The Guardian Weekly
By Anastasia Moloney
When the heavy rains beat down during the winter months in Colombia, people pray for thedownpour to stop before it floods their homes and crops. But for Rodrigo Vivas, anenvironmental lawyer and activist, the rains are a blessing. Vivas, known locally as the "lord ofthe rains", is passionate about collecting rainwater that he believes can combat watershortages and desertification, particularly in poor farming communities on the semi-arid andarid Andean hillsides.A nondescript steel cylinder steel lying beside a shack in the Colombian countryside may notat first glance seem an obvious solution to combat water shortages. But in the southwesternprovince of Cauca, collecting rainwater in storage tanks is being developed to ensure that ruralcommunities have an alternative access to water for irrigation, washing and household chores.Using funds that Vivas received as co-winner of the 2006 UN Environment ProgrammeSasakawa prize and backing from Sanut in Mexico, a public health organisation, he plans tobuild and distribute 500,000 water storage moulds to his unique design. This involves reusablesteel moulds that can be used to make water tanks made of metal blocks and moveable steelplates. It takes four people just six hours to build a tank and perhaps half a day to fill it withrainwater."Traditionally household water storage tanks have been built in a square or circular shapemade of brick, lime and concrete, which require large quantities of materials and labour,"explains Vivas. "The advantages of our tanks are that they can hold up to 12,500 litres ofwater, are easy to assemble, require little maintenance and cost around 40% less thantraditional water tanks."For the project to work, the support of local community leaders and mayors is vital. Vivashopes that mayors will invest about $5,000 to buy one mould that can be reused to build aninfinite number of water tanks and that they will encourage managers of public buildings to dothe same."The response so far from local mayors has been positive and enthusiastic," he says."Investing in water storage tanks means that communities need never go without wateragain."With its high annual rainfall, Colombia is an ideal place to practise and promote harvestingwater. But every day in most of the country's urban slums families can be seen walking alongdirt tracks lugging heavy plastic containers filled with water fetched from a central pump."It's preventable, and indeed ironic, that people need to collect water from wells and pumpswhile it rains so much here. People assume that because there's plenty of water in Colombiathey don't have to care for it and collect it, but they're very mistaken," Vivas says.He remembers what inspired him to start harvesting rainwater. Three years ago his nine yearoldson was sent home from school because there was no running water. "It's not uncommonin Colombia and across Latin America for schools to close temporarily because they don't haverunning water. Just think how many days of schooling and money are wasted unnecessarily."While Colombia's Pacific coast has some of the wettest areas on Earth, there are also desertareas, such as La Guajira in the north, where some people have to walk 20km to find an oasisof water.A tank is more than just a means of collecting rainwater, it is an educational tool to raiseawareness and promote a culture of conserving water. Vivas plans to invest part of the$200,000 Sasakawa prize in setting up 100 mobile "water" libraries that show communitiesthe importance of water management using books, films and posters.For Vivas, rainwater binds communities together, it can make them self-sufficient and caneven combat poverty. Harvesting rainwater is also about empowering communities andmaking them less dependent on external supplies. It requires communities to get together tosolve their water shortages. It also allows tens of thousands of families squatting on illegalland to have access to water in places that water companies and aqueducts fail to reach."Harvesting rainwater breaks a culture of clientism and patronage regarding the supply ofwater which rarely favours the poor and reduces the need for costly large-scale solutions suchas dams, where power is concentrated in the hands of a few," Vivas says.He hopes that harvesting water will become part of the government's national policy, so thatall public buildings, including hospitals and schools, are required by law to install storagetanks.Manuel Rodriguez, Colombia's former vice-minister of the environment and now a professor atLos Andes University School of Management in Bogota, says harvesting rainwater using lowtechmethods is crucial to avoid future shortages."It's clear that harvesting water makes practical sense using cheap and user-friendlytechnology in local communities which can help mitigate the adverse effects of climate changewhich causes erratic rainfall," Rodriguez says. He adds that if current trends continue, 60% ofmunicipalities in Colombia will experience significant water shortages in 20 years time.To combat desertification, he stresses the importance of focusing on soil use and degradationand selecting reforestation projects that are appropriate to particular regions based onextensive research of local ecosystems. "Colombia, like most countries in the region, spendsless than 1% of its GDP on the environment. Countries that really want to tackleenvironmental issues should . . . be spending at least 2% of the budget on it," Rodriguez says.According to the UN's 2006 Human Development Report, "the scarcity at the heart of theglobal water crisis is rooted in power, poverty, and equality, not in physical availability . . .The benefits of big, capital-intensive water investments tend to be captured by the rich andpowerful members of society".For Vivas, a farmer who has been campaigning for water conservation for 20 years, suchconclusions come as no surprise. He is adamant that water ought to be seen by governmentsand society as a public resource that should not be privatised.
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