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Subject: Water Resource & IrrigationSubject: irrigationSubject: IASCSubject: Social OrganizationConference name: The Commons in an Age of Global Transition: Challenges, Risks and Opportunities, the Tenth Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property

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    Conference Paper
    War and the Commons: Assessing the Changing Politics of Violence, Access and Entitlements in Sri Lanka
    (2004) Korf, Benedikt; Fünfgeld, Hartmut
    "This paper investigates the impacts of political violence on access to local commons and looks at local contestsover resource entitlements under the condition of warfare and post-war transition in Sri Lanka. We map out two essential trajectories of refused and contested access to commons in the highly volatile institutional setting ofwar and post-war situations: On the one hand, the political geography of war and fighting creates 'no-go zones'. These often include local commons, such as jungle, lagoon and marine resources that become places ofincreased military contest. On the other hand, threats, intimidation and violence to admit or refuse access toresources for the 'ethnic other' is utilized as an essential instrument in the local contestations over ethnic identity, historical entitlements and discourses of spatial claims. In this volatile setup, social and politicalcapital play crucial, though highly ambiguous roles for accessing the commons, and they are subject to continuous value change, depending on the political developments of the conflict. We illustrate this dynamism using two case studies of local common-pool and open-access resource systems in the war-affected east of Sri Lanka. In the first case study, we describe local contests over water distribution in a large-scale irrigation scheme located in a multi-ethnic area. In this case, farmers utilize their hydraulic positions within the irrigationset-up for both, gaining material advantages (diverting more water for irrigation) and using water as a means of power against the 'ethnic other'. Spatial access to water and land may be actively denied by physicalviolence or discouraged by intimidation. In doing so, civilians are embedded in a complex clientele network with local political and military power holders. The second case study highlights issues of changing access rights and resource use patterns in a large lagoon ecosystem. Since the lagoon was part of a militarily contested terrain during times of war, this produced severe access restrictions and security problems for local customary resource users. When overt violence came to a halt with the signing of a ceasefire and access was open again, alarge number of customary and new users started exploiting lagoon resources, which led to increasing interandintra-community tension and resource overexploitation. Both case studies illustrate the volatile, polarised and hybrid nature of local institutions which produce a governance failure. These failed institutions undermine local peace building, because they feed back into existing political grievances."
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    Conference Paper
    Water Management and the Poor: Organizing to (Re)Gain Access to Water in the Nicaraguan Hillsides
    (2004) Munk Ravnborg, Helle
    "Many rural areas increasingly constitute the arena for increased competition for water, not only between different users within the locality, but also between internal versus external users. In hillside areas, water is important not only for household consumption but also for productive purposes. Even where formal irrigation systems do not exist, the ability to water crops significantly improves peoples livelihoods. Evidence from many parts of the world, however, suggests that the poor are gradually losing their access to water. Based on research conducted in the Nicaraguan hillsides, this paper illustrates the processes through which access to water is lost by some while gained by others as well as some of the issues involved in water management. The paper shows how everyday water management takes place in the context of complex and often conflictive social relations at multiple and often overlapping levels. Combined, these two features make it hard to imagine that efforts to design a single river basin or watershed institution charged with representing and negotiating different interests relating to water management can succeed and become effective. The examples from the Nicaraguan hillsides, however, elude us to a possible alternative. In their attempts to gain and secure access to water, new organizational practices are emerging which transcend the local as well as the static, and increasingly seek to involve and engage district and national authorities in supporting their claims and adopting a stronger, but negotiated, role in regulation and arbitration. Therefore, instead of focusing on the crafting of neatly nested water management institutions, this paper argues in favour of supporting the development of an enabling institutional environment which focuses upon making relevant hydrological assessments widely available; broad-based and inclusive public hearing processes; enhancing the legal capacity, particularly among the poor; and last, but not least upon making dispute resolution mechanisms, such as a water ombudsman, widely available and accessible, also to the poor, to provide help in settling conflicts caused by competing water management claims as well as by conflicting claims of users and water management institutions."
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    Conference Paper
    Policentrismo y Gestión Ambiental en Costa Rica: Retos y Oportunidades de Diseño Institutional, con Énfasis en el Caso del Agua y las Cuencas Hidrográficas
    (2004) Fernández-González, Álvaro
    "En Costa Rica, durante la última década, un mayor reconocimiento de la importancia de los bosques y las cuencas hidrográficas como proveedores de energía hidroeléctrica, agua potable y belleza escénica, ha dado lugar a la constitución de una gran variedad de innovaciones institucionales para la gestión de estos recursos: áreas de conservación a escala regional, distritos de riego bajo administración estatal descentralizada, asociaciones comunitarias o empresas privadas (pero perteneciente a gobiernos municipales) para la provisión de agua, comisiones de cuencas en diversos puntos del territorio nacional. En todos los casos se trata de arreglos institucionales mixtos, entre lo público y lo privado, con participación gubernamental, no gubernamental y local, para impulsar programas conjuntos de acción. "También han surgido en los últimos años iniciativas que buscan plasmar las lecciones de estas experiencias en nueva legislación sobre conservación y uso de suelos, gestión de los recursos hídricos y ordenamiento territorial. En la actualidad, el gobierno prepara la primera estrategia nacional de gestión ambiental, incorporando muchas de estas experiencias. "Estas innovaciones se mueven en un horizonte policéntrico, buscando hacer coincidir las escalas de la organización proveedora, el público consumidor y la comunidad política que decide sobre su provisión y apropiación, con los atributos y características propios de los recursos involucrados. El policentrismo emergente tropieza con la deficiente o ausente base legal para respaldar la jurisdicción de las diversas organizaciones públicas participantes, así como para regular las relaciones de cooperación, competencia y resolución de conflictos entre esas unidades gubernamentales, su público, su comunidad política y las otras agencias u organismos (públicos y privados) que intervienen en la provisión y apropiación de los recursos hídricos. Sin embargo, la resolución de conflictos en la esfera jurídica está dando visos de solución a algunas de estas deficiencias, especialmente en el caso de los recursos hídricos. Este estudio analiza la evolución descrita, con énfasis particular en la gestión del agua superficial y subterránea en Costa Rica."