Maude Barlow has just finished her plenary session speech on ‘the vision and expectations of peoples’ at the ‘Peace with Water’ conference at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.
This international conference was organized by the World Political Forum, in collaboration with European Parliamentary Groups and the European Research Institute on Water Policy.
Maude endorsed their proposed Memorandum for a World Water Protocol, which they want included in the international negotiations of the treaty that is to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change in 2013.
European Water News reports that, “The protocol will focus on conflict prevention, the promotion of the right to water for all, and the safeguard of the global water heritage for future generations.”
Maude told the hundreds of parliamentarians, locally elected officials, administrators, academics, and government, union, and civil society representatives there that:
– water is a human right and that she is working with the President of the United Nations to create a protocol on the right to water;
– water is a public trust, a global commons and a public service;
– nature has rights; and that enough water must be left in the eco-system for the health of the hydrologic cycle and watershed health;
– the European Union should ban bottled water;
– all decisions about water must be democratic, transparent and involve the local commuities they affect; and
– we must learn to live within our own water footprint and not abuse the water supplies of poor countries.
Other speakers addressing the Conference included Mikhail Gorbachev (President of the World Political Forum), Hans-Gert Pöttering (President of the European Parliament), Danielle Mitterrand (President of the France-Libertés Foundation), and Prince Albert II of Monaco.
