MARCH 22 is World Water Day and this year’s theme is: “Accelerating the change to solve the water and sanitation crisis,” and the day also coincided with the UN’s annual World Water Conference in New York, attended by most Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member-states.
Water continues to be the world’s most coveted resource, especially since the global drought conditions of 2019 confirmed the earlier 2015 designation of water as a necessary global resource.
Extreme climate and environmental conditions and the search for new areas for virgin investments have long led investors to actively pursue making water a commodity to be traded on the free market like gold, or oil and gas.
Venture capitalists with foresight became veritable water lords within years after buying vast acreages of land to farm and harvest water for sale at home and abroad.
Today, where water has been monetised, there’s a noticeable contrast between city folk who can afford escalating rates and rural farmers facing lower production, leading to increasing agitation for returning water to become a free and necessary resource.
Farming water will become more of a global enterprise sooner than later, as world demand continues to outstrip supply.
But the Caribbean is also very well placed to farm and harvest water for today and tomorrow, which is why some regional and international partners, such as the Caribbean Water and Sewerage Association (CAWASA), have long been pressing ahead with ongoing plans to better protect and preserve the one resource everyone everywhere agrees is “Life.”
Rain water is plentiful across the Caribbean, but must of it still drains off roofs or goes unutilized, compared to what’s watering agriculture or being collected.
Caribbean water utilities are in the business of survival through rate charges not usually consistent with production costs, or what they will have to charge to compete with private bottled water.
But the region’s citizens continue to treat water as if it will always be available, while the economic war has already begun between those who see the money behind it and those who hold that it should never be sold.
Caribbean people still watch news featuring millions affected by thirst and cattle drying up in faraway places for lack of water, and see nothing wrong with keeping their pipes running while washing vehicles or watering lawns, never once thinking each drop can be the first to save a life elsewhere.
Rivers are drying up, but groundwater is still in abundance and only has to be brought out of its invisibility.
Interestingly, the monetisation of water is bringing environmentalists and investors together in some places, while pitting geologists against the water merchants elsewhere.
But while the debate continues, the Caribbean also needs to start thinking and acting now — and quicker than ever — to “accelerate the change to solve the water and sanitation crisis…”
The region must do all to trace and develop, save and share water, while also taking practical steps to farm and harvest the world’s most precious resource without pricing it out of anyone’s reach.
Guyana has as much water for life as land for food; and President Dr Irfaan Ali, with a background in the nation’s water sector, well understands water’s role in guaranteeing food security.
But getting Guyanese and Caribbean people to better understand why to always save every drop of water is not a pipe dream.
Instead, it’s an ongoing task with more facets than faucets, which is why all will continue to be done by this administration to ensure that Guyana’s water situation improves as well and as fast as the nation’s liquid resources will allow.
After all, water is Life!
