World's major rivers drying out-WWF

[Pastor Dale Morgan]

*Perilous Times and Global Warming*

*World's major rivers drying out-WWF*

20 Mar 2007 00:01:07 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Douwe Miedema

GENEVA, March 20 (Reuters) - Many major rivers in the world are at risk
of drying out because of climate change and dam construction, which
could affect fresh water supplies and marine life, the global nature
protection body WWF said on Tuesday.

In a report ahead of the March 22 'World Water Day', the Swiss-based
group identified 10 rivers, including the Nile, the Rio Grande and the
Danube, as some of the worst victims of poor planning and inadequate
protection.

"Rivers regularly no longer reach the sea, like the Indus in Pakistan,
the Nile in Africa and the Rio Grande ... There are millions of people
whose livelihoods are at risk," said Jamie Pittock, director of WWF's
global freshwater programme.

Rivers are the world's main source of fresh water, and about half of the
available supply is already being used up, he said.

Dams have destroyed habitats and cut rivers off from their flood plains,
while climate change could alter the rules by which rivers have lived by
for thousands of years, the report said.

Fish populations, the top source of protein and overall life support for
hundreds of thousands of communities worldwide, are also being
threatened, the report found.

WWF urged governments to strike agreements on ways to better manage
shared water resources in order to minimise damage.

"All the rivers in the report symbolise the freshwater crisis signalled
for years, but the alarm is falling on deaf ears," Pittock said.

Other rivers on the warning list were the Yangtze, Mekong, Salween and
Ganges, in Asia, the Rio Plata in South America and Australia's
Murray-Darling, WWF said.