Landowner Sakas Aonomo,
on a stockpile of logs at Log Camp 56,
Middle Fly, Western Province,PNG. His
family is opposed to the logging and they
are trying to prevent further roads from
passing through their land. “By looking at
that place I feel very sad and upset and
frustrated about my land being destroyed
.”
executive summary
In the developing world, 1.2 billion
people live under the poverty line, earning
less than $1 a day. Of the 4 billion cases
of diarrhea each year, 2.2 million people
die unnecessarily. Preventable
water-related diseases kill 5 million
people every year, 4 million of them
children. Today, an estimated 1.2 billion
people lack access to a safe water supply
and 2.4 billion do not have adequate
sanitation.
These are disturbing statistics, as the
technology exists and resources are there
to deal with this crisis. A fraction of the
trillion dollars a year governments spend
on the military would make it possible to
go well beyond the UN Millennium
Development Goals on clean water and
sanitation. Investment in water, unlike
war, would save an estimated 125 billion
dollars a year in direct medical expenses
and costs associated with lower economic
productivity related to preventable
water-related diseases.
Unfortunately, the solution chosen by
governments does not focus on increasing
public investment. Instead, international
policy makers, lobbied heavily by the
private sector, are facilitating increased
private investment and management as the
way out of the crisis. The world’s poorest
people, especially women and children, are
desperately in need of safe water and
sanitation services. As the experience
documented in this publication shows,
however, the poor can lose access to these
basic services when profit-oriented
transnational water companies move in.
In the same way, Indigenous Peoples and
local communities increasingly find
themselves excluded from forests and other
biologically rich areas they have
traditionally lived in and utilised. These
lands are progressively being handed over
to logging, tourism and private park
management companies. They are also being
reserved for a new breed of company that
establishes “carbon parks” – a new and
lucrative avenue intended to offset the
carbon dioxide emissions of rich fossil
fuel addict consumers in the North.
Friends of the Earth International is
actively resisting this corporate takeover
of nature’s wealth. We are fighting for
people’s rights - to water, land, seeds and
knowledge. The 34 national stories gathered
in this publication document not only the
negative social and environmental impact of
water and biodiversity privatization, but
also how our member groups are actively
resisting such privatization in their
countries.
