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COSTING THE EARTH
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PROGRAMME INFO |
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Costing the Earth tells stories which touch all our lives, looking at man's effect on the environment and at how the environment reacts. It questions accepted truths, challenges the people in charge and reports on progress towards improving the world we live in. |
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LISTEN AGAIN Ìý30 min |
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PRESENTER |
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'I really enjoy working on Costing the Earth, because it has the time to get its teeth into a subject and the resources to look at it critically. I hope it manages to say something new about most of the subjects it covers.'
Alex Kirby
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PROGRAMME DETAILS |
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Could 5000 years of civilisation be threatened by the lack of water?
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Death on the NileÌý
Explosive global population growth is creating extreme pressure on water supplies and the risk of wars being fought over water is rising. This week 'Costing the Earth' asks if the desperate need for water along the 4000 miles of the river Nile could lead to a new front of instability between the Arab and African worlds?
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| 'Egypt is the gift of the River Nile', said Herodotus, the great Greek historian. |
Back in 1929 Egypt signed a treaty with the British rulers of east Africa. It gave Egypt, in perpetuity, a veto on the use of the waters that feed the Nile. The people of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda can sweat in the midst of drought and gaze over the waters of Lake Victoria knowing that it is destined not for their fields and stand-pipes but for Egypt's fertile Nile Valley. The drought-prone east African countries are increasingly angry about the situation, declaring that the treaty signed by the colonial authorities has no legal hold on the independent states.
Egypt argues that in the upstream countries - agriculture is rain-fed and does not need irrigation from the Nile. But this year, erratic rains in Kenya have caused massive crop failures and Kenya will be searching for ways to prevent this happening again.
With the populationÌýof the region set to double in the next 20 years, Alex Kirby asks how long can the water of the River Nile support the needs of all 10 countries in the river basin?
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