I translated the following article which appeared June 14 in El Universal de México.
In his address on
Mexico Day at ExpoZaragosa 2008 in Spain, President Felipe Calderón
beseeched the international community to make more effort in applying policies
for the correct use of wáter and for its recycling. He said that his government
was bringing to fruition a strategy for extending the laws regarding this
scarce resource.
Calderón spoke in the
Palace of the Congress of Zaragoza at the opening of the National Mexico Day at
the Expo which is dedicated to water and sustainable development. The president
cited the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Mayas which told that before the
world was created there was only the huge sky and the quiet sea, a proof that
for Mexico water is integral to the history of the people.
He painted a
pessimistic panorama as he enumerated phenomena such as global warming, natural
disasters, growing desertification, the melting of the glaciers and the
extinction of animal species, pointing out that there even was a risk that
human beings would be destroyed.
In respect to water,
Felipe Calderón emphasized that a billion people lacked potable water and that
two billion lacked basic sanitation, that there was little reuse of water, and
specifically that the world’s population currently used 54 percent of the
rivers and aquifers.
At this point he
alluded to his own steps to assure that Mexico would bring to fruition efforts
to deal with infrastructure and the treatment of waste water. The president
said that 104 of the 653 aquifers in his country were over-exploited and that
there were ten million citizens without potable water.
In his speech,
Calderon took the opportunity to make some proposals, to say that he felt that
the preservation of forests should be a basic objective of governments and that
there be a joining of public and private resources now to solve problems
through methods that supported sustainable development.
He remembered, too,
the writer Octavio Paz who in the past criticized the "reflexive cult of
progress" and who considered "suicidal" attempts to control nature.
He emphasized that "to defend nature is to defend humankind."
With the premise that water is a "symbol of generosity, brotherhood, and the guarantor of life," Calderón said that Mexico wanted to be "part of the solution, not of the problem," in spite of having to deal with the adversity associated with being a country in the process of development.
(My translation)