Festival aims to create awareness of water scarcity

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The festival will take place during National Water Week from 16-22 March and is an initiative of the Watershed Project, a Cape Town-based non-profit organisation, and Woolworths, the main sponsor. One of the main attractions is a series of local and internationally acclaimed films documenting water in all its beautiful forms.

The Watershed Festival kicks off on Saturday, 14 March, with a Family Fun Day at Princess Vlei, offering an array of recreational water sports for visitors to take part in, followed by a fun trail run along the banks of the Liesbeek River on Thursday, 18 March. On Friday, 20 March, film lovers can enjoy a free outdoor screening of local and internationally acclaimed documentary films about water at the Green Point Urban Park from 7pm.

The film festival then moves indoors to South Africa's oldest independent art-repertory cinema, the Labia Theatre on Orange Street, and runs from Saturday, 21 March to Tuesday, 24 March. On Saturday, 21 March, the Friends of the Liesbeek public awareness group is hosting a guided bird-watching and family walk along the banks of the river.

Crucial for business

"Woolworths depends on water to grow our food and make our clothes. In a water scarce country like ours, we have to make every effort to conserve the water we have. Raising awareness about water issues is crucial for our business and our country. This is why we support the Watershed Festival as it includes a broad range of schools, communities and the public in getting involved with the issues we face," says Justin Smith, head of Sustainability at Woolworths.

The Watershed Festival hopes to create increased awareness of the Cape and South Africa's water crisis. With dams currently at 69% capacity, all it will take to literally run on empty is a few consecutive winters with less than expected rainfall thanks to climate change.

Forty percent of waste water treatment facilities are in a critical state and in need of an upgrade, having outlived their 30 year life span by a decade or so. South Africa loses 37% of clean, drinkable water through leaking pipes and dripping taps every year, while increasing pollution due to rapidly expanding urban areas and illegal dumping add to the crisis.

The severity of the situation goes mostly unnoticed by the public for a number of reasons:

• A lack of understanding of how water arrives at one's tap and the cost implications of getting it there.
  
• A lack of awareness of just how bad South Africa's water and sanitation infrastructure really is and the amount of maintenance needed for it to work efficiently.
  
• Too many people think that just because they can afford to pay their water bill they are entitled to have water 'on tap'.
  
• Most people attribute responsibility for the water crisis to environmentalists, scientists and government. This attitude needs to change.