Book Review

Blue Covenant by Maude Barlow,  published by The New Press.

In hardback by The New Press

This 196-page hardback book is written by the distinguished and celebrated activist Maude Barlow. In the introduction the author describes herself as traveling to, “remote and often wretchedly poor communities around the globe,” and going, “deep inside the global institutions and halls of power”. Barlow writes from personal experience gained on overseas trips (she is Canadian), and from the experience of engaging directly with world politics and policy-makers. Thoroughly researched, this is not an academic book so much as documentary evidence put forward by a practical and sophisticated activist.

Barlow argues that “three crises are coming together globally around water” (video lecture): ecological,  human, and corporate.

Bore wells, shows Barlow, are depleting ground water faster than it can be restored. Water is being moved from one place to another, as in water that is taken from fresh water ecologies, moved to the cities, and then dumped in the ocean. Further, she describes the export of water in produce. She argues that the mismanagment of water is not a consequence of climate change, but one of the causes.

The human crisis Barlow introduces with a shocking statistic, that 2 billion people live in parts of the world that do not have access to clean water. The use of bore wells to access water means sources dry up quite suddenly, provoking aggression between neighbours and between neighbouring states.

The corporate crisis is in the shape of “big private sector interests moving in to create a water cartel” (video lecture). The World Bank is forcing the developing world to adopt a privatised water model. In Chapters 2 and 3 Barlow shows exactly how this has been done, and its consequences.

In the latter part of the book the author describes the rise of the “water warriors”. This emergent group is becoming increasingly cohesive and effective in resisting water privatisation thanks to modern communications networks.

This is not a thick book, nor a dense text, you can read it in a couple or three good sessions. It is a useful reference book to have on the shelf, full of useful examples and statistics. It  has a good references section and a comprehensive index. If you don’t think you have time to read the book go onto Google Videos and search for Maude Barlow and listen to her speak, she is sane and compelling.

Book Review

The Sardar Sarovar Dam Project by Philippe Cullet (Ed.), published in hardback by Ashgate.

In hardback by Ashton

This 470-page hardback book is a collection of selected documents with explanatory text by Philippe Cullet. On his home page at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Dr. Cullet lists his interests as, “Law and environment, law and natural resources, intellectual property, water, human rights, international law, India.”

An overview in Chapter 1 reveals the scale of the Sardar Sarovar Dam Project, the second biggest of the proposed dams on the 1,312 km river which rises at Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh and flows into the Arabian sea in the state of Gujarat. I chose to read Chapter 1 while flying above the course of the river in Google Earth. For the rest of the book Cullet allows the documents he has selected and retrieved to tell their own story.

The value of these documents for me has been: to know the facts; to note the use of language; to note the form they have taken; and to learn of the extraordinary influence exerted by the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

The Khosla Report of 1965 is here, as is the Morse Report of 1992, of course, that is what you would expect. Where this book becomes so valuable is in the other documents, otherwise inaccessible to students of river projects. For example, the responses from the ministry of Water Resources and the Government of Gujarat. A highlight for me is Mr Chitale’s letter to Mr Vergin of the World Bank in which he writes, “Concerned tribals have been fully compensated… there is no violation of human rights whatsoever so far as Sardar Sarovar Project is concerned.”

It is telling to read the language used to describe the between 250,000 and 500,000 people displaced by the project: PAP (Project Affected Person), PAF (Project Affected Family), and “eligible oustees”.

Running parallel to the story of the oustees, is one of  a “greater common good”. The rationale behind the project is to supply irrigation water, drinking water and power to a vast region that is desperately short of these resources. Whether, in a country known for high levels of corruption, the project can ever deliver even a small part of what it promised to anything like the type or number of people originally targeted to benefit remains to be seen.

This is a sociopolitical book, not an engineering book. It is not for the faint-hearted reader. It will be on my shelf as a useful source of reference for comparison statements. It documents a bleak episode in the history of the World Bank. Every university library needs a copy of this book, I doubt if many individuals do. It is well-structured with a Table of Contents, extensive References, and an Index.