From Words to Deeds: A Study of Collective Action by Irrigators in Enforcing their Commitments to Adopt Conservation Practices

Abstract

"Collective action in conserving common-pool natural resources involves the problem of enforcing individuals' commitments to cooperate. Historically, many resource-conservation programs have failed to meet their expectations due to the high transaction (including political) costs of government enforcement of compliance by individuals with what they have committed themselves to. One response to this has been devolution of enforcement of this kind from governments to industry-based organisations. This has followed from a belief that firms are usually more prepared to cooperate with industry organisations because of the greater likelihood that their approach to enforcement will accord with their norms and values. This paper reports the findings from a case study that assessed the validity of this belief in a single context. The case involves a group of Australian farmers attempting to overcome their irrigation salinity and waterlogging problems by agreeing inter alia to grant to their jointly-owned company (supplying them with irrigation services) powers to sanction them individually if they fail to comply with a conservation strategy to which they have collectively committed themselves. The study involved qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews as well as quantitative analysis of responses from a survey of 235 farm businesses. It was found that the farmers are more prepared to accept sanctioning from their company than they would be from government. Nevertheless, their longstanding suspicion of authority generally has not been overcome overnight. There remains considerable scope for the company to reduce the transaction costs of its enforcement function by continuing to work at gaining trust from the farmers that this function is necessary and is being carried out in their best interests."