The World Water Day

The World Water Day is being celebrated on 22nd March 2010 all over the World. The message is very clear: We, the citizens of this planet, are on the verge of a severe resource crunch, starting with water. Reports and studies abound indicating that drought and acute water scarcity are going to affect large populations of the world in a few years. Urgent measures are therefore necessary to restore our water security at the earliest, so that, even if we cannot undo some of the damage already done, we can at least reverse the present trends, overcome this threat to our species, and to others, and to mitigate the human disaster that is now unavoidable.
Goa, in spite of being blessed with what seemed invincible water security only a few decades ago, is today facing serious water problems and irreversible loss of its water resources. The reasons are many - thousands of tankers carrying precious ground water for the lawns or the laundries of 5-star hotels; innumerable illegal bore-wells, in industrial estates and outside, sucking out precious water from the plateaus and elsewhere, thereby issuing a death warrant to all life in the villages below and around; slow and deadly poisoning of our pristine waters by sewage, municipal waste, industrial waste, pesticides, fertilizers and by millions of tonnes of mining waste; the irreversible loss of the aquifers, the watersheds and the catchment areas due to mining.
Goa is at a critical crossroad and a difficult decision must be taken now by the people. NGOs including GXE, GOAMAP, Voice of Villagers, Nisarga and more than a dozen village groups, institutions and concerned citizens have come together to address the daunting challenge of protecting our water resources. We are commencing an awareness drive in the State of Goa on 22nd March 2010. The program shall extend from 22nd March 2010 to 22nd April 2010, which is the World Earth Day, 2010.
GXE therefore requests all citizens to kindly be present at the Lohia Maidan, Margao from 4.30 PM on 22nd March 2010 to participate in the World Water Day 2010 celebrations, thereby taking one more step towards fulfilling our shared duty towards the future generations