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dam-l "Natural disasters not natural/LS



>From ENS:

                         "Natural" Disasters a Misnomer, UN Leader Says

                         GENEVA, Switzerland, July 6, 1999 (ENS) - "It is a
tragic irony that 1998, the penultimate year of the
                         Disaster Reduction Decade, was also a year in
which natural disasters increased so dramatically," United Nations
                         Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Monday. Annan
was speaking at the closing ceremonies for the United Nations
                         International Decade for Natural Disaster
Reduction (IDNDR) at the International Conference Centre of Geneva.

                         UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (Photo courtesy UN)

                         "It is becoming increasingly clear that term
'natural' for such events is a
                         misnomer," Annan said. Ecological imbalances
brought on by poor
                         development practices and climate change are
responsible for much of the loss
                         of life, displacement and destruction that follows
floods, storms, earthquakes
                         and droughts, the secretary-general pointed out.

                         Much has been learned from the creative disaster
prevention efforts of poor
                         communities in developing countries, said Annan,
for it is the poor who live
                         most directly in harm's way due to population
pressures. They must live on
                         flood plains, in earthquake-prone zones and on
unstable hillsides. "Their
                         extraordinary vulnerability is perhaps the single
most important cause of
                         disaster casualties," said Annan.

                         The cost of weather-related disasters in 1998
alone exceeded the cost of all
                         such disasters in the whole of the 1980s. Tens of
thousands of mostly poor
                         people died in storms, floods, earthquakes and
droughts. Tens of millions
                         have been temporarily or permanently displaced.
The cost of disasters in the 1990s was some nine times higher than
                         in the 1960s, Annan said.

                         In Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Mexican emergency
                         workers search flood-damaged office building for
                         survivors and dead on October 28, 1998 after
                         Hurricane Mitch swept Central America. (Photo
                         courtesy Inter-American Development Bank)

                         "No doubt there will always be genuinely natural
hazards -
                         whether floods, droughts, storms or earthquakes.
But today's
                         disasters are sometimes manmade, and nearly always
                         exacerbated by human action - or inaction," he said.

                         Disasters can be made worse by faulty development
practices.
                         Massive logging operations reduce the soil's
ability to absorb
                         heavy rainfall. That, in turn, makes erosion and
flooding more
                         likely. The destruction of wetlands reduces the
land's capacity to
                         absorb heavy run-off, he explained, preaching to
the choir.

                         "Extreme climatic events may also be caused in
part by global
                         warming, which is, in turn, partly caused by
increased carbon
                         emissions from burning fossil fuels. Can it really be a
                         coincidence that 1998 was the warmest year
recorded since
                         worldwide measurements were first taken some 150
years ago?"
                         Annan asked rhetorically.

                         The secretary-general called for a shift from "a
culture of reaction to a culture of prevention."

                         He urged better early-warning of impending
disasters to give vulnerable people time to move out of harm's way and
                         better policies to mitigate the effects of natural
disasters.

                                                                     One of
many families sorts
                                                                     their
belongings in San Pedro
                                                                     Sula,
Honduras in the wake of

Hurricane Mitch. (Photo by
                                                                     Alvaro
Gutierrez courtesy

honduras.com)

                                                                     But
above all, said Annan, prevention
                                                                     "means
greater efforts to reduce

vulnerability in the first place.

Unfortunately, such efforts rarely

receive much publicity and thus too
                                                                     often
fail to engage the attention of
                                                                     top
policy makers."

                                                                     The
scientific community understands
                                                                     the
importance of the connection

between natural disasters, climate

change, and land use, he said. The

challenge now is to communicate this

understanding more effectively to

citizens and policy makers.

                                                                     "Real
progress will require Member
                         States, NGOs and international organizations to
work together on advocacy, networking and consensus-building,
                         creating the sorts of global coalition that we saw
in the campaigns to ban landmines and establish the International
                         Criminal Court."

                         Annan expressed gratitude to the IDNDR team in
Geneva, and its partners in and outside the United Nations system.

                         "Around the world, an interdisciplinary scientific
community of meteorologists, geologists, seismologists and
                         social scientists is working ever more cohesively.
Despite its limited financial resources, IDNDR has also brought
                         together governments, NGOs, other international
organizations and the private sector to work with the scientific
                         community on disaster reduction strategies." "We
know what has to be done. What is now required is the political
                         commitment to do it," he declared.

                         © Environment News Service (ENS) 1999. All Rights
Reserved.




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      Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
        and Editor, World Rivers Review
           International Rivers Network
              1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
                  Tel. (510) 848 1155   Fax (510) 848 1008
                        http://www.irn.org
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