ABSTRACT
The ‘water war’ weathervane continues to spin round. Upon his return from a visit to war-ravaged western Sudan, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in September 2007 penned his opinion for the Washington Post, stating that ‘Darfur is an environmental crisis-a conflict that grew at least in part from desertification, ecological degradation and a scarcity of resources, foremost among them water’ (Ki-Moon 2007). Ki-Moon’s foray into the determining effects of the environment on conflict
has drawn sharp criticism from those who understand the political, ethnic, historic and religious roots of the tensions between the Fur, Zaghawa and other peoples of the region (see e.g. El Tom 2007; de Waal 2007). Those who oppose the thesis that scarcity of resources causes violent conflict do so both on the grounds that there is little evidence to support the claims and thatmore importantly-such claims have the effect of depoliticizing the conflict. If Darfur was heavily forested and as awash in water as it is in unexplored oil, after all, would we expect to see peaceful relations between the government in Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army? And would the conflict be resolved if aid agencies drilled deeper boreholes into the fractured sandstone under the shale deposits? The view that water is an increasingly likely source of violent conflict
appears to be part of a very broad and pervasive mindset, perpetuated in part by sensationalist media pieces (see e.g. The Independent, 28 Feb 2006) and UN Secretaries General. The international water academic and practicioner community has taken a deeper perspective. Assertions of water-related aspects of environmental determinism (e.g. Fearon 1995; Homer-Dixon 1995a, 1995b; Butts 1997) have been generally discredited (e.g. Levy 2001; Hartmann 2002). Water wars themselves are generally viewed as unfounded hyperbole, thanks in large measure to the path-breaking work of Aaron Wolf, which demonstrates that there are many more instances of states co-operating over shared water resources than struggling over them (Wolf 2004, 2007). Indeed,
judging by the mood and statements at the numerous international water fora these days, the looming spectre of water wars appears to be gradually being replaced by a feeling that tensions over transboundary waters are subsiding. The 2006 UN World Water Development Report, for example, asserts that
Increasing sensitivity about the need to integrate competitive demands and stakeholders’ interests, in addition to the evolving need for political accommodation and the proactive stance in avoiding conflict, have all contributed to a shift from confrontation to cooperation, from monologue to dialogue and from dissent to consensus.
