Spurred by shrinking freshwater supplies, U.S. states could begin “water wars” in the next years to claim rights to Great Lakes water, warned American and Canadian scientists at a water conference in Toronto last week.

Nations around the world, such as India and Australia, are already experiencing drought and its effects on access to clean water and increases in food prices–and states in the American South and West are bracing themselves for a time in the near future when water resources will be more scarce.

Scientist Milton Clark, a senior health and science adviser for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, was quoted as saying at the conference, “We will in fact get into major water wars. You will see water wars coming in every way, shape or form.”

To prevent states from fighting over–or selling–water, the Great Lakes Compact was created in 2001 among the eight Great Lakes states, Ontario and Quebec.

Ontario and Quebec have signed the agreement, which bans long-distance water diversions to states not bordering the Great Lakes. Minnesota, New York, Indiana and Illinois have also signed the agreement, and Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania have not.

As one of the world’s largest reservoirs of drinking water, the five Great Lakes contain 18 percent of all fresh surface water on the planet. Conservationists continue to lobby to protect the lakes’ waters from mismanagement and environmental degradation.

Photo: NASA

Over the city, military jets cleave the sky.

The jets that weave all day long over Gangneung are a reminder that for the past 60 years Korea has been a country divided and at war with itself. Gangneung, with its windfarm, solar panels, and cherry blossoms, lies less than 100 miles (160 km) from the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, the world’s last remaining Cold War border.

This week, as springtime blooms, a series of events unfolded which threaten to destabilize the delicate balance between the North and the South.

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There is no recent conflict in Africa that has elicited so much debate around the world and in the United States, in particular, as Darfur. Not even the post election political skirmishes in Kenya drew so much attention. Kenya, once the darling of the continent, the erstwhile adversaries are today sharing a cup of tea as well as power, something unthinkable only two months ago.

In a 2007 newspaper article, UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said: “Almost invariably, we discuss Darfur in a convenient military and political shorthand - an ethnic conflict pitting Arab militias against black rebels and farmers. Look to its roots, though, and you discover a more complex dynamic. Amid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change.”

What does this mean? The Darfur conflict inflicts even more damage on Sudan’s environmental degradation with nearly two million internally displaced people putting pressure on the fragile environment as they clear land and source ground water to survive.

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After maintaining a stable and affluent country for decades, Côte d'Ivoire fell to a rebellion in 2002 which split the country in two. This led to many human rights violations, with harassment, child soldiers and executions reported on both the rebels and government. The fighting has claimed "thousands of civilian lives and led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people" with over 40% of the population now in poverty. There already exists an arms embargo ban on rough diamonds because of their contribution to the conflict. However, cocoa is still available to on the international market, with an estimated $118 million already used to fund the conflict on both sides.

One quarter of the people of Côte d'Ivoire work in the cocoa sector, which produced 40% of the world's cocoa in 2006. While the south portion of the country, which is under control by the government, grows approximately 90%, the rebel-controlled north produces the remaining 10%. The Global Witness is an independent non-governmental organization which investigates and campaigns on the links between natural resource exploitation, conflict and corruption. They recently published Hot Chocolate: how cocoa fuelled the conflict in Côte d'Ivoire, a report dedicated solely to the cocoa sector in Côte d'Ivoire and found "cocoa trade have contributed to funding armed conflict and how opportunities for enrichment from cocoa through corruption and misuse of revenues, both by the government and the rebel group Forces Nouvelles (FN), continue to undermine the resolution of the crisis." Both rebels and the government find opportunity to use profits from the sale of cocoa to directly fund their internal conflict, with the government siphoning $38.5 million directly into the war effort. The study found that when people such as journalists, auditors and independent investigators attempted to expose this embezzlement they have been intimated with threats and attacks. In the north the average revenue from cocoa is approximately $30 million through both sales and taxes. Cocoa from the northern zone is exported to Togo and then sold on the international market.

The report calls for the purchasers of cocoa to use their power and demand more transparency and improved management of cocoa revenue from their suppliers. One such way to ensure the chocolate consumers purchase is not supporting arms supplies or political conflicts is to search for Fair Trade chocolate, which, among others, requires transparency.

This is another example of a country's natural resources fuelling conflict, a scenario that has become all too common. Trade is not a simple exchange of commodities, but has extending ramifications across the people, the country and region and ultimately the world. We must adjust our trade practices to include the human element as an important factor, rather than view supply and demands existence within a vacuum. The report calls for the purchasers of cocoa to use their power. They need to demand more transparency and improved management of cocoa revenue from their suppliers. One such way for consumers to ensure the chocolate purchased is not supporting arms supplies or political conflicts is to buy Fair Trade chocolate, which, among others, requires transparency which prevents groups from funnelling revenue into their wars.