Thursday, 2nd December 2010
Fresh Water - The Essence of Life
Fresh Water - The Essence of Life
Cemex Book Launch
The European Parliament, Brussels, Tuesday 30th November, 2010
It is a great privilege for me to participate in the launch of this fabulous new book by Cemex in partnership with the International League of Conservation Photographers, Conservation International, NatureServe, Wetlands International and Ramsar. This is the 18th title in the Cemex conservation book series and I think they have to be congratulated for their ongoing and energetic campaign to raise public awareness about the growing global freshwater crisis and the freshwater biodiversity and ecosystems that are in peril.
This is the Year of Biodiversity and it is a sad fact that scientists reckon we are suffering the worst biodiversity loss this year that the world has ever known. They believe that between 150 and 200 species are being lost every 24 hours. Much of those losses can be attributed to climate change. We need to teach the public that biodiversity is valuable; it has an economic, social, aesthetic and practical value from which every one of us individually benefits. Biodiversity services purify the air we breathe, act as a global air conditioning system, provide us with rainfall and oxygen and fertilise plants. We have never put a price tag on these ecosystem services because they are invaluable. But sadly, some people think that anything that is free has no value and therefore can be exploited and abused. Thankfully, that is not the view of Cemex and their international partners.
Now we are learning that these things do have a cost and we are paying the price! I saw recently just how high this price can be. I visited the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan and was astonished at how, in one generation, mankind has virtually drained what used to be the fourth largest inland lake in the world.
Back in 1960, the Aral Sea covered an area of 67,000 sq. km in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. It had a mean water level of 53.4 metres. Now, 50 years later, the water level is 27 metres. It is as if a plug has been pulled out and the water has been allowed to drain away. I visited the former fishing port of Muynak where a fleet of 500 fishing vessels used to land 30,000 tonnes of fish a year. The fishing boats are now lying rotting on the desert. The water's edge is over 100 miles away! In the highly saline water that remains nothing lives. There are no fish and no fishermen. 30,000 jobs have been lost. And this was all because of man's greed.
Stalin ordered vast canals and irrigation channels to be dug to irrigate great tracts of cotton and rice fields. DDT and agent-orange desiccants which were sprayed on the cotton crops have now formed a toxic wasteland across the saltpans. Chemical dust-storms regularly blow across an area of 3 million hectares, devastating the health of the local population and killing healthy crops and forests. As a result, there is spreading desertification, rising summer temperatures and severe storms and temperatures plunging to below minus 40 degrees in winter.
Anyone who says that mankind cannot cause climate change should visit the Aral Sea.
So that is why this book on Fresh Water - the essence of life is of such importance and I am proud that you have chosen the European Parliament as the venue for its launch. We take climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development seriously in this parliament, that is why the intergroup I have the honour to chair is the largest intergroup in the parliament with over 200 MEP members. We strive to do whatever we can to protect the global environment and we greatly cherish the partnership between industry, the non governmental sector and parliamentarians that this evening's event embodies.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this significant book launch.
