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Mekong River may not survive

Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 05 April 2010

Southeast Asian nations on the Mekong River pledged Monday to step up cooperation over the shrinking waterway amid fears China’s dams are exacerbating a severe regional drought.

Mekong River

Leaders of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam — the member-states of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) — convened in the Thai coastal town of Hua Hin to discuss management of the river, on which more than 60 million people rely.

“Without good and careful management of the Mekong river as well as its natural resources, this great river will not survive,” Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said as he opened the summit, the first in the MRC’s history.

“The Mekong river is being threatened by serious problems arising from both the unsustainable use of water and the effects of climate change,” he warned.

China — itself suffering the worst drought in a century in its southwest, with more than 24 million people short of drinking water — attended the talks as a dialogue partner of the MRC, as did military-ruled Myanmar.

Vice Foreign Minister Song Tao led the Beijing delegation to the summit, which comes after river levels in northern Thailand and Laos hit five-decade lows, according to the commission.

The situation has alarmed communities along the Mekong, which is the world’s largest inland fishery and vital for the region’s transport, drinking water and irrigation. Continue reading Mekong River may not survive

Conservation protocol for coastal East Africa

Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 01 April 2010

Ministers and officials from ten countries and territories in East Africa yesterday endorsed or signed off on a potentially far-reaching protocol to protect East Africa’s coastal and marine environment from land-based activities and pollution.

The new protocol – five years in the making – makes the western Indian Ocean the third marine area of the world to achieve a multilateral agreement to limit and control land-based impacts on the marine environment, after the Mediterranean (1980) and Wider Caribbean (1999).

The parties to the agreement are Madagascar, Comoros, Seychelles, Reunion, Mauritius, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa, which will be signing the protocol in the near future.

Durban Beach. Burgeoning cities such as Durban are threatening the very resource base that sustains them.

“This agreement comes at an opportune time, and will be assisting us with our initiatives in coast East Africa to save one of the few remaining areas of the world that are still unspoilt,” said Dr Amani Ngusaru, head of WWF’s Coastal East Africa Marine Programme.

“Over 60 million people in eastern and southern Africa live and depend on the goods and services provided by the coastal and marine ecosystems of coastal east Africa.” Continue reading Conservation protocol for coastal East Africa

Salt is piled [...]

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