World Water Day: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009By Chris Plante
Chris Plante is The Asia Foundation’s Director of the Environment Program. He can be reached at cplante@asiafound.org. Recently, he participated in a panel discussion titled “Water Worries: Balancing the Water We Need with the Water We Have” aired on City Visions Radio.
Thinking about World Water Day this Sunday, March 22nd, and the 2009 World Water Day theme of Transboundary Water, “sharing water, sharing opportunities,” I am reminded of “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost’s 1914 poem in which he asks why two neighbors must rebuild the stone wall dividing their farms each spring. Today, the unwritten rule – that good fences make good neighbors – makes plenty of sense to most of us. Our cities and suburbs, farms and factories, power plants and parks, and roads and rivers share common geography, boundaries, and neighbors.
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