Synopsis

It is said that wars over water have already started...

The chapter analyses the problem of access to fresh water, the causes of desertification, its environmental impact and the enormous repercussions it has on world population, and the ensuing urgent need to develope a new culture regarding water in order to stem the degradation of rivers, seas and ecosystems.

We will see the problems faced by an association of fisherman in Valencia, Spain, similar to those of all small fishing operations around the world, their lifestyles and their relationship with the sea.

Script

H2O: THE MAGIC FORMULA

Voice over:

In its first edition of 1819, an old Hispanic dictionary from the Americas defines water as a body composed of one part oxygen and two parts hydrogen. A transparent, colourless, odourless and tasteless liquid.

Water reflects light, can dissolve other substances upon contact, crystallises when cold, evaporates when hot, forms rain, sources, rivers and seas, in various grades of purity.

Pedro Arrojo - President of the New Culture of Water Foundation, Spain (University of Zaragoza):

The fluvial ecosystem is linked to the forestal ecosystem... water, depending on the terrain, will have rivers or not, one type of river or another, and not only water, there are more things, you’ve got the aquifers, which are the underground systems of water which feed the rivers, and which also give you drinking water when there is no surface water, in the end, when you consider the forest, you see that we’re not only talking about wood, and when you consider water and ecosystems, we’re not only talking about water.

Voice over:

The old reference book doesn’t mention that water is the magic formula. The perfect alchemy of a wise Mother Nature. It was in water that the mystery of life began some four and a half billion years ago. Our host planet has three quarters of its surface covered in water. The body of the human being is itself 80% water. Our tears are water, too. A world without water is inconceivable.

Jacques Diouf - FAO General Director (Auditorio Hotel, Madrid, Spain):

And that’s why we have to solve, in particular... the problem of water. This is for us the number one problem. If we talk about Africa, in sub-Saharan Africa, only 4 % of arable land is watered. That means that for 96% of this land, if there is no rain, the people who live from this land die.

Pedro Arrojo:

Maybe the most significant, most impressive data... from all the data we should consider when we’re talking about the water crisis... the water crisis as it affects people around the world, is that 1 or 1.1 billion people do not have access to drinking water, and as a result, more than 10 thousand die every day.

Davide Sabbadin - Legambiente member, Italy (World Forum on Migrations, Rivas Vaciamadrid, Spain):

The 2 billion people who will find themselves not only in areas that are at risk of desertification, but will suffer in someway the lack of water.

Voice over:

Only two and a half percent of the world’s water is fresh water. 80% of the water we use is for agriculture and industry, the other 20% being for human consumption. Every year, water reserves are diminishing, while population and demand are increasing. The World Bank forecasts that by the year 2025, we will need 58% more fresh water than will be available. This scenario would mean doom for millions, if not billions, of people. A simple fact: 4000 children die every day from drinking contaminated water.

Following the current of the social movements, flowing like a river, the problem of water has become a central theme in the World Forums. Civil society is demanding that water, in all its forms, be a common good, with access to it an inalienable human right.

Tommaso Fattori - Tuscan Water Round Table (European Social Forum, Athens, Greece):

Esto ya está en inglés – no sé si quieres doblarlo (interviene más tarde en castellano) o subtitularlo...

“Really, what does this metaphor say to us? It says that the privatization of water is the privatization of life.”

Pedro Arrojo:

Water is H2O, but it produces functions, or values, which are related to ethical categories of distinctive ranks. And for this reason I say we should engage in a more careful debate. Water cannot be treated as just another simple economic input.

Renato Di Nicola - Mediterracqua member (European Social Forum, Athens, Greece):

On the base of this, which is a typical neo-liberal ideology, there has been the conquest of the most important sources of water, and to the privatization of water, first in these countries, and now in the centre of civilization, especially in Europe.

Pedro Arrojo:

And finally there’s the level of water crime, the water used in illegitimate businesses, abuse of the underground water supplies, toxic contamination of our rivers, and so many other uses and abuses, that in the name of the economy, from my point of view, they are illegitimate, they should be declared illegal, and therefore prosecuted.

Davide Sabbadin:

In the big summits, they are no longer talking about the right to water, but of the right of access to water, which is a very different thing, and a much poorer concept, because one can have access to water if you pay for it.

Pedro Arrojo:

Because I think we should distinguish the functions of life water, water as it relates to life, which I think end up related to human rights. Water as it relates to citizenship, of general interest, of basic public services of social cohesion, of equity, of what water represents in the cohesion of our society.

Tommaso Fattori:

In Tuscany, we have decided, as a movement, to act as legislators; we have achieved, through a participatory process, a law for a new, alternative model of water management. We’ve moved on from the protest phase to the proposal stage.

Renato Di Nicola:

Organizations from 50 countries got together, and we met as part of the movement of the fight for water, where we not only joined forces, joined anecdotes, joined symbols, joined ways of speaking, which is already a lot...

Pedro Arrojo:

We should understand that when we talk about water, a human right, 30 to 40 litres of drinking water a day, according to the United Nations, well, human rights can’t be bought and sold. They are guaranteed, and efficiently so.

Renato Di Nicola:

Not only statements – water is a right, it should be public property, etc, etc – but also what we are asking for, at a local and international level, for example we are asking for all political or institutional organizations to consider that 50 litres of water a day and per person should be in any case free, shouldn’t have to be paid for, and you cannot close the taps if people are not paying.

Tommaso Fattori:

The last main point is the issue of democracy. We propose a new form of management, and I always repeat it, public management is necessary but not sufficient.

Pedro Arrojo:

When we talk about citizens’ rights, the right to... water and sanitary services, right? Which is more than the right to water. We don’t only use 30 litres of water. The human right aspect is in the free public provision of drinking water, close to every home, in the centre of each village.

Renato Di Nicola:

What more is needed? We need a worldwide network to elevate to a global level the message that citizens around the world should not engage in wars, because with the issue of water management and water resources, there are wars, not that there will be wars, but that wars are being fought now, in Israel, in Iraq, and in many other places.

Marie Hélène Aubert - Member of European Parliament (European Social Forum, Athens, Greece):

When we ask this question within political institutions, we are told “Oh, it’s complicated, it’s very complicated, it’s better not to bring it up.”

Mohamed Sidati - Polisario Front Minister Delegate for Europe (European Social Forum, Athens, Greece):

Well, I would say that the fishing agreement with Morocco is going to destroy the territorial waters of Occidental Sahara, which are not Moroccan waters and where Morocco doesn’t exercise any administrative of sovereign power. I believe it is a serious mistake made by the European Union, because it goes against the interests of the Saharan people.

Marie Hélène Aubert:

We know it’s a complicated issue, we know that it isn’t the fishing agreement that will resolve the problem between Occidental Sahara and Morocco. What we’re saying is that the European Union cannot afford to... close its eyes... or keep on with vague generalizations... when dealing with international law, which recognises Occidental Sahara...

Mohamed Sidati:

That’s why we carry on insisting that this fishing agreement is an illegal agreement, and it should be revised before both parties sign it. And, of course, the objective is clear. It’s a looting of the wealth... of the Saharaoi coast and of the Saharaoi people.

Marie Hélène Aubert:

... Occidental Sahara as an entity with rights. All we are asking for is that the European Union apply its own principles and be perfectly clear on the fishing agreement issue. And if additionally it leeds to talks between both parties, where they would make progress towards a solution via this resource issue...

Renato Di Nicola:

So that the number... of conflicts and terror that exist do not increase, we’ve got to struggle for the defence of collective goods, especially water.

Voice over:

And while our rivers and ecosystems are becoming more degraded and polluted, the deserts are growing...

Davide Sabbadin:

The United Nations declared that the year 2006 would be the international year of the deserts and desertification.

Pedro Arrojo:

The problem is that we’ve killed the health of the rivers, we’ve killed the wetlands, we’ve killed the lakes, we’ve poisoned the waters, we’ve broken the health of the ecosystems, and after the fish dies, mankind starts dying.

Jacques Diouf:

... but so that the lion’s share of the aid can go to the fishing and rural sectors because 70% of poor people are in these sectors.

Pedro Arrojo:

When you kill the river you are killing the protein for poor people. And you banish these people to real hunger, people who have so far lived a life of dignity.

Davide Sabbadin:

Presently, those areas defined as arid or semi-arid account for a third of what is solid land on our planet, and 2 billion people live there...

Jacques Diouf:

We are providing help with food aid when there is a crisis. But we should not only attend to emergencies. We should attend to structural realities.

Davide Sabbadin:

Of these people, 60 million live in... sub-Saharan Africa, and in North Africa. These 60 million are those who will most directly affect immigration to Europe.

Jacques Diouf:

Africa, with 4% of its arable land irrigated, cannot have a secure production, nor can it have productivity, because agricultural activity with irrigation has three times the productivity of agriculture dependant on rainfall.

Pedro Arrojo:

So when you kill the ecosystem, the disaster starts. And today, in this sense, when you see from the FAO’s perspective the issue that “Water is fundamental for increasing irrigation” as key for the fight against hunger... and careful, OK, this is part of reality... or we are capable of seeing reality in the big picture sense, or, if in order to irrigate we need to kill rivers, then we are going to produce more hunger than the hunger we will eradicate.

Davide Sabbadin:

We believe that this is a fundamental issue, because it is the base, the root of certain phenomena like the abandoning of agricultural work in the rural world, especially in developing countries, and of course this becomes linked with all the problems of a social and economic nature and that have to do with international commerce organisations, which also push people to abandon farming... and increase the overpopulation of the metropolitan areas... of the developing world.

Jacques Diouf:

And we must change this situation. As the minister has said... agricultural production, fishing production, and aquaculture, well, without water there is nothing. Thank you very much.

Davide Sabbadin:

And especially to help rural communities, help them to survive... to maintain their agricultural nature, so that they can be guards against... against... the advance of the deserts.

participant – (World Forum on Migrations, Rivas Vaciamadrid, Spain):

Regarding the issue of desertification, I’d like to mention a theme brought up by our colleague from Chile, which is that of the green desert, which is occurring in many parts of the world, and in particular in Brazil, through monoculture, through various monocultures, like sugar cane, eucalyptus, and Soya bean and other... and other crops.

Davide Sabbadin:

We believe we should encourage a family type agriculture, an agricultural model which is different from that being pursued in the southern hemisphere, because a model which is environmentally unsustainable, such as the model of the latifundio, geared to the international export market, is a model which does not consider limits.

participant:

In Brazil we have a new cycle of sugar production, brought on by the diffusion of fuel, bio fuel, which is alcohol, methanol, which is currently being... exported to Canada, and for which there are emerging markets in Japan and Europe. This has led to the increase of slave work, of degrading work, of slavery against debt, of child and juvenile labour, and we’d like to mention in this forum that the alcohol and methanol now being called clean energies, are in fact dirty, contaminated with the blood and the swet of its workers.

Voice over:

The sea, to which poets have written odes since ancient times – “Father Sea, we already know what you are called, all of the seagulls have spread your name among the sands”, said Pablo Neruda - the seas are also being spoiled, transformed into deserts of salt.

Pedro Avendaño - Technical Director of the World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers (Catholic University, Porto Alegre, Brazil):

When we say that there is a crisis in... the sector of small scale fishing, what we are saying is that... the crisis that exists in family farming, with the same set of problems, has moved to coastal areas and has moved to fishing communities.

Carlos Ruiz – Vice-president of the Fishing Association of Valencia, Spain (Longa de Valencia, Spain):

You’re a fisherman! I’ve seen you on TV! And there are people who ask me “Are there still fisherman here in Valencia?” So you can imagine how abandoned the sector is. “There are still fishing boats here?” “Yes, there are boats”, I say.

So, we’re the third generation. Me and my brother. It started with my grandfather on my mother’s side of the family, my father started fishing... started going out with my mother, and he got into fishing, too. And then we all got into it. First my older brother, then me, then my little brother. But my older brother was smarter than us and he left it.

Marie Hélène Aubert:

So, first of all there’s a resource problem. All the coastal small scale fishermen are realising that the resources are diminishing, so they’ve got to go further and further out, and it gets more and more difficult to earn a decent living from a catch that gets smaller every year.

Pedro Avendaño:

The same thing’s happening in the sea and in the fishing communities, they’ve been losing territorial access, they’ve been losing access to fishing resources...

Marie Hélène Aubert:

It’s a sector which is totally excessive, poorly regulated and poorly controlled... because there are also problems linked to globalisation, because we work a lot harder now to export, and the small scale fisherman’s catch has competition from products which are much cheaper...

Carlos Ruiz:

The price for fish hasn’t gone up, mainly because of imported fish, fish from abroad, it’s sinking us, we can’t compete with the prices for South American or South African fish, or fish from Morocco.

Marie Hélène Aubert:

...Products shipped in freezer containers. And there are also organisational problems within the trade. And this is why today, small scale coastal fishing finds itself in a very difficult situation.

Carlos Ruiz:

The most serious thing we have is the increase in costs. It costs more and more to go out to sea. Every time I go out, it costs more. In fuel, in netting, in ice, in everything. So the problem is that with the same catch you had 10 years ago, with the increase in costs it’s less profitable. It’s less and less profitable. And since it’s less profitable, there are less and less fishermen, boats are being sold or junked, and there are less people in the business.

Pedro Avendaño:

So I’d say that there’s a threat looming over the existence of fishing communities, and over the culture of the sea.

Grupo Dilema (Fishing Association, Valparaiso, Chile):

Keep in Spanish

Pedro Avendaño:

I’m under the impression that... at an international level, there’s not a great understanding of the scale of the problem. And we have stated that it is not possible to develop strategies for rural development if the fishing communities are not active participants.

Carlos Ruiz:

If it keeps on going up like it has been so far, in 10 years from now or in 15 years if you stretch it, we’ll have to disappear. Because that’s what we’re being pushed to, to disappear.

Voice over:

Stormy horizons are threatening fishing communities, abandoned boats and families with no future. We have forgotten that fishermen, sailors, the masters of the seas, are those who have weaved the fabric of human history. In darker times, navigating oceans and tempests, guided by the figures on their prows or the siren’s song, they anchored in the harbours of the world the idea of the free man.

Pedro Arrojo:

The water problem is a good pedagogical area to understand that... the problems of recovering the health of our aquatic ecosystems is a necessary thing for everybody, and it is especially vital for the poorest communities.

Voice over:

In order to confront the challenges awaiting us and to preserve the priceless treasure of life, we should probably heed the advice of Joaquin Araujo, who in his book “21: the century of ecology”, tells us we should start by healing our internal desert. “The wounds through which the planet is bleeding will only heal when we temper the obsession of consumerism in each of us.”

Pedro Arrojo:

In the name of economic efficiency, which is presupposed - and there lies the error, right? – and which supposes development... which is going to compensate... let’s say resolve problems of hunger, in the name of development in a market economy, you presuppose you are going to resolve problems too, and you end up destroying fabrics of society or forms of production that may be eco-socially efficient, but not economically valid.

Davide Sabbadin:

We believe that people should start taking the issue of climate change seriously, starting with a change in the style of consumption in the developed countries in order to try and stop the greenhouse effect, which has so many negative side effects.

Voice over:

“To make the planet green again requires a process of dignifying ourselves. Of adopting the illusion of the living. We are and we do not want to stop being. And we are what we breathe, what we eat, what we drink, what we see, what we feel and what we think. There’s nothing more irrational than to separate the destiny of the planet from our own.”

Pedro Arrojo:

The fluvial ecosystem is linked to the forestal ecosystem... water, depending on the terrain, will have rivers or not, one type of river or another, and not only water, there are more things, you’ve got the aquifers, which are the underground systems of water which feed the rivers, and which also give you drinking water when there is no surface water, in the end, when you consider the forest, you see that we’re not only talking about wood, and when you consider water and ecosystems, we’re not only talking about water.

Voice over:

Maybe this way, while contemplating a lush garden on a rainy afternoon, future generations will read, in an old dictionary, that water is the main ingredient of all life, and as such is a sacred good.

Credits:

Direction and Screenplay – Sonia Llera

Direction of content – Vincent Garcés

Executive production – Sonia Llera, Manolo Rodríguez, Sergio Escribano

Photography and camera – Sonia Llera

Editing – Javier Cordero

Live music – Grupo Dilema, Valparaiso, Chile

Original Music and Interpreters – David Abad, Diego Zapatero

Sound and mixing – Marco de Gregori Astrici

Musical recording – Paco Aguarod

Narration – NOMBRE DE LA NARRADORA INGLESA

Graphics and Headings – Jesus de Matos, Marcela Pelegrin

“Etalonaje” ?  - Miguel Tejerina

Production direction – Cruz Ortega

Production aid – Eva Nistal

Special collaboration (in order of appearance) – Pedro Arrojo, Jacques Diouf, Davide Sabbadin, Tommaso Fattori, Renato Di Nicola, Marie Hélène Aubert, Mohamed Sidati, Pedro Avendaño, Carlos Ruiz