In the middle of serious political turbulence and the economic crisis, we honour World Water Day, in order to learn about these times in which contradictions are exacerbated, and through which we reassert our commitment for more justice with democracy and the guarantee of the population’s basic rights.
On the one hand, what is at stake is the ending of a cycle restricted to consumption, of a policy of alliances based on ‘win-win’ and the thinking that both the rich and the poor are the beneficiaries of certain government policies, without confronting issues that structure this development model. The model is marked by perverse junctures, for example, the balancing of national accounts using agricultural and mineral commodities and their heavy socio-environmental impact. Or of the priority given to automobile production, thus exacerbating urban chaos and immobility, yet providing large-scale industrial complexes and services that generate employment. The delayed global crisis of 2008 has hit Brazil heavily, with the deceleration of economies, in particular of China, our main commercial partner today.
On the other hand, the Lava Jato corruption operation, which set out to unseat a corruption scheme hatched by previous governments dating back to the dictatorship, has provoked a dismantling of the country’s biggest company – Petrobras – triggering a chain of implications, hitting powerful suppliers and aggravating the economic and political crisis because of its unpredictable outcome. To complete the picture, we cannot forget the hopes created by large-scale infrastructure works and their potential to generate jobs. The political struggle for power and the destabilization of the developmentalist project lead by Lula and Dilma proves that in times of economic crisis an apparently virtuous cycle, in which everyone wins, may be rapidly undone. In these cycles, capital moves around and it is: “every man for himself” – this government is not of interest.
And what does this brief retrospective have to do with World Water Day? It is related because it enables us to announce, beyond the boundaries of its economic viability, the serious socio-environmental mistakes of the dominant productivist model. Nothing illustrates this better than the unparalleled environmental and social crime committed in Mariana by the Samarco/Vale Company, polluting the basin of the Rio Doce and large parts of the sea on the Espírito Santo coast, affecting dozens of traditional communities, as well as water users in large cities.
Far from being an isolated major accident, whose extent remains unknown, the episode revealed the existence of other dams under threat. Mining activities have other impacts on water, for example, in pipelines involving the abundant use of water as transport which, in many cases, are a condition of economic viability. In 2014, quilombola communities in the North of Minas Gerais state reported that companies were prospecting water sources for their enterprises, threatening these populations’ way of life.
We also know of the rallying cries of the communities living near extensive eucalyptus monocultures, both because of the evident loss of biodiversity and the lowering of the water table.
And livestock, how many litres of water are needed to produce one kilo of meat? In the case of cattle, approximately 17,000 litres! And where do the immense deposits of agrochemicals emptied onto large agri-business plantations end up? In the rivers.
And the water crisis that we had last year, what was it due to? We know there were seasonal factors aggravated by El Niño, but it was certainly also due to deforestation by agri-business, particularly on the agricultural frontiers of the Amazon and the Pantanal.
And irrigation? It has been proven that agricultural activity consumes 70% of the fresh water that we use. If the rains are insufficient in the Amazon, the “flying rivers” are less dense and there is less precipitation in Sao Paulo… that is the water crisis.
And in the cities, what is happening to rivers forced into channels and large impervious areas with no facility to drain off rain water? Flooding.
What section of the population is most greatly affected by these increasingly extreme phenomena? The most impoverished, who live at the lowest levels and in the most insalubrious areas.
It is not too hard to remember that water is the most abundant resource on Planet Earth but that only 0.007% is available for human consumption. Although Brazil retains 14% of the water available, this is badly distributed in relation to the large centres. Roberto Malvezzi, or Gogó, from the Pastoral Land Commission (Comissão Pastoral da Terra: CPT), reminds us that “70% of the fresh water in Brazil is concentrated in the North, the least populous region, while the Northeast and Southeast, which have high populations, have little water. The risk of large scale shortages is not only a threat in traditionally arid areas, but also in large cities”.
We cannot therefore separate out the dilemma of how we use this precious good as an essential human right from the need to treat it carefully, taking into account its universality and priorities for use. These issues form part of the proposals of the Ecumenical Fraternity Campaign – “Common home, our responsibility”, which this year is dedicated to the timely theme of Basic Sanitation, containing at least 4 interconnected elements: safe drinking water, proper sanitation, the proper treatment of rainwater and a solid waste treatment system. Professor Luis Morais from the Federal University of Bahia, one of the country’s greatest authorities in this field, reminds us of a fifth, associated, component – environmental vectors, such as rodents and flying insects.
From the Basic Sanitation Observatory in Bahia, he warns about two central issues: confronting the pandemic of multiple species of mosquitos which cause serious injuries to public health, in particular through their association with hundreds of cases of microcephaly, predominantly in the Brazilian Northeast and emergency community mobilization measures which must also concentrate on resolving the structural causes of inadequate sanitation infrastructure. The other observation he considers crucial is the guarantee of sanitation as a public good and not as the object of privatization. He notes that this campaign is urgent and timely for a discussion of common strategies for the defence of safe and universal public sanitation, which is also the objective of the Water Rallying Cry, traditionally made every year by social movements, health bodies and unions. In this respect, he warns of the “dangerous advance of privatization projects and the dismantling, in the case of Bahia, of public sanitation policies indicate the need to bring several stakeholders together to resist these assaults”. Water is a natural environmental good, from which the first forms of life emerge and it would be a mistake to reduce it to a “resource”, merely reflecting the economic uses we make of it. If every being only exists because of water, then this is a much wider and more indispensable concept, and is covered by the common goods and rights referred to by ABONG.
Inspired by the slogan “Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream” (Amos 5:24), CESE has committed itself to the campaign’s priority area, publicizing and running seminars and round table discussions with churches, ecumenical groups, community leaders and its own team. They remind us of other biblical passages worth emulating, which stress how important it is for human beings to care for the whole of creation. Clean and safe drinking water also appears as a symbol of life when Moses causes the water of life to flow in the desert (Exodus 17:6), while water is also the source of life that Jesus describes to the Samaritan (John 4:14).
Finally, it is noteworthy that the recently launched Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as Agenda 2030, address the issue of water as a common and essential good in the direct pursuit of 4 of the 17 goals, one of which is specific – SDG 6: to ensure access to water and sanitation for all. The others refer to food security, sustainable agriculture, the recovery of ecosystems, combatting desertification, soil degradation and the loss of biodiversity.
It is also worth mentioning The Paris Accord, or COP 21, finalized in the middle of last year. This addressed Climate Change and made recommendations, including a systematic review of each signatory’s commitments, and noted the increase in the number of conflicts relating to water and other essential natural resources.
We hope that World Water Day provides us with energy and nourishes our hopes in defence of the Rule of Law and towards a sustainable model for Good Living.