 Excellencies, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking the President of the General Assembly, His Excellency, Mr. Miroslav Lychik, for the invitation to moderate the panel on contribution of the water decade to the implementation of water-related SDGs, addressing challenges and saving opportunities through strengthening cooperation and partnerships. I now invite our fifth speaker, Mr. Satguru, a yogi, mystic and visionary to deliver his remarks. Mr. Satguru is one of India's 50 most influential people established Isha Foundation, a non-profit volunteer-run organization operating worldwide. Mr. Satguru has initiated several projects for social revitalization, education and environment through which millions of people have been given the means to overcome poverty, improve their quality of life and achieve community-based sustainable development. In the fall of 2017, Mr. Satguru initiated Rally for Rivers, a nationwide campaign aiming to implement sustainable and long-term policy changes to revitalize India's severely depleted rivers which found great support among India's leadership and the people. You have the floor, Mr. Satguru, please. Good afternoon, everybody. The first and foremost is to make everybody on this planet to understand that water is not a commodity, it's the life-making material. The stuff we are made of, over two-thirds of the planet is water, two-thirds of our body is water. But where is the water gone? Actually, water is not gone anywhere. Earlier water we had on this planet a million years ago, we still have the same amount, it's not gone out of the atmospheric space, but it's just not where we need it. We are not able to service the people with the needed water and water the reasons, why is it happening to us like this? I would limit myself to the situation in India and in many ways this situation is relevant to all tropical regions of this planet. India has been always referred to as land of seven rivers, but we have over 700 rivers. It's a very richly waned land in terms of rivers, but in the last fifty years the depletion of rivers on an average has been nearly sixty percent of depletion of water has happened in the rivers. Why is this so? What are the causes? There are many things to do, but fundamentally we must understand there are two types of rivers, glacier fed rivers and forest fed rivers. In India only four percent of the river water is glacier fed, rest fortunately is forest fed. In the rest of the world seventy-two percent of the rivers are forest fed. So that is also fortune. Why I'm saying it's fortunate is because we can put back the forest, we can put back the vegetation, but we cannot just bring down snow whenever we feel like it. It's important that we need to understand like a country like India, we have an average of forty-five to fifty days of rain or precipitation. What comes down in forty-five days, we are required to hold it in the land for three hundred sixty-five days. If this has to happen, it doesn't matter who says what and thousand different opinions, but fundamentally you can hold the water in the land only if the soil has the necessary organic content and there is vegetation. Today it is understood that to call soil as soil a minimum of two percent organic content should be there, but today nearly twenty-five percent of India. The organic content is point zero-five percent. That means we are converting rich soil into sands. That means desertification is happening at a rapid pace. I am not an environmentalist, I am not a scientist nor am I a policy maker. But my engagement with life around me has been from a very early childhood. My involvement with forests, mountains and rivers has been very active right through my life. And with great concern I have been watching particularly in the last twenty-five years how the rivers that I have known since my childhood, how they have depleted. Particularly in the last seven years, the depletion is so sharp and alarming that we invested a certain amount of time and effort and energies to study these things and see how to revive this and made a policy document, a recommendation, policy recommendation, seven hundred and sixty-eight recommendation to the federal government in India. It is heartening to see that there is a broad understanding about this in state governments and in the central government. When we presented the policy document to the prime minister at six-fifteen in the evening last October second, next day morning, eleven-thirty, we got a call from the prime minister's office saying that they want a soft copy because prime minister has formed a special group to look into the policy. So obviously the enormity and the urgency of what needs to be done is definitely gotten into the minds of policy makers in, at least in India, I'm sure it is on with the concern with which everybody is speaking from various nations. This urgency and enormity of the situation has sunk into all of us. So we know what is the problem. We generally know what is the solution. It may be little more specific to each nation and each geographical location but generally we know what is the solution. Now the problem is implementation. The problem is getting everybody's cooperation. The problem is the size of the solution. How do we put it on the ground? This is a big problem. So one thing is definitely every nation in collaboration should form because ecology is not something that respects national or political boundaries. Rivers don't have boundaries, whether of states or nations. So to be able to form an international policy may be region-wise, tropical region and subtropical regions and temperate climates like this we could make but a comprehensive policy that everybody will agree to and start implementing because a time has come that in the next it's it's really a fantastic day today that we are talking about a decade of action. Not decade of talk, talking, a decade of action which is a very good terminology and very good intention. Now we have to get into action, obviously United Nations does not have geographical presence, it is the nations on the ground which need to act. So whatever the advisory is, whatever the decisions made must become policies in every nation. There are a variety of situations in this which are culturally linked and we have to be sensitive to this otherwise it won't work on the ground. So one thing we are doing in India is one simple solution we offered is in the river and land in India, twenty-five to twenty-seven percent is still owned by the government. So we are talking about all the government owned lands except for allocations for next fifty years of development except for that everything else must be converted into forests. The remaining nearly seventy percent of the land is farmland. You cannot ask a poor farmer who is fighting for his survival to save the river or ecology or the world. So we have an economic plan with significant ecological impact that is a minimum of one kilometer on either side of the river should become tree based agriculture. We have in small models proven that by moving from crop based agriculture to tree based agriculture the farmers income can go up anywhere between three to eight times. This is an economic plan but significant ecological impact will happen. There are encroachments, there are sand mining and there are various other things. For all these things we have a policy recommendation. These recommendations are very implementable and practical which is relevant to every tropical nation as I said earlier but the important thing is we need to understand these are two types of rivers. We have forest fed and glacier fed. Glacier fed rivers we just have to look up and pray that something right happens. But forest fed rivers we can revive. Fortunately it's more than seventy percent of the world's rivers and over ninety percent of Indian rivers are forest fed. So getting them back is not such a big challenge if there is a committed approach to this. Maybe we will not be able to put back forests but we can definitely put back tree cover in the farm of tree based agriculture. For example India is right now importing nearly seven billion dollars worth of timber. So we are trying to get a policy across that there was a colonial policy that if you cut a tree on your land you can't transport it you need permission to do it. We are trying to take away these old rules so that people will be encouraged to plant forest trees on their land because it will be an economic proposition. Without making ecology without marrying ecology and economy there is really no solution because if there is no economic benefit getting the masses involved is not going to happen. A dynamic policy is needed but very important thing is a mass involvement of people without people's participation is not going to happen and people's participation will not come unless there is economic benefit attached to it. So talking about saving the world we can give any number of lectures it won't work. The reason why India responded the way it responded to rally for rivers because it was an economic plan hundred and sixty two million people participated in a one month long rally across the country. This is the largest ever for any ecological moment because ecology means it is a concern of a handful of people who are worried about the future we are worried about the present that is a attitude. If you want to describe these two dimensions people understand economy as today's issue ecology as next generation's issue. Now ecology is this generation's issue this has to be made an urgent possibility and whatever we do unless we make ecology into a lucrative process for the large number of people involved in it large masses of people will never involve themselves in making this happen. When we look at the water depletion that's happened just to I mean we live in southern India and the kind of depletion happened today it's in news that Bangalore city which is known as Bangalore in the rest of the world when I was a child there were over thousand and twenty ponds and lakes in Bangalore city and three perennial rivers. I'm talking about perennial water bodies today there is no trace of these rivers we don't even know where they are anymore. Everything is built upon and only eighty-two lakes and ponds existing out of this forty-four of them or just sewage water only about thirty-six to thirty-seven perennial water bodies have actual water rest is all sewage. This has happened in forty years time this is what we are doing this is the pressure of population. Human footprint has become so broad that there is no room for anything else to happen on this planet. We have to understand when we say life we are not talking about just us but every other life because if insects, worms, birds, animals and trees disappear this planet cannot exist there will be no life on this planet but if you and me disappear the planet will flourish wonderfully well. So we need to understand that in the scale of significance their significance on this planet is far more than us though we may be a dominant force right now we are a recent happening we may also have a very near ending if we don't handle ourselves right. This is not that planet is in peril planet is not in peril it is only human life which is in peril. That will recover if we disappear if all of us go to sleep for twenty-five years everything will be back and everything will be wonderful. So we are also wonderful but we are just little too many we need to understand this. In two thousand at the beginning of twentieth century we were just one point four billion people today we are seven point three billion people in twenty-fifty United Nations is projecting we could be nine point six billion people why are we making predictions like astrologers why don't we have a plan by two thousand fifty what population we want to have because this planet can only sustain that many but we don't have a plan we are going on making predictions it's time this a decade of action must seriously consider population because that is the big elephant in the room we don't have an ecological crisis we have a population crisis we're just too many people if we don't plan for a sensible population in the future if we do not consciously bring it to some kind of solution nature will do it in a very cruel way that's all you're seeing what you're seeing is what a crisis is nature's way of controlling our population and this could become very severe and from what I see India and some of the African nations will take the first beating on the way they will get the first beating in fact the most severe impact will be on India and African nations so this is a very deep concern this is not like I'm trying to paint a doomsday picture but if we go on business as usual we are getting there there's no question about it and as we have seen in India many villages are completely empty now people have moved away from the village because there's no water anyway whole villages are gone so this essentially means as water crisis progresses more and more people will try to migrate to the city if too many people migrate to the city where there is necessary infrastructure is missing we will we are looking at a very severe civil strife we really fear what kind of civil strife can happen in the next 20 to 25 years in a country like India unless we take corrective action today and I'm glad today we are starting a decade of action as I said fortunately our rivers and water bodies are largely forest-fed that means we can put back the vegetation and revive these water bodies quite effortlessly we have seen and demonstrated this happening but now we are looking at large-scale demonstrations in some of the states in collaboration with the state governments many states are going into a huge plantation drives like never thought of before they're talking about tens of millions of trees being put on the riverbanks and in the catchment areas this is the only way you can take care of river fed I mean forest fed rivers ice fed rivers glacier fed rivers are a different matter that is not going to change just like that that has to go through a whole lot of process above all today I would like to appeal to every one of you as I said if not an entire globe at least region-wise cooperation and common policies are a must for the future well-being of generations to come thank you very much I thank mr. Sadguru for his very interesting remarks there is no doubt that your great experience and initiatives will raise awareness across the world regarding deteriorating conditions of rivers and encourage people to take actions your remarks have certainly enriched our discussions excellencies their participants I now open the floor for comments and questions first one of on my list is mr. Peter ng chief executive of public utilities board head of the Singapore National Water Agency please the floor is yours excellencies do you agree with me that portable reuse should be made a priority for the world if we are serious about achieving SDG 6 and if you do then surely the UN has to play a leading role in this it has to become an advocate for the endless reuse of water and it has to deploy its influence to encourage and to persuade member countries to adopt the portable reuse of water as Singapore is considerable experience and expertise in this area we stand ready to advise and to help thank you I thank mr. Peter ng the distinguished participants the floor for comments and the questions is open please if you want to make any comments please press your microphones recycling and reusing water is no more an optional thing it's something that we have to do because of concentrated populations in cities but one most important thing which generally not been addressed in most nations is as we know over 70% of water consumption is agriculture in India it is 84% is agriculture shifting from flood irrigation to micro irrigation would make a huge difference but micro irrigation has its problems when land holdings are very small so aggregating the irrigation process is an important part of this only if we do that water consumption could come down in a way that it's significant and noticeable reuse of city water whatever domestic water we use is definitely has to be done there's no question about that but micro irrigation moving into micro irrigation aggregating irrigation process is a very important step that nations need to take and mr. Sadguru please the floor is yours it's a truly commendable that we have heard that the prime minister of Singapore consumes recycled water to make the point how safe it is that's wonderful but that level of purification there are economic issues for countries like India and many other nations so what we are looking at is our daily sewage volume in the top 200 cities and towns in India amounts to 36 billion litres per day this can easily irrigate anywhere between three to nine million hectares of land with micro irrigation and we've always found when we bring micro irrigation naturally women get into the act because micro irrigation needs a certain level of patience and generally we find men want to rip it off because it doesn't work is the woman who have the patience to go to every point and fix it so naturally their role in agriculture and food production would be greatly greatly enhanced if we move into micro irrigation and we can bring down the water consumption a agricultural sector by at least 40% this we have demonstrated in many places at least by 40% and that would be the level of recycling we need we don't have to necessarily recycle it to a point for human consumption but for agriculture it's much easier to do it and economically it's more relevant to us