Ease water restrictions? I don’t think so.
Look around us. We are living in times of drought and flooding. It’s global behaviour high-alert time.
Sure, we’re lucky, and our planners have created a reservoir that would protect our access to water through a year or two of drought, but not if we throw away our conservation training in the ‘good’ years.
It’s late winter, the middle of our wet season, and there is clearly plenty of water everywhere. Summer is coming – not that long ago Victoria’s water supply was at risk.
Enjoy a drink of clean water today and think about a world where access to water is hard work for most people and access to clean water is not a reality for more than a billion people. The CRD has been teaching us and school children to conserve water.
Positively AFRICA/VIDEA has been helping a few selected schools learn about a Kenyan community where access to water means carrying 20 kilograms of water 10 kilometres from the murky river.
We’re gearing up for Water Walk 2011, an awareness event at Elk/Beaver Lake this May. Let’s not walk backward into our over-consumptive patterns. Victorians use more water than most of the world and we pay less for it than most developed countries!
Positively AFRICA is a little NGO that, through linking communities in Africa to communities here, assists those dealing with the HIV pandemic.
Peggy Frank
Saanich