JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT

Student's name: XX
Name of Guest Speaker: Shalini Kantayya
Date of lecture: 1st October 2013
Topic of lecture: “A Drop of Life: Inside the Mounting Water Crisis.”

The lecture by Shalini Kantayya (“SH”) highlighted the concerns over the water crisis as it is today, mainly water as a scarce/limited supply resource not being consumed efficiently, the hazards to health with the presence of dangerous chemicals in water, the difficulty faced by under-developed/ developing nations in obtaining drinking water and discussed the ethics of privatizing the supply of water - the ‘life-giving’ resource.

One of the key messages of SH was that Water is Life and being such a precious resource it cannot be commodified. This was effectively conveyed through her film “A Drop of Life”, shown during the lecture. The film depicts the everyday ordeal faced by people in remote under-developed villages to obtain drinking water and how the privatization of the water supply through a prepaid system can lead to sanitation and health problems and even result to death. I also felt that it was no coincidence that the Supplier of prepaid water featured in the film is an American corporation, which to me deplore the fact that Americans seek to control the world and through water life on earth!

SH also touched on many important facets of water utilization and management. I’m sure the lecture did stir the conscience of and prompt many of us to question whether we are consuming water efficiently. I certainly agree with SH that the water problem is not only restricted to the ‘others’. With the rapidly changing climatic conditions around the world and the growing world population, there is no guarantee that the water supplied in our home today will remain the same (be it in quantity and quality) in few years’ time. Studies and statistics tend to support the above. The UN World Water Report 2012 states that “Humans are over-consuming natural resources at an unsustainable rate”. The 2012 FAO report further states that “By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world’s population could be living under water stressed conditions”
(source: http://www.unwater.org/statistics_res.html)

I personally felt that SH’s lecture as a water/eco-activist lacked power. She certainly did bring an awareness of the problem and the use of cinematography as a means is brilliant. However, I felt only passive engagement from her on the matter: a knowledge of the problem supported by facts and few research, an emotional string from her experience in India but I couldn’t see the passion needed to reach people and make a change. In my view this was lacking, she didn’t convince me either during the Questions and Answer session, she has no clue/no personal strategy as how to go about to resolve this issue.

In my view the solution is not in the hands of just a few, the responsibility is shared. There needs to be a concerted approached to the problem, everyone needs to contribute – the G8 need to decide on the world policy with respect to the management of the world’s water supply; country leaders need to take the appropriate decision and make necessary amendments to the law to ensure the supply of safe water to their citizens; children and the population at large, through schools and the media, must be educated on the problem and the efficient and optimum use of water; and finally each individual must use water responsibly. I come from Mauritius, a tiny island in the Indian Ocean, which for the past few years has been affected by severe draught. As a nation we experienced the hardship of water scarcity and today optimum use of water and tap and rain water recycling is just part of our life.

Let’s awake to the Water Crisis and vouch to lead an eco-friendly, water-sustainable life.