The Promotional Team for Water Conservation, composed of the Environment Council, Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, Government Information Bureau, and the Macao Water Supply Company held the first session on the awareness campaign - Carnival "Water for Life", at Praça da Amizade, on 14^th October. Over the past few years, a fast-growing population, and a steady increase in the number of tourists and an accelerated social and economic development led to an increase in water demand in the region. The government has been launching awareness and education campaigns on saving water in order to guarantee a sustainable development.

     The government has been established a workgroup named "The Promotional Team for Water Conservation" including Environment Council, Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, Government Information Bureau and Macao Water Supply Company in September 2006. The workgroup will reinforce cooperation and coordination with local entities and companies so as to consolidate and increase effectiveness of the works already initiated.

     Through a series of continuous and comprising actions of environmental awareness and education, under the motto "Water for Life", it is expected to raise population awareness, in long term, for the sustainable utilization of this resource as well as to deepen its knowledge through information disclosure. The carnival "Water for Life" is the activity that initialized the first phase of this awareness campaign, which is held from October of 2006 to March 2007.

     The inauguration of this campaign was held on 14^th October, from 15:00 to 17:30, at Praça da Amizade, it was organized by the Promotional Team for Water Conservation, General Union for Macao Residents' Associations, General Association for Macao Labourers, Macao Women's Association, Macao Chong Wa Students' Association, Macao Scouts' Association, Kiang Wu Nursery Institute of Macao, Pui Cheng Secondary School and Tong Sin Tong School. The programme included play, dance, singing, poetry, quiz and chorus performances, games, lucky draws and many other activities aiming at disclosing to local residents information on the importance of saving water and good water consumption habits. In the future, the Promotional Team for Water Conservation will keep on educating, through diverse media and promotion action, various sectors of society, population, schools, restaurants and hotels for the need of conserving this scarce resource. All interested parties may find further information on awareness campaign "Water for Life" both at Macao SAR official site and Environment Council site at www.ambiente.gov.mo/water.