Top Stories

The Other Crisis in Darfur
Sustainability Management is Key to Saving Environment

In a land of political chaos and an ongoing humanitarian crisis, little is known about the environment-al disaster burgeoning in Darfur.

A dead tree in the Darfur landscape.

Darfurians line up to receive water. All photos courtesy of Jane Strachan, disaster operations specialist for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

A woman at a well in Darfur.

Understandably, when President George W. Bush called the current situation in the Darfur region of Sudan a “genocide,” there wasn’t much thought given to problems such as groundwater levels. Reports from relief agencies on high human death tolls and alarming numbers of rape were, justifiably, in the spotlight.

But if peace comes back to this troubled region, the Darfurians who have fled their homes seeking refuge in displaced-persons camps or the nearby country of Chad will need to come back to a land of water, trees, and fertile land — a land that can support them as before. Read more.

District of Columbia Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), spoke at the Clean Water Policy Forum in May. Photo by Ron Thomas.

Water and wastewater issues and solutions often struggle to gain a foothold in the minds of those on Capitol Hill. Often, other issues dominate lawmakers’ time. However, the 2007 Clean Water Policy Forum provided an opportunity for water quality professionals to learn about the problems facing the water industry and highlight these problems to policymakers. Read more.