My 11 year old Zookeeper has been trying to raise $4800 to build a water well in Haiti. Haiti already rocked by earthquake is now fighting a cholera outbreak and is in desperate need of clean water. You can visit his
blog here.... My beautiful friend Daniela helped him by hosting a morning tea and together, with a ton of our generous friends, they raised over $2000 towards a well. Aren't they fantastic!
- Did you know only 3% of the earths water is fresh water?
- Of the six billion people on earth 1.1 billion do not have access to safe, clean drinking water.
- A staggering 3.4 million people die every year from water-related diseases. Tragically, most of these are children.
- 60% of the worlds wetlands have been destroyed in the past 100 years.
- On a per capita basis, Australia has one of the largest consumptions of water in the world. On average each Australian uses 1.31 million litres each year. Those in developing nations cannot find five.
- Water is a $400 billion dollar global industry, the third largest behind electricity and oil.
- Multinational companies like Vivendi, Suez, Nestle, Coca-Cola, RWE-Thames are mining the earths water, destroying local communities and selling this back to us as Bottled Water.
- Water is being privatised in third world countries, rivers are being dammed and people are being banned from collecting rain water, in order to force people to purchase water. Water in some countries is offered on a pre-pay token system. Those who can not afford this are left without access to water.
- Third world countries are kept in poverty as they are not paid fair trade prices for crops such as tea and coffee. This means they are unable to build their own water infrastructure.
- In African countries Coca-cola is charging twice as much for water than it is for the same amount of coke. Higher demand higher price.
- Canadian researchers have discovered that some bottled brands contain more bacteria than water that comes out of the tap.
What can we do?
- Watch Flow, Blue Gold - World Water Wars or The Story of Bottled Water I can promise you after watching these documentaries, our manicured lawns vs people in third world countries desperately searching for water, will begin to look ridiculous.
- Use less water.
- Stop Buying bottled Water.
- Buy only fair trade Tea, Coffee and Chocolate.
- Donate to Charities that helping build water wells.
- Sign the Article 31 Petition to ensure the United Nations adopt changes to acknowledge water as a fundamental right to all people.
- Remove your dependence on purchased water and buy a water tank.
- For those who are passionate about protecting our water, this website has many more ideas of things to do. http://www.bluegold-worldwaterwars.com/actionplan/keep_money.html
