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Global alliance of NGOs formed to protect rivers

Gargi Parsai

`We have come together to see how we can defeat the corporate globalisation of pollution'

NEW DELHI: Some prominent activists working in the water sector have joined hands with international civil society groups to forge an alliance to protect rivers, following two days of deliberations on `Living Rivers' organised by the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE).

United States' based activists Steve Fleischi and Scott Edwards of Waterkeeper Alliance, Bob Shavelson of Cook Inletkeeper, Terry of Long Island Soundkeeper resolved to work with Indian groups on how the decisions of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were impacting countries. They would investigate where the taxpayers' money was going. Was it going to better the lives of people or to marginalise the poor and such sections of society that cannot afford clean water and were being denied access through conditional lending?

"We are the most wanted group in the United States. We have sued the Bush administration several times for their policies," said Mr Fleischi in a lighter vein at a press conference here.

Their alliance is working in Mexico, Australia, Canada, Senegal and the Czech Republic with groups who are tired of exploitation of resources by outside forces and their own. "We have come together to see how we can defeat the corporate globalisation of pollution. Flowing rivers are essential to meet people's needs and keep life flowing,'' he said.

The alliance has resolved to undertake with Indian NGOs scientific studies and legal action to reverse the death of rivers due to pollution with a focus on the Yamuna and the Hindon.

They have also committed to keep at least a few rivers free flowing with a focus on the Ken-Betwa and a few rivers in the Northeast which are threatened by rapid mega dam building.

They would offer alternatives to interlinking of rivers and lend support to grassroots movements fighting ground water mining by Coke and Pepsi.

You should learn from our experience. It took us several years to realise that the policies we were following were creating pollution and killing rivers. Building dams changes a river. It heats up water, kills the fish and causes serious social and ecological issues," said Mr Backer, a fisherman-activist.

RFSTE Director Vandana Shiva said the deliberations threw up several issues.

"The state of the water indicates how well we are as a society. This interaction was meant to explore ways to protect rivers especially in the face of several dams coming up on many rivers under the rivers linking project, policing of open wells and use of village streams in some States while Coke and Pepsi are allowed water mining for their projects."

The alliance formed on Thursday with the participation of Rajendra Singh of Tarun Bharat Sangh, Anil Prakash of Ganga Mukti Andolan, displaced people from Tehri and activists from the Ken-Betwa valley would be part of a global repository of information on rivers.

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