The road to peace is paved by environmental conservation and cooperation, writes Adly Bishay* In 1992 the International Network for Earth Day asked me to join the global celebration of Earth Day activities. Earth Day was initiated in April 1970 when large numbers of students at US universities, upset by the state of environment in US cities, began to demand the government and industry to take steps to improve the situation. The student demonstrations resulted in the establishment of the US environmental agency, as well as moves towards building smaller cars to rationalise the use of fossil fuel and decrease the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (methane, hydrocarbons, etc). What began in 1970 as an American initiative gradually developed into an international annual global occasion. It was the Friends of Environment and Development Association (FEDA) that initiated an all-day Earth Day conference in Egypt in April each year. The topics discussed over the last 10 years have mostly been concerned with "sustainable development" in urban, rural, desert or historical areas, or with environmental issues such as air, water, and solid waste pollution. A couple of months ago I attended the 12th session of the UN Sustainable Development Commission, convened annually since the R1992 Rio Summit on Environment and Development. I was invited to participate not as a representative of FEDA but as a member of the board of directors of a new African NGO called FACS: Forum for African Civil Society for Sustainable Development. During the meeting, which took place at the UN headquarters in New York between 19-24 April, I met a number of representatives of African NGOs working in the area of sustainable development including representatives from the 10 Nile basin countries: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Eritrea. The subject under discussion was water, sanitation and human settlements. The International Network on Earth Day decided that this year's topic should also be water. In line with this global interest, and in cooperation with Mahmoud Abu Zeid, minister of water resources and irrigation, and Mamdouh Riad, minister of environmental affairs, FEDA decided to organise this year's Earth Day conference under the title "Water, Peace and Sustainable Development". In my opening remarks I stressed that cooperation and partnership between the Nile basin countries must start with Nile water issues. Although I know that the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation has already started to work in this direction, I believe that this cooperation should be based on comprehensive sustainable development plans -- resource management (natural and human resources), environmental protection against pollution, and socio-economic development -- for all Nile basin countries. This may be considered wishful thinking on my part but I am convinced that all of us in Egypt, in Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and other Nile basin countries will gain substantially from this approach. It is, in short, a win-win situation. This step could lead to an African Nile basin group which is economically, socially, politically and environmentally strong, thus ensuring a lasting peace for future generations. It was agreed by the participants that the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation as well as the Ministry of Environmental Affairs are doing their utmost to rationalise the use of water resources and improve their quality. However, the list of challenges is long. More than 80 per cent of our water is used for irrigation. Accordingly, it is necessary to impose severe penalties on those who use flood irrigation for desert lands and to work towards securing gradual improvements in irrigation systems in the Delta and Nile Valley. There is a need to decrease the present drinking water subsidy and place working meters in every apartment and ensure a just system for the participation of farmers in water cost delivery based on the type of crops and the method of irrigation and not simply on the area to be cultivated. Also a change is needed in cropping patterns to reduce the quantities of water used, especially in the case of sugar cane and rice. Egypt needs to encourage the planting of crops which can grow under arid and saline conditions whenever possible. The private sector should be encouraged to use renewable energy for the desalination of water and a national drive should be implemented to upgrade techniques used for the treatment of agricultural and domestic waste water and encourage their use under appropriate conditions. Should the above actions be successfully implemented up to 1.5 million feddans could have been reclaimed by 2020, if we include reclamations based on infrastructure already implemented in the Toshka, Salam Canal and East Owinat projects. It was also suggested that it would be safer and more practical to base our plans for land reclamation on pessimistic projections rather than the wishful thinking currently adopted by our government. Further, the food gap and unemployment problems could be alleviated through agreements with Nile basin countries, especially Sudan, to use their land and water in planting food crops. This would be part of a series of comprehensive agreements in which Egypt would offer technologies in the field of irrigation, agriculture and hydro-power as well as labour, as part of a sustainable development programme between Egypt and the Nile basin countries. It was suggested that perhaps we should rephrase the title of the panel discussion in the last session to underline that peace will help the move towards sustainable development in Africa rather than "sustainable development for Africa is the road to permanent peace." Now it is time to cooperate and work together for the sustainable development of both Egypt and Sudan. * The writer is the former director of the AUC Desert Development Centre (DDC), author of the UNDP Task Force's report on Strategies for Sustainable Development in Egypt and head of the Friends of Environment and Development Association (FEDA).
