The remarks made below by the Chairman of the Singapore World Water Week, should shed some light on the ongoing debates of the "international water community".
Access To Safe Drinking Water Should Be Recognised As A Human Right
SINGAPORE, June 26 (Bernama) -- Access to safe drinking water and to sustainable sanitation should be recognised as a human right, according to a statement at the closing of the water leaders' summit here Thursday.
Singapore International Water Week chairman Prof Tommy Koh said the governments of developing countries should stop using their "under-developed" state as an excuse for not fulfilling their responsibility to their people.
Presenting the statement here, Koh said there were over one billion people in the world, 700 million in Asia alone, who did not have access to safe drinking water which was essential for life.
He said the problem was not primarily due to inadequate financial resources, but to the absence of political will, mismanagement, lack of coordination, marginalisation of the poor and lack of a coherent water strategy.
Koh said there were many success stories on water from developing countries such as Cambodia, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Fiji.
It was also important to educate the people on the value of water and the need to conserve and not waste water, he said, adding that water should be sold at a price which reflected the real cost of water.
Koh said the summit acknowledged that the people lived in a diverse world and different countries needed different levels of water technology.
The summit concluded that more investment in research and development in water and the environment should be encouraged, and efforts to foster public-private partnership in solving water problems be doubled.
Koh said recent progress in water technology, such as desalination, reverse osmosis, membrane technology and their declining costs had enabled many cities, regions and countries, including Singapore, to solve their water problems.
Showing posts with label Conservation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conservation. Show all posts
2007-12-28
Happy "BillionTreePlanting" in 2008
-- United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - BillionTree Campaign Site --: "The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has launched a major worldwide tree planting campaign. Under the Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign, people, communities, business and industry, civil society organizations and governments are encouraged to enter tree planting pledges online with the objective of planting at least one billion trees worldwide each year."
We kept our commitment for 2007 and have already planned our 2008 contribution!
Best Wishes for a happy & healthy 2008
2007-08-23
Brad Pitt - saving landmarks!
Aside from suffering his wife's campaigns, he found time to save some architectural landmarks in the USA. Insisting on shooting at an endangered location: great idea. What's next? Brad could have a look at UNESCO's World Heritage List or at the World's Intangible & Oral heritage
2007-08-10
Kruger Battle
Called one of the most amazing videos on Youtube... The epic battle in Kruger park between prey/predator and the outcome is quite unexpected. Also interesting are the comments by the safari tourists and guide: you clearly hear a very typical antropomorphic view on the buffalo...
2007-02-27
Celebrity Environmentalists
February 26, 2007 — By Jill Serjeant, Reuters LOS ANGELES --
Source: http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12288
Whether it's forsaking a gas guzzling limo in favor of driving a hybrid car to the Oscars, or fitting their homes with solar panels, many celebrities embraced green causes long before they became fashionable. Just as a famous face can sell a perfume, stars of stage and screen can sell a cause and scores of them are doing more than merely putting their money where their mouth is.
"Whether it's fashion or cultural trends, the entertainment industry has the ability to communicate to a global audience ideas that set forth actions and create change," said Debbie Levin, president of the Environmental Media Association which promotes green issues through the entertainment industry. "Early adopters, like Cameron Diaz, led the way and now with everyone from Kirsten Dunst to Maroon 5 to Will Ferrell driving hybrid cars, (it) sends the message that it's cool to think and buy green," Levin said.
Following is a list of some of the leading green celebrity players:
- ROBERT REDFORD: 30 years on board of Natural Resources Defense Council, founder of Sundance Preserve, winner of 1993 Earth Day award, 1987 United Nations Global 500 award. In April 2007, launches weekly three-hour slot called "The Green", dedicated entirely to the environment, on his Sundance TV channel.
- LEONARDO DICAPRIO: started the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation in 1998 to promote environmental issues, drives a hybrid car, currently writing and producing a feature length documentary on global warming called "11th Hour".
- BRAD PITT: co-creator of design competition to build 20 affordable, reduced energy, environmentally friendly homes in New Orleans.
- STING: founder in 1989 of Rainforest Foundation to protect rain forests and their indigenous peoples.
- HARRISON FORD: vice chairman of Conservation International, has a Central American ant named after him, won the Global Environmental Citizen Award in 2002.
- DAVE MATTHEWS BAND: offsets CO2 emissions produced by their multi-city tours by funding projects such as tree plantings and wind turbine construction.
- AL GORE: former U.S. vice president whose climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" was Oscar-nominated, also nominated for 2007 Nobel Peace prize.
- PIERCE BROSNAN: focuses on marine mammal and wetland protection, headlined Natural Resources Defense Council campaign against effects of Navy sonar on whales, awarded 1997 Green Cross International Environmental Leadership Award.
- CATE BLANCHETT: plans to equip Sydney Theatre Company building with solar panels, rainwater collection systems to make it completely eco-friendly. Sydney home is fully powered by solar energy, donates to Forest Guardians.
- EDWARD NORTON: launched the BP Solar Neighbors Program in 2003 which matches each celebrity purchase of a solar energy home system with a solar installation in a low-income family home in Los Angeles.
- DARYL HANNAH: arrested in June 2006 for staging a 23-day tree sit-in during a bid to preserve an urban community garden in Los Angeles, traveled across America in 2005 in a biofuel car, home is entirely off-grid.
- RICHARD BRANSON: Virgin Group chairman, a former global warming skeptic, who in Sept. 2006 pledged to spend all profits from his airline and rail businesses (estimated $3 billion over 10 years) on investments in biofuel research and projects to tackle emissions.
- ALANIS MORISSETTE: given 2003 Environmental Media Association Missions in Music Award; campaigns against oil drilling in Alaska; has solar panels on home.
- KT TUNSTALL: ran her US tour bus on biodiesel fuel, performed at eco-friendly "Golden Green" at the 2007 Golden Globe awards in Los Angeles.
- JOSH HARTNETT, ORLANDO BLOOM, MAROON 5, KT TUNSTALL: promoting 2007 Global Cool initiative to cut carbon emissions by encouraging people to turn off TVs, mobile-phone chargers and other energy-draining gadgets.
- JAMIE OLIVER: celebrity chef, plans to power his Cornwall, England, restaurant by wind turbines.
- NEIL YOUNG: 2004 North American tour fueled entirely with biodiesel.
- WILLIE NELSON: singer, co-partner in the Willie Nelson Biodiesel Company.
- BARENAKED LADIES: run their tour buses and trucks on biodiesel fuel.
Drivers of hybrid cars include: Cameron Diaz, Charlize Theron, Carole King, Kirsten Dunst, Billy Joel, Tom Hanks, Will Ferrell, Julia Roberts, Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson, Alanis Morissette, David Duchovny, Patricia Arquette, Jackson Browne, Larry David, Danny DeVito and Bill Maher.
Source: http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12288
Whether it's forsaking a gas guzzling limo in favor of driving a hybrid car to the Oscars, or fitting their homes with solar panels, many celebrities embraced green causes long before they became fashionable. Just as a famous face can sell a perfume, stars of stage and screen can sell a cause and scores of them are doing more than merely putting their money where their mouth is.
"Whether it's fashion or cultural trends, the entertainment industry has the ability to communicate to a global audience ideas that set forth actions and create change," said Debbie Levin, president of the Environmental Media Association which promotes green issues through the entertainment industry. "Early adopters, like Cameron Diaz, led the way and now with everyone from Kirsten Dunst to Maroon 5 to Will Ferrell driving hybrid cars, (it) sends the message that it's cool to think and buy green," Levin said.
Following is a list of some of the leading green celebrity players:
- ROBERT REDFORD: 30 years on board of Natural Resources Defense Council, founder of Sundance Preserve, winner of 1993 Earth Day award, 1987 United Nations Global 500 award. In April 2007, launches weekly three-hour slot called "The Green", dedicated entirely to the environment, on his Sundance TV channel.
- LEONARDO DICAPRIO: started the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation in 1998 to promote environmental issues, drives a hybrid car, currently writing and producing a feature length documentary on global warming called "11th Hour".
- BRAD PITT: co-creator of design competition to build 20 affordable, reduced energy, environmentally friendly homes in New Orleans.
- STING: founder in 1989 of Rainforest Foundation to protect rain forests and their indigenous peoples.
- HARRISON FORD: vice chairman of Conservation International, has a Central American ant named after him, won the Global Environmental Citizen Award in 2002.
- DAVE MATTHEWS BAND: offsets CO2 emissions produced by their multi-city tours by funding projects such as tree plantings and wind turbine construction.
- AL GORE: former U.S. vice president whose climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" was Oscar-nominated, also nominated for 2007 Nobel Peace prize.
- PIERCE BROSNAN: focuses on marine mammal and wetland protection, headlined Natural Resources Defense Council campaign against effects of Navy sonar on whales, awarded 1997 Green Cross International Environmental Leadership Award.
- CATE BLANCHETT: plans to equip Sydney Theatre Company building with solar panels, rainwater collection systems to make it completely eco-friendly. Sydney home is fully powered by solar energy, donates to Forest Guardians.
- EDWARD NORTON: launched the BP Solar Neighbors Program in 2003 which matches each celebrity purchase of a solar energy home system with a solar installation in a low-income family home in Los Angeles.
- DARYL HANNAH: arrested in June 2006 for staging a 23-day tree sit-in during a bid to preserve an urban community garden in Los Angeles, traveled across America in 2005 in a biofuel car, home is entirely off-grid.
- RICHARD BRANSON: Virgin Group chairman, a former global warming skeptic, who in Sept. 2006 pledged to spend all profits from his airline and rail businesses (estimated $3 billion over 10 years) on investments in biofuel research and projects to tackle emissions.
- ALANIS MORISSETTE: given 2003 Environmental Media Association Missions in Music Award; campaigns against oil drilling in Alaska; has solar panels on home.
- KT TUNSTALL: ran her US tour bus on biodiesel fuel, performed at eco-friendly "Golden Green" at the 2007 Golden Globe awards in Los Angeles.
- JOSH HARTNETT, ORLANDO BLOOM, MAROON 5, KT TUNSTALL: promoting 2007 Global Cool initiative to cut carbon emissions by encouraging people to turn off TVs, mobile-phone chargers and other energy-draining gadgets.
- JAMIE OLIVER: celebrity chef, plans to power his Cornwall, England, restaurant by wind turbines.
- NEIL YOUNG: 2004 North American tour fueled entirely with biodiesel.
- WILLIE NELSON: singer, co-partner in the Willie Nelson Biodiesel Company.
- BARENAKED LADIES: run their tour buses and trucks on biodiesel fuel.
Drivers of hybrid cars include: Cameron Diaz, Charlize Theron, Carole King, Kirsten Dunst, Billy Joel, Tom Hanks, Will Ferrell, Julia Roberts, Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson, Alanis Morissette, David Duchovny, Patricia Arquette, Jackson Browne, Larry David, Danny DeVito and Bill Maher.
2007-01-30
Congo: Idiot rebels shoot silverback gorillas
Report just in from the African Wildlife Foundation:
January 19, 2007 — By African Wildlife FoundationKIGALI, Rwanda — African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) has learned from the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) that insurgent forces led by the dissident General Laurent Nkunda have invaded Virunga National Park's south sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and killed at least one silverback mountain gorilla.
This area serves as precious habitat for six groups of endangered mountain gorillas habituated for tourism and five lone silverbacks that are also monitored daily. A total of 82 individuals reside in this sector.
Hostilities forced ICCN's park staff and their families to flee the park's Jomba, Bikenge and Bukima patrol posts on December 20, 2006. This left the park and its mountain gorilla population extremely vulnerable.
On January 11, 2007 rebel insurgents succeeded in shooting and killing a silverback. The silverback, named Karema, was formally a member of the Lulengo Group, but had been solitary for the last few years. Unfortunately, due to continuing insecurity, ICCN rangers were only able to access the park and verify the killing on Monday January 15. These rangers acted at tremendous risk to their own lives.
A second silverback mountain gorilla was killed, though authorities have yet to identify the individual.
General Nkunda was a commander in the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), a main rebel group which controlled most of eastern Congo during the country's five-year civil war. Nkunda dissidents continue to conflict with both government forces and local people in addition to the national park. As recently as November, Nkunda's forces attacked DRC troops in eastern posts; this fresh fighting forced more than 10,000 Congolese people to flee into Uganda.
International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP - a coalition of AWF, Fauna and Flora International and World Wide Fund for Nature) officers on the ground continue to work tirelessly with park authorities to collect information about this loss and other potential damage. However, the situation in the area remains extremely tense and unstable. Contact Info:
Amy Wiedemann African Wildlife FoundationTel : 202-939-3333E-mail: awiedemann@awf.org
Website : African Wildlife Foundation
January 19, 2007 — By African Wildlife FoundationKIGALI, Rwanda — African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) has learned from the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) that insurgent forces led by the dissident General Laurent Nkunda have invaded Virunga National Park's south sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and killed at least one silverback mountain gorilla.
This area serves as precious habitat for six groups of endangered mountain gorillas habituated for tourism and five lone silverbacks that are also monitored daily. A total of 82 individuals reside in this sector.
Hostilities forced ICCN's park staff and their families to flee the park's Jomba, Bikenge and Bukima patrol posts on December 20, 2006. This left the park and its mountain gorilla population extremely vulnerable.
On January 11, 2007 rebel insurgents succeeded in shooting and killing a silverback. The silverback, named Karema, was formally a member of the Lulengo Group, but had been solitary for the last few years. Unfortunately, due to continuing insecurity, ICCN rangers were only able to access the park and verify the killing on Monday January 15. These rangers acted at tremendous risk to their own lives.
A second silverback mountain gorilla was killed, though authorities have yet to identify the individual.
General Nkunda was a commander in the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), a main rebel group which controlled most of eastern Congo during the country's five-year civil war. Nkunda dissidents continue to conflict with both government forces and local people in addition to the national park. As recently as November, Nkunda's forces attacked DRC troops in eastern posts; this fresh fighting forced more than 10,000 Congolese people to flee into Uganda.
International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP - a coalition of AWF, Fauna and Flora International and World Wide Fund for Nature) officers on the ground continue to work tirelessly with park authorities to collect information about this loss and other potential damage. However, the situation in the area remains extremely tense and unstable. Contact Info:
Amy Wiedemann African Wildlife FoundationTel : 202-939-3333E-mail: awiedemann@awf.org
Website : African Wildlife Foundation
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