoming the primary regional food source as most of the agriculturally productive Caribbean countries are severely pressed in terms of fresh water availability.”
He sad it is also forecast that, by year 2025, water withdrawal rates would increase by 50 per cent in developed countries and 18 per cent in developing countries.
By then, Ali said, the FAO posited that 1.8 million people will be living in countries and regions with absolute water scarcity and two-thirds of the world’s population would be in the water stressed conditions every day.
“The identification of these issues is, indeed, timely, as today we are witnessing their amalgamation in the onslaught of the current El Nino crisis,” he posited.
“El Nino is a form of climate change as the phenomenon creates significant changes in the traditional patterns of rainfall, upon which many nations plan their economic and social existence,” Ali explained.
Emphasising that the phenomenon is, indeed, global in nature, he said: “The situation, therefore, presents a reality, whereby the economic activities in Guyana and the Caribbean are threatened due to geophysical changes, quite literally, half a world away.”
He said predictions are that the current El Nino phenomenon would, eventually, dissipate in coming months and all may revert to normalcy.
“However, we must not allow complacency to germinate as the lessons learnt from this experience must be documented and studied so as to guide our future policies, ” Ali cautioned.

Thirsty planet
He reminded that the impact of climate change on the availability of fresh water for a thirsty planet is not limited to El Nino.
Ali mentioned the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), stating that,  its core strives to maintain a vibrant economic base whilst recognising that the activities of man, if not properly regulated, will deplete environmental resources.
He conceded that managing the risk of pollution and climate change would certainly improve the quality and availability of water resources but said the core issue of protecting human health and well-being cannot be underestimated.
“In Guyana, we are indeed well endowed with water resources as there is a source of potable water which can be accessed with relative ease in most of the country. This source is further well protected from depletion as reserve capacity exists in sufficient quantities to withstand the effects of a medium terms drought,” Ali said.
But he acknowledged that this, unfortunately, is not the case in most of the Caribbean where negative variations in rainfall patterns result in an immediate effect in the quantity and quality of fresh water reserves.
“Guyana must, therefore, learn from the experiences of these nations and take the necessary steps to safeguard its water resources. The fact that our systems have some resilience to overcome periods of drought does not create precedence for indiscriminate use,” Ali warned.
He maintained: “We must certainly recognise that indiscriminate use would spiral out of control to eventual depletion of the resource. The checks and balances must, therefore, be instituted now while there is still a source to protect.”
“We must recognise that, in Guyana, the availability of water resources is a cornerstone of our economy.
“The availability of water affects every aspect of life. The existence of human kind, livelihood, food stability and sustainability is heavily dependent on fresh water.
“We must, therefore, work towards securing our gift – Guyana’s gift, the abundance of freshwater so that we will have a sustainable pathway to the future.”
In his remarks, Williams said World
Water Day is a global campaign, annually, to raise public awareness to the various issues related to water.
He agreed water is a vital resource for human well-being and safeguarding its quality contributes to improved human health and livelihood.
Williams said access to safe drinking water prevents the prevalence of diseases and increased poverty.
He said available data reveals that more than one billion of the world’s people and, in particular those in poor developing countries, do not have access to safe sources of drinking water and, apart from pollution from various sources, one of the disturbing trends that have been impacting negatively on the world’s fresh water resources is linked to climate change.

Concerted actions
Williams said preventing water population is, generally, cheaper than cleaning it up after contamination and maintaining quality requires sustainable integrated management policies and practices that can only be attained through a series of concerted actions.
“We, at WWF Guianas, encourage all of our citizens to utilise their collective energy to ensure that there is adequate and safe water for all, by preventing pollution, over consumption and wasteful use of our fresh water resources,” he said.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GWI, Mr. Yuri Chandisingh said the utility believes that the vehicle for advancing not only the water sector but national development lies on the shoulders of the young people.
He said GWI has taken steps to improve water quality, including the creation of five iron removal plants to be commissioned soon and has stepped up its education programme to foster awareness about the need for customers to practice basic safety measures, for which children can become water ambassadors.
He said the commissioning of those plants is tangible evidence of GWI’s commitment to improving water quality.