GANGA 53rd Issue | Page 3

Combined with the amount of water that India at top of climate violence seeps out the bottom of the lake, is quite enough to supply about nine million people A map of global ecological conflict in with water each year — roughly the the Environmental Justice Atlas, released population of the city of Los Angeles. Lake in Dec. 2015 shows most of the climate related Mead loses a similar amount and so do each conflict is taking place in India, Colombia and of the reservoirs up and down the Colorado Nigeria. These cases of conflict caused River system. All that up in a system, one by climate change and environmental disputes. can see an inefficiency that could add It shows that more than 200 conflicts in India, roughly 30 percent more to the river's flow. 101 in Colombia and 71 in Nigeria, caused There are no easy ways to address this due to inefficiency, but what’s changing the discussion is the fact that both Lake Powell ecological disputes and scarcities of basic resources such as water and forests. environmental conflicts.. and Lake Mead are essentially drying up. The atlas is a work in progress and aims to Both reservoirs still lose an enormous map 2,500 environmental conflicts and amount through evaporation and they're not injustices, by the end of 2017. functioning at their full capacity. The idea of a dam not suiting its original purpose. The experts believed that one reason for India recording the maximum number of conflicts is the thrust on industrialisation, mining for Whatever h