Seeking the Linkages: Integrating Community Governance of Water Resources and Land Tenure Reform

Abstract

"Effective water resources management requires considering the water resources, the linked land and natural resources, and the people who use or derive benefit from these resources. Here we are concerned with water resources in the communal areas, and the governance of these. Wetlands in communal areas are a relevant reference for our topic: as it here that water and land intersect, and where environmental and social sustainability are entwined.

"The integrity of many wetlands in communal areas are at risk - with associated risks of increasingly vulnerability of users of the wetlands and of wetlands services, of land and water resources.

"At local level, an intimate relationship exists between certain land use practices, erosion, desiccation, and a reduction in fertility and hence productivity. Significantly, although land use practices are problematic, important underlying drivers include hunger, the erosion of local governance regimes of common property resources (such as wetlands), the ambiguous roles of formal institutions, and the varying degrees of awareness regarding wetland function and role. Additionally new legislation regarding land tenure and commonage and evolving institutional arrangements in the water sector in South Africa all have implications for the way common property resources will be governed and what options exist for local-level involvement."