This article is more than 10 years old
The
UN’s International Day of Biological Diversity for water and biodiversity was
a popular Facebook topic in North America. However, cultural observation of it entailed little more than keeping water taps turned off for the day. Beyond this gesture, not much more is being done to address the growing urgency for water conservation in Canada.
Since 2000, May 22nd has been observed as the UN’s International Day of Biological Diversity, as part of the UN’s efforts to help the world achieve the goals of the
millennium summit. This year they put a special focus on Water and Biodiversity in order to draw more attention to the
2013 International Year of Water Cooperation campaign. However, in Canada, only a handful of organizations in Ontario and Quebec chose to organize any education sessions or events.
World water issues generally go unnoticed in Canada. According to the
2013 RBC Canadian Water Attitudes Study, seventy-eight percent of Canadians “believe that their water infrastructure is in good condition.” This belief is formed in spite of the fact that only fifteen percent of the population admits to being well informed about water policy in Canada. All the while, infrastructure around “drinking water, wastewater, and storm water in Canada is reported to be in ‘fair’ to ‘very poor’ condition.”
A misconception of Canada's water infrastructure is not surprising. At first glance, it would seem that Canadians have nothing to worry about when it comes to access to freshwater. Canada holds twenty percent of the world’s freshwater. And that’s plenty for a country with only 35 million people.
What Canadians might not know is that
less than half of that freshwater is renewable—most of it is locked up in glaciers. Fifty percent of what’s left over drains “into the Arctic Ocean. This means that [easy access to] freshwater is unavailable to eighty-five percent of people living along Canada’s southern border.”
Even so, Canada has no trouble consuming more than it’s fair share of water. In a ranking done by The Conference Board of Canada,
Canada ranked fifteenth out of sixteen peer countries in terms of water withdrawals, second only to the United States. Eight of those peer countries consume less than half the amount that Canadians do, per capita.
Accessing quality freshwater is a life or death struggle in many other countries. “More than
2.2 million children die every year—that’s four every minute—as a result of diarrhea caused by dehydration and poor sanitation.” Speaking on the UN’s Day of Biological Diversity, UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon said, “we live in an increasingly
water insecure world… Under current trends, future demands will not be met.”
In order to draw awareness to this growing problem the UN instituted the
2005-2015 International Decade for Action ‘Water for Life.' “The challenge of the Decade is to focus on action-oriented activities and policies that insure the sustainable management of water resources.” Goals set by the participating countries would help to prevent a global water crisis.
Canada has done little to contribute to global water goals. In fact, world-renowned water research facilities are
struggling to keep their doors open in Canada. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) announced on Thursday that the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) would continue operations. The ELA, which has been conducting over forty years of research on things like pollution and water sustainability, was
closed this April due to Conservative cutbacks. The site runs on approximately two million dollars a year.
Though it is a victory to have the facility back in operation, there are many obstacles yet to come for projects like this. The debacle is that the ELA was shut down at all. It goes to show, there is a problem with public conception of water issues. There is a problem in infrastructure when scientists who do research on water sustainability must fight tooth and nail just to keep their doors open.
David Crane for
Water Canada says the first step toward an action positive move for Canadians will be “
to raise the level of understanding, not only among policy makers but also among the wider public; that there is an enormous challenge facing the world and that there is also significant opportunity for Canada, by strengthening our research base and the strength of our companies…[We need to] identify our water champions who will provide leadership to make Canada a water-solutions country.”
