C 132/58
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
14.4.2023
Wednesday 5 October 2022
T.
whereas deforestation, land grabbing and natural resource overexploitation and extraction activities, including by organised crime groups, have a considerable impact on the water level of rivers and lakes, alter the water cycle, and contribute towards the drying-up of rivers and lakes as well as the pollution of the exploited areas;
U.
whereas freshwater ecosystems, while covering less than 1 % of the earth’s surface, harbour more than 10 % of all species and delicate biodiversity; whereas around 70 % of the world’s fresh water is used for agriculture, while the remainder is divided between industrial use (19 %), mainly in the food, textile, energy, industrial, chemical, pharmaceutical, and mining sectors, and domestic use (11 %), including human consumption;
V.
whereas healthy ecosystems enable the improvement of water quantity and quality, while increasing resilience to climate change;
W. whereas agriculture is the largest consumer of the world’s freshwater resources; whereas one third of arable land worldwide is used to feed livestock; whereas the FAO’s 2020 report entitled ‘The State of Food and Agriculture — Overcoming water challenges in agriculture’ suggests that food productivity and rural incomes can be significantly enhanced through investments in new irrigation systems or the adaptation and modernisation of existing ones, and that this should be combined with improved water management practices including improved agricultural practices; whereas land grabbing has negative implications for water availability and quality, dispossesses local communities of water sources and violates their human right to safe drinking water; X.
whereas the energy sector is currently responsible for 10 % of global water extraction and its water consumption is expected to rise by almost 60 % by 2040;
Y.
whereas certain abusive and in many cases illegal extractive industries have a considerable impact on surface and groundwater resources, pollution and the destruction of glaciers, forests, wetlands, rivers and other water sources vital for human consumption;
Z.
whereas the textile industry counts among the sectors that consume the most water in the world, and whereas apparel and textiles are produced in some of the world’s most water-scarce regions; whereas this industry is ranked as the second-most polluting in the world and a large part of that pollution ends up in bodies of water; whereas the Commission plans to adopt, in the first quarter of 2022, the ‘EU strategy for sustainable textiles’, which sets out to help the EU to move towards a circular economy in which textile products are designed to last longer and be reusable, repairable, recyclable and energy efficient;
AA. whereas the growing demand for water is causing water resources to be overexploited and water’s scarcity has made it a disputed resource; whereas, according to the UN, conflicts over water are expected in some 300 areas across the world by 2025; AB. whereas the preservation of water resources is under attack and damages to the quality of water have been made a criminal offence in many countries; whereas in recent years, environmental and water rights defenders have been subjected to an ever-increasing number of attacks including killings, kidnappings, torture, gender-based violence, threats, harassment, intimidation, smear campaigns, criminalisation, judicial harassment, forced eviction and displacement, and whereas there is an urgent need to support them proactively and protect their life and safety; whereas several finalists for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought are under attack for their role in defending water and common goods; whereas the defenders of the waters of the Guapinol river were imprisoned for more than two years before their release; whereas Lolita Chávez has been in exile for four years for her defence of the territory against the activities of hydroelectricity companies in Iximulew (Guatemala); whereas Berta Cáceres was assassinated in 2016 for her defence of the Blanco and Gualcarque rivers, and those who ordered the crime have still not been convicted; AC. whereas, according to Global Witness, more than a third of the land and environmental defenders murdered worldwide between 2015 and 2019 belonged to indigenous communities, whose land and water management skills are crucial in combating the climate crisis and biodiversity loss; AD. whereas denying access to water and destroying water infrastructure have been used as an essential tactic by occupying powers to annex occupied territories and displace people from their lands;