SO they have discovered water on the moon. News articles quote scientists saying the only way to find out how much water there is, is to go to the moon and start drilling.
My heart sinks. Another planet for us to mess up. We have been pretty bad at managing Earth’s water. A recent UN report says more than 30% of the world’s fresh water is wasted through leaks. That is criminal. We have so little as it is. Although 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, only 3% is fresh water. Of that, only 1% is in the form of rivers – and this 1% is where most of us get our water for everything, from drinking to flushing the loo, irrigating our crops to servicing industry. Cape Town nearly ran out of water. Now Gauteng is in trouble. But to see what water-stress really means for livelihoods, look at the Karoo. I spent last weekend in Aberdeen where the scarcity of water is in your face. One farmer spends R6 000 a day on feed for his sheep because the drought has killed grazing. And we will munch those chops without giving it a thought. Aberdeen used to have “leiwater”, where water from a spring was channeled into small canals through the town to supply water to plots. Many people used it to irrigate crops on small-holdings. Now the leiwater has gone, and with it the livelihoods of many Aberdeeners, as well as jobs and a local food supply. It is a lose-lose situation. What happened? It appears there was some damage to the canal close to the source. Whatever it was, the Aberdeen Municipality has failed to restore the leiwater. For years. How could they be so short-sighted? Do they not care about the survival of their town? Closer to home, the health of the Knysna estuary is getting worse. A study last year said it was one of South Africa’s most important estuaries, containing about 42% of all estuarine plants and animals. Despite being protected as a national park, the health of the Knysna estuary is deteriorating, largely through pollution and pressure from development and usage. Although it is a national park, there was no monitoring data to assess how it had changed over time. That’s shoddy. The report recommended monitoring programmes are put in place, and it said the practice of releasing sewage effluent that failed to meet the legal standards into the lagoon, must stop. Hellooo? Are we really releasing our semi-treated poo into the source of our drinking water? The UN report says within 15 years 40% of the world’s population will be living in “seriously water-stressed areas”. The ability of nature to provide fresh water will become increasingly compromised. If we are to win the water battle, the UN report says we will have to solve “institutional dysfunction, unethical practices, poor accountability and corruption in the water sectors”. There are by-elections coming up. Ask each candidate for their plan to clean up the lagoon – especially the sewage. Meantime, I feel sorry for the moon.
