Resources - Environmental Transformations - page 37

that there are, potentially, enough resources to feed
and sustain everyone. Marxists are, however,
highly critical of the neoliberal assumptions that
are often associated with cornucopian strategies.
While cornucopians claim that the free market
provides the ideal basis for enhancing resource
production, Marxists claim that it is free
market systems that are actually at the heart of
contemporary social and environmental problems.
In social terms, Marxists assert that it is free
markets that have enabled the wealthy few to
control vast swathes of the Earth's resources, and
thus prevent their more even distribution. In
environmental terms, so-called eco-Marxists
claim that by giving prices to natural resources,
free markets have resulted in the short-term
overexploitation of resources in the pursuit of
financial gain and a failure to appreciate the non-
commercial value of the natural world (see Smith,
1984 : Chapter 1).

have gradually gained independence, a series of
processes have contrived to raise concerns over
water scarcity in the region. At one level, the rising
levels of population in the nations of the Nile Basin
have placed strain on the ability of the river system
to deliver adequate supplies of water. In 1950
there were approximately 60.5 million people
living in the Nile Basin (see Klare, 2002: 157). By
1998, this figure had increased more than threefold
to 206.6 million people (Klare, 2002: 157). But the
story of population increases does not end there.
Estimates from the World Resources Institute
indicate that by 2050 the total population on the
Nile Basin region will be 520.5 million (that is a
152 per cent increase on 1998 figures) (Klare,
2002: 157). Such rapid increases in population
are naturally placing great pressure on water
supply networks in the region. In particular,
demand for water is rising as a consequence of
the fact that many nations in the Nile Basin have,
or are, developing new irrigation schemes. These
irrigation schemes have been designed in order
to enable desert areas to be transformed into
agricultural zones that can provide food for
the expanding population. Increasing demand
for water is not only a product of increasing
population, however, but also of relative increases
in the level of per capita water use in the region.
With many countries such as Egypt becoming
increasingly urbanized, the amount of water
that is being used per person is also increasing.
This pattern of increasing water usage has been
observed throughout the world as more economic-
ally developed, urbanized societies use water within
modern sanitation networks, flush toilets and
washing machines (see Kaika, 2005; Pearce, 2007).
Beyond increasing demand for water in the Nile
Basin, other, geopolitical, issues have contributed
to anxieties over future water scarcity in the region.
These geopolitical tensions in the Nile Basin have
resulted in different nation states in the basin
developing new dams and irrigation schemes in
order to enable them to increase their water
withdrawal rates from the Nile (Klare, 2002: 157).
As upstream states (such as Ethiopia and Sudan)

2.4 WATER RESOURCES IN THE
NILE BASIN
In the final section of this chapter we consider
issues of environmental resource extraction,
supply and use in the context of one particular
resource in one particular geographical location.
Geographically we focus on the Nile Basin in
northeast Africa. In terms of environmental
resources, we consider the challenges of water
supply in this region. The Nile Basin is a large
region encompassing 3350 million square
kilometres of land and incorporating nine different
countries (Burundi, Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia,
Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda)
(Klare, 2002: 149) (see Figure 2.11) . This relatively
dry region is dependent on the water that is
supplied through the Nile River system and its
associated network of lakes and marshes.
During the colonial period of the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, water use was tightly
regulated by the imperial powers (in particular
Britain) that controlled the Nile and its headwaters.
Since the nations that are part of the Nile Basin