The need for an integrated and equitable management of waters in the Indus river watershed and across South Asia's watersheds has been emphasised in the recommendations made by the regional conference on Integrated Water Resource Management in South Asia held at a local hotel here on August 24-25. The conference was organised by Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF).
According to the recommendations available here on Wednesday water is the fundamental element of life on the land, and thus access to water is a human right that must be protected equally for all people, in all places and at all times. As such water should not be treated as a commodity for trade, control and sale but as a resource belonging to the people who depend on it for their lives.
It has further been recommended that an integrated approach Watershed Resources Management should be adopted in the Indus river basin. However, before this can be tackled effectively, peoples' fundamental human right to water, and an equitable distribution of water rights must be established for people living along all reaches of the Indus river, especially for those communities located in the lower Indus delta. This should be established as the foundation of any water management planning.
An integrated Watershed Resources Management approach should bring together ground water, surface water and land management aspects of the issue. Moreover, it must strike a fair and sustainable balance between social, environmental and economic considerations. Finally, it should include not only water allocation measures, but encourage water conservation to meet the growing needs of all people.
Considering the dire environmental conditions facing the Indus delta eco-region and other negative effect on the communities livelihoods, all future plans, constructions and policies should ensure significant and adequate flow of water through the Indus delta (downstream Kotri).
Adequate flows are considered to be sufficient releases to maintain ecological health and human well-being along all reaches of the Indus river, at all times of the year. This is a necessary pre-condition to ensure the realisation of the human rights of deltaic communities, and to provide a basis for developing future water policy and plans.
It has also been recommended that a water policy and water plan is needed for Pakistan, and the local communities should take a central role in developing all planning and policies. The community should be represented by civil society organisations such as PFF, and all communities that are affected by plans and policies along a given river basin should be included in the negotiations, whether they be domestic, bi-lateral or multi-lateral.
Finally, the international community should work with communities to develop any international co-operation projects that affect the Indus Watershed region. These projects should be designed not only in consultation with the communities and their representatives, but to ensure that the communities themselves are the priority beneficiaries.
The participants desired no further cuts or diversions in the river Indus and voted against the construction of Kalabagh dam.
Comments
Comments are closed.