Early one morning in Cairo, volunteers paddle their kayaks across the Nile, fishing out garbage from the mighty waterway that gave birth to Egyptian civilisation but now faces multiple threats.
Egypt’s lifeline since Pharaonic days and the source of 97 per cent of its water is under massive strain from pollution and climate change and now the threat of a colossal dam being built far upstream in Ethiopia.
Undeterred, the flotilla of some 300 environmental activists do what they can—in the past three years they say they have picked some 37 tonnes of cans, plastic bottles, disposable bags and other trash from the waters and shores along the Nile in Egypt.
“People have to understand that the Nile is as important—if not more—than the pyramids,” said Mostafa Habib, 29, co-founder of the environmental group Very Nile.
“The generations coming after us will depend on it.”
His fears echo those that millions worldwide share about other over-taxed and polluted rivers from the Mekong to the Mississippi—an issue to be marked on World Water Day on March 22. Read more…
