ENVIRONMENT: Geology Adds Perspective to Sustainable Development

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 8 2000 (IPS) - Geologists around the world are anxious to put their science at the service of sustainable development, agreed these “earth scientists” at their first international conference to be held in South America in their organisation’s 120-year history.

Geologists play an important role in implementing Agenda 21, drafted at the 1992 Earth Summit, said Umberto Cordani, president of the International Geological Congress, which has gathered some 6,000 representatives from 120 countries here this week.

Mineral and energy resource management, soil and water conservation, monitoring the earth’s processes and preventing natural disaster are some of the geologists’ missions under a framework of responsibilities for the coming decades, according to Cordani.

“Geology and Sustainable Development: Challenges for the Third Millennium” is the main theme of the meeting, lasting through Aug 17, with nine conferences and 233 roundtable discussions scheduled. GeoExpo 2000, also part of the congress, allows 200 companies and institutions to put their services and new technologies on display.

Because these earth scientists research and monitor the planet’s processes, they build knowledge that should be taken into account in developmental policies, stressed Cordani, who also serves as head of the University of Sao Paulo’s Institute of Geo- Sciences.

Geology deals with non-renewable resources, such as petroleum and water, and thus tends to be identified with depredatory activities like mining or the use of fossil fuels, which are a leading contributor to the so-called greenhouse effect, pushing the earth’s average temperature higher.

It is no coincidence that the geology congress is sponsored in party by major oil companies, including the British-Dutch Shell Oil, Spanish-Argentinean Repsol-YPF and Brazil’s state-run Petrobrás.

Ironically, given the focus of this year’s International Geological Congress, the Brazilian oil giant has been responsible for two major spills recently. Millions of litres of crude spilled into Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro and into the Iguazú River in southern Brazil. Both incidents took a heavy toll on the environment.

Defending conservation and the rational use of resources is the geology organisation’s contribution to environmentally healthy development, according to its president.

In agriculture, for example, geological information can help prevent damage to the soil – degradation and erosion – and suggest appropriate crops for greater productivity and sustainability, Cordani pointed out.

But it is the issue of freshwater, already scarce in many parts of the world, that is under the microscope at this year’s congress underway in Brazil.

A meeting related to the International Geological Congress took place last week in the northeast Brazilian city of Fortaleza, where experts focused on the preservation of the world’s aquifers.

At that conference, delegates approved seven recommendations to control the use of water, stimulate research and conserve aquifers, emphasising that water is a resource of vital economic and social importance.

Water consumption worldwide has increased four-fold over the last 40 years, severely pressuring water reserves, according to the experts.

Agriculture consumes the most water, 73 percent, most of which is used for irrigation. Industry absorbs 21 percent, while just six percent is used in the world’s households.

The Brazilian government is also studying a large-scale project that is likely to have major environmental and economic impacts. It is planning to re-route water from the Sao Francisco and Tocantins rivers to the northeastern region, where frequent prolonged droughts deepen the already widespread poverty there.

In addition, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, the four members of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), are hammering out a framework for research and environmental management of the Guaraní aquifer, an immense underground water reservoir covering 1.2 million square km.

This reservoir, two-thirds of which lies in Brazilian territory, is the largest in South America and already supplies hundreds of the nation’s cities with water.

The abandonment of wells, heavy use of chemicals in agricultural activities and increased industrial use may be contaminating the water in those areas where the aquifer is closest to the surface, warn Aldo Rebouças, of the University of Sao Paulo, and Ernani Rosa Filho, of the Federal University of Paraná.

Contrary to what many people may believe, nearly all freshwater in the world (97 percent) is found in natural underground reservoirs. Rivers make up just one percent of the earth’s water supplies, stressed Ricardo Hirata, a University of Sao Paulo researcher.

In a world where the giant transnational corporations concentrate economic power and the majority of the population lives in poor regions, environmental preservation “tends to lose priority,” according to the International Geological Congress president.

This situation increases the responsibility of geologists in “building sustainable societies,” Cordani said.