Malaysia was ranked 87 among 122
countries in the 2004 United Nations 
World Water Development Report by
 Unesco and World Water Assessment
 Programme (WWAP).

The report was the result of research
 conducted for between 10 and 15 
years on the quality  of water provision
 of the 122 countries.  Finland topped
 the rankings while Belgium was 
bottom.

This was revealed to school children at a workshop on Water Conservation conducted by the Global Environment Centre (GEC) and the Federation of Malaysian Consumers Association of Malaysian Consumers Associations (Fomca) in SMK (P) Sri Aman in Petaling Jaya recently in conjunction with the National Water Conservation Campaign.

Speaking to the students on the importance of water conservation, GEC Coordinator Dr K. Kalithasan said he was saddened by the fact that Malaysia was ranked among the bottom half of the countries involved.

"This is a reality: the state of Malaysian water is even worse than that in some of the poorer countries in Africa."

"It is more effective to educate the young than the adults; adults tend to do comparisons on issues while school children would accept what we teach them," he said.

"In Denmark and Australia, they are teaching civic science to educate the youth.  It is not much different from social science but instead of just learning from books, they are taught through participation in activities."

"Whatever they learn through the activities would go to heart."

The workshop was aimed at educating the students and showing them ways to conserve water which they could implement at home.

Students from eight schools - SJK (C) Puay Chai, SJK (T) Vivekananda, SK Sungai Way, SK Taman SEA, SMK (P) Sri Aman, SMK La Salle, SMK Sri Utama and SMK Taman Medan - attended the worksho at which they learnt to do water auditing, inspection of rain water auditing, inspection of rain water harvesting systems, river mapping and river health checking.

Kalithasan also commented on the failed 1993 Love our River campaign.

"The campaign was a failure because they used the funding only for advertisements" 

"They should have allocated a significant sum to the grassroots who would take care of the river.  People do care for the condition of the rivers but they do not have the resources to do much." he said.