Environment groups campaign for clean water

By Karen Marie Pastor

Environment groups, both local and international, celebrated the International Water Day last March 22 with campaigns for clean water.

“The celebration of International water day could help in highlighting the issue related to water. The focus this year was water quality or the theme ‘Clean water for a healthy world’ due to the degradation of fresh water these days,” says Beau Baconguis Toxics Campaigner of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

The celebration of International Water Day is initiated by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) to present the importance of having pure and clean water and to create awareness on the significance of advocating the preservation of water, and the efforts of putting back and restoring water into its original quality.

International water day underlines the drive for clean and fresh water every year. The amount of water being put to waste everyday constantly increases despite the fact that the practice of reusing water waste is possible through agricultural process and household use.

“International water day is designated by UN to give importance on water and to have one day dedicated solely to water. Of course I think we should give importance to water everyday but March 22 is a worldwide celebration with the purpose of reminding people the true value of water in our life,” she added.

The poor quality of water particularly in the Philippines is getting worse and is highly susceptible to pollution due to the crisis in climate change and the wrong domestic and commercial use. The probable chances of having unclean supply of water in the future could also be hazardous to human health due to unsafe sources of drinking water plus the fact that it could also cause damage to the environment due to lack of supply for agricultural purposes caused by El Niño.

The campaign encourages different government and non government organizations, as well as ordinary individuals to support in promoting clean water and efforts to prevent water pollution.