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AUSTRALIA CONTRIBUTES TO MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS WITH RAINFALL ENHANCEMENT WORKSHOP

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Gareth Evans, said today that a rainfall enhancement workshop organised by Australia as part of its contribution to the Middle East peace process, will make an important contribution to the search for long-term stability in the Middle East.

The Precipitation Enhancement Workshop, to be held in Terrigal from 24 to 28 April, is the first activity directly related to the peace process to be conducted in Australia.

The workshop, which will be opened by the Chairman of the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Labor Senator Stephen Loosley, will be attended by experts in meteorology and water resource management from Jordan, Egypt, Israel, the Occupied Territories, Morocco and Oman.

Senator Evans said that the workshop represents a major contribution by Australia to the Working Group on Water Resources, one of five multilateral groups established in 1992 to assist the Middle East peace process. Australia has made a distinctive and constructive contribution in the Water Resources and the Arms Control and Regional Security Working Groups.

The workshop demonstrates Australia's commitment to efforts to resolve the critical issue of the water shortage in the region. The question of access to the region's increasingly depleted and degraded water supplies is a potential source of conflict. The workshop will contribute to exploring solutions for stability in the region.

The aims of the workshop are to:

• exchange relevant information on current activities in rainfall enhancement;
• determine the current state of knowledge on cloud seeding opportunities within the region;
• assess where knowledge of cloud physics may be lacking, and where this may be critical for effective regional water resource management;
• recommend technical principles in rainfall enhancement as a practical water resource management measure; and
• assist regional scientific collaboration in rainfall enhancement.

The workshop is organised and co-hosted by the Department of Foreign Affairs and CSIRO.

For further information and interviews from 24 to 28 April contact:

CANBERRA