Sandra Postel published LAST OASIS - FACING WATER SCARCITY back in 1992, year of the RIO Conference on Development and Environment, also called the Earth Summit. Re-issued in 1997 (with a new introduction) it formed the basis for a PBS documentary in the series "Cadillac Desert". Is it still relevant today? So much has been written on water issues since, from environmental concerns to promoting the privatization of water, that the question is valid.
Still, as we approach the 10-year review conference of RIO in Johannesburg, politicians, government officials, economists, environment and development experts and activists meet to take stock of what happened to the many promises of RIO - reflected in Agenda 21. In this context, it is interesting and useful to read LAST OASIS with a view to weighing the global water situation today against the problems and possible solutions outlined ten years ago.
Postel, a long-time specialist in environmental issues, traveled across the globe to review problem areas as well as conservation initiatives and solutions first hand. In addition to giving us an overview of the problems, she also outlined projects and initiatives representing a variety of approaches to address the challenges: either by living with and adapting to water scarcity or by finding solutions for preserving and replenishing the finite clean water resources available to us.
When it was published, Postel presented a comprehensive examination of the causes for water scarcity across the globe. Although not up-to-date anymore in terms of statistics, her analyis of the issues and her review of danger zones have not lost relevance. We are still facing the same dramatic divide: On the one hand, close to one billion people live without access to clean water and their daily requirements can only be met through enormous physical strain, in particular on women and girls who are the traditional water carriers. The inaquate water resources threaten the mere survival of the majority of the world's poor who live on the land and off the land to secure their livelihood with small-scale subsistence agriculture. On the other hand, water in industrialized societies, and also increasingly by the elites around the world, is treated as a cheap commodity: too often wasted and its safety jeopardized through carelessness and/or through industrial pollution. A major culprit in the long term destruction of safe water resources was then and remains today large scale agro-business. Postel argues the reasons for that and also reviews alternative and small-scale systems that have proven to be successful in delivering good crops as well as reducing the strain on the soil and the water table. Postel's 1999 book "Pillar of Sand" focusses on irrigation systems.
It is only unfortunate that the book was not updated in 1997 (or since). Some of the encouraging initiatives Postel described were "pending" or in progress and it would be good to know if any of them have come to fruition.
Is LAST OASIS still relevant today? Yes, it should be in any collection of books for those interested in and concerned with this most fundamental of environmental issues. It is a good starting point for informed debate on the future of water availability and safety. Will future generations debate a right to clean and adequate water ? Postel's call for a new ethics on water and the development of a "water security" system do not go quite that far, but she makes a strong case for it. She argues on two major fronts. Water conservation can be achieved and encouraged through "proper pricing" of water and by creating incentives for wise water use. If industries, and in particular agriculture had to pay the real cost of water, efficient and ecological systems would be designed. Complementing this policy of water pricing would be a new "water ethic". This ethic would focus on our responsibility for comprehensive water ecological systems; it would have to accommodate our short-term needs for water with our long-term responsibility for water conservation. Postel knows that this ethic would require a major philosophical shift and that it would lead to other fundamental questions on quality of life, on the need to bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots. It would change the agenda for economic growth towards ecologically based sustainable development.
ISBN-13: 978-0393317442
ISBN-10: 0393317447
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