Managing forests for cleaner water for urban populations.

Access to clean water is one of the most fundamental of human rights but currently more than one billion city-dwelling people lack access to clean water. Generally it is not because water supplies are insufficient. Rather this crisis is due to an inability to organize supply properly to meet demand. This failure is particularly frustrating in that nature contains the necessary mechanisms to provide clean healthy water including the filtering effect provided by healthy forests in watersheds. Yet in many parts of the world environmental mismanagement has led to a critical shortage of freshwater. This article highlights how some of the largest cities in the world are able to supply sufficient freshwater to their inhabitants at least in part through the protection of forests. It identifies some key policy initiatives that could help reduce the vast number of people whose lives are dominated by the daily search for clean and safe water. (excerpt)