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PDF
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Type:
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Conference Paper |
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Author:
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Jamali, H.; Hufty, M. |
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Conference:
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Sustaining Commons: Sustaining Our Future, the Thirteenth Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons |
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Location:
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Hyderabad, India |
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Conf. Date:
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January 10-14 |
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Date:
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2011 |
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URI:
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https://hdl.handle.net/10535/7134
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Sector:
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Water Resource & Irrigation |
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Region:
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Middle East & South Asia |
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Subject(s):
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groundwater
institutions
political economy
ecology
common pool resources
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Abstract:
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"The underground water level in the south-western province of Balochistan, Pakistan,
has been declining at an accelerated rate, seriously affecting the karez irrigation, a
traditional system of tapping underground water. One of the reasons for the declining
underground water level is a rapid increase in the number of tubewells that are
subsidized by the provincial government through the support of international donors
to promote extensive agriculture on marginal lands. This ‘transition’ from karez to
tubewell system has seriously disrupted the traditional institutions for managing the
common-pool resource (CPR) of underground water and affected the livelihoods of
subsistence farmers and pastoralists relying on karez irrigation. On the other hand, a
small number of powerful people at the local level have benefited from the tubewells
through growing water-intensive crops such as apples in line with the export-oriented
policy of the provincial government. Although little work has been done on this issue,
Mustafa and Qazi (2008) suggest that this transition was neither necessary nor
beneficial and was simply the result of a policy choice. However, their results need
further explanation. We propose an explanation that combines the political ecology
approach with the theory of CPRs to explore how the ideology of development
(promoting a technical and economic transformation of the society) and changing
power relations at different scales have contributed towards the development of this
policy and towards changes in institutional arrangements, social relations and
distribution of resources. At this stage this preliminary paper presents the case and our main hypothesis."
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