Return to the Water's Source

Dear Editor:

I just finished reading your article "The Ultimate Elixir-Managing Water Resources in a New Era." It both presents an in-depth history of the struggle for water in the course of Taiwan's development and shows readers how the civil sector and government agricultural agencies are striving to manage the water crisis. I am confident that Sinorama's calls for diligence in water conservation will be met with a positive response.

But the viewpoints presented in the article on this pressing matter only seem to reflect humanity's management and control of a "resource." Thus a Council of Agriculture irrigation official is quoted as saying that any river water not used for irrigation is wasted as it flows out to the ocean, and therefore as much as possible should be extracted from waterways. But this seems to ignore the huge amounts of pesticides and fertilizers used in agricultural production that pollute the "source of life" and endanger organisms whose lives depend on the water downstream.

But precisely because water is the source of life, and the water resource development techniques of the last century have reached their limits, adjustments in water allocation, water conservation and recycling technology should not be our only approaches to solving the problem of water scarcity. Agricultural and water management agencies need to go beyond allocating water resources and reducing agricultural pollution. They need to look deeper into how landslides every summer spoil Taiwan's natural water cycle and how the washing away of fertile soil impacts the parching of the earth. They then need to work on solving them. Much like nuclear weapons, water has become an international issue. The global greenhouse effect causes irrigation water to evaporate in large amounts which could result in seasonal imbalances in agricultural water supplies. It would benefit agricultural leaders to confront these problems as soon as possible.

Rather than depending only on high-tech and modern management methods to solve Taiwan's water free-for-all, we ought to reduce the pollution of water resources to give them a respite, while we apply ourselves to improving modern production and development models. Safe water has become an important global issue in the new century.

The writer Shen Congwen once said that wherever he traveled, he first looked for "a water source." The presence of just one river or stream made him feel more at ease and more at home, no matter how strange or dangerous the place. We have watched many people toil in Taiwan's struggle for water, but if the fruits of their labors are to endure, perhaps what we need even more is to learn from Shen Congwen to once again truly revere and love our water.